ch. You all seem to me to be so much afraid of one
another that you don't quite dare to speak out. Do you see that
cottage there?"

"What a pretty cottage it is!"

"Yes;--is it not? Twelve years ago I took off my shoes and stockings
and had them dried in that cottage, and when I got back to the house
I was put to bed for having been out all day in the wood."

"Were you wandering about alone?"

"No, I wasn't alone. Oswald Standish was with me. We were children
then. Do you know him?"

"Lord Chiltern;--yes, I know him. He and I have been rather friends
this year."

"He is very good;--is he not?"

"Good,--in what way?"

"Honest and generous!"

"I know no man whom I believe to be more so."

"And he is clever?" asked Miss Effingham.

"Very clever. That is, he talks very well if you will let him talk
after his own fashion. You would always fancy that he was going to
eat you;--but that is his way."

"And you like him?"

"Very much."

"I am so glad to hear you say so."

"Is he a favourite of yours, Miss Effingham?"

"Not now,--not particularly. I hardly ever see him. But his sister is
the best friend I have, and I used to like him so much when he was a
boy! I have not seen that cottage since that day, and I remember it
as though it were yesterday. Lord Chiltern is quite changed, is he
not?"

"Changed,--in what way?"

"They used to say that he was--unsteady you know."

"I think he is changed. But Chiltern is at heart a Bohemian. It is
impossible not to see that at once. He hates the decencies of life."

"I suppose he does," said Violet. "He ought to marry. If he were
married, that would all be cured;--don't you think so?"

"I cannot fancy him with a wife," said Phineas, "There is a savagery
about him which would make him an uncomfortable companion for a
woman."

"But he would love his wife?"

"Yes, as he does his horses. And he would treat her well,--as he does
his horses. But he expects every horse he has to do anything that any
horse can do; and he would expect the same of his wife."

Phineas had no idea how deep an injury he might be doing his friend
by this description, nor did it once occur to him that his companion
was thinking of herself as the possible wife of this Red Indian. Miss
Effingham rode on in silence for some distance, and then she said
but one word more about Lord Chiltern. "He was so good to me in that
cottage."

On the following day the party at Saulsby was broken up, and