o have their hair
done in Grecian plaits, if the dearest friend they had in the world
was waiting for them in the drawing-room. My hair will do well
enough, Sarah.--Come, Mary, you'll come to the house with me, won't
you?'

'Lor', miss, here comes the gentleman,' said Sarah; and then
decamped by an obscure side-path.

'I had better leave you to see him alone, Milly,' I said; but she
told me imperatively to stay, and I stayed.

She went a little way to meet the gentleman, who seemed pleased to
see her, but whom she received rather coldly, as I thought. But I
had not long to think about it, before she had brought him to the
summer-house, and introduced him to me.

'My cousin Julian--Miss Crofton.'

He bowed rather stiffly, and then seated himself by his cousin's
side, and put his hat upon the table before him. I had plenty of
time to look at him as he sat there talking of all sorts of things
connected with Thornleigh, and Miss Darrell's friends in that
neighbourhood. He was very good-looking, fair and pale, with regular
well-cut features, and rather fine blue eyes; but I fancied those
clear blue eyes had a cold look, and that there was an expression of
iron will about the mouth and powerful prominent chin. The upper
part of the face was thoughtful, and there were lines already on the
high white forehead, from which the thin straight chestnut hair was
carefully brushed. It was the face of a very clever man, I thought;
but I was not so sure that it was the face of a man I could like, or
whom I should be inclined to trust.

Mr. Stormont had a low pleasant voice and an agreeable manner of
speaking. His way of treating his cousin was half deferential, half
playful; but once, when I looked up suddenly from my work, I seemed
to catch a glimpse of a deeper meaning in the cold blue eyes--a look
of singular intensity fixed on Milly's bright face.

Whatever this look might mean, she was unconscious of it; she went
on talking gaily of Thornleigh and her Thornleigh friends.

'I do so want to come home, Julian,' she said. 'Do you think there
is any hope for me this midsummer?'

'I think there is every hope. I think it is almost certain you will
come home.'

'O Julian, how glad I am!'

'But suppose there should be a surprise for you when you come home,
Milly,--a change that you may not quite like, at first?'

'What change?'

'Has your father told you nothing?'

'Nothing, except about his journeys from place to place,