ristian name without
the ceremonious prefix. There was a deeper tone in his voice, a graver
look in his eyes, than she had ever noticed before.

She rose, and took up her sunshade, and went with him meekly through the
cultivated shrubbery of ornamental timber to the rougher pathway that
wound through a copse of Scotch fir, which formed the outer boundary of
Lady Maulevrier's domain. Beyond the fir trees rose the grassy slope of
the hill, on the brow of which sheep were feeding. Deep down in the
hollow below the lawns and shrubberries of Fellside the placid bosom of
the lake shone like an emerald floor in the sunlight, reflecting the
verdure of the hill, and the white sheep dotted about here and there.

There was not a breath in the air around them as those two sauntered
slowly side by side in the pine wood, not a cloud in the dazzling blue
sky above; and for a little time they too were silent, as if bound by a
spell which neither dared to break. Then at last Hammond spoke.

'Lesbia, you know that I love you,' he began, in his low, grave voice,
tremulous with feeling. 'No words I can say to-day can tell you of my
love more plainly than my heart has been telling you in every hour of
this happy, happy time that you and I have spent together. I love you as
I never hoped to love, fervently, completely, believing that the
perfection of earthly bliss will be mine if I can but win you. Dearest,
is there such a sweet hope for me; are you indeed my own, as I am yours,
heart and soul, and mind and being, till the last throb of life in this
poor clay?'

He tried to take her hand, but she drew herself away from him with a
frightened look. She was very pale, and there was infinite distress in
the dark violet eyes, which looked entreatingly, deprecatingly at her
lover.

'I dare not answer as you would like me to answer,' she faltered, after
a painful pause. 'I am not my own mistress. My grandmother has brought
me up, devoted herself to me almost, and she has her own views, her own
plans. I dare not frustrate them!'

'She would like to marry you to a man of rank and fortune--a man who
will choose you, perhaps, because other people admire you, rather than
because he himself loves you as you ought to be loved; who will choose
you because you are altogether the best and most perfect thing of your
year; just as he would buy a yearling at Newmarket or Doncaster. Her
ladyship means you to make a great alliances--coronets, not hearts, a