ould be paying me too high a
compliment," he said.

Whereat his three sisters echoed "Compliment!" in various tones of
deprecation, and Josephine added a meaning little laugh for her own
share, for which Edgar gave her a kiss, and said in a bantering kind
of voice, "Now, Joseph! mind what you are about!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

ON THE MOOR.

It was a gray and gusty day in November, with heavy masses of
low-lying clouds rolling tumultuously overhead, and a general look
of damp and decay about the fields and banks--one of those melancholy
days of the late autumn which make one long for the more varied
circumstances of confessed winter, when the deep blue shadows in the
crisp snow suggest the glory of southern skies, and the sparkle of the
sun on the delicate tracery of the frosted branches has a mimicry of
life, such as we imagine strange elves and fairies might create.

There was no point of color in the landscape save the brown foliage of
the shivering beech trees, a few coarse splashes of yellow weeds, and
here and there a trail of dying crimson leaves threading the barren
hedgerows. Everything was "sombre, lifeless, mournful", and even Edgar
Harrowby, though by no means sentimentally impressionable to outward
conditions, felt, as he rode through the deserted lanes and looked
abroad over the stagnant country, that life on the off-hunt days was
but a slow-kind of thing at North Aston, and that any incident which
should break the dead monotony of the scene would be welcome.

He had been thinking a great deal of Adelaide for the last four or
five days, since she had dined at the Hill, and making up his mind to
take the final plunge before long. He was not in love with her, but
she suited, as has been said; and that was as good as love to
Edgar, who had now to take up his squiredom and country gentleman's
respectability, after having had his share of a young man's "fling" in
rather larger proportion than falls to the lot of most. All the same,
he wished that her face had more expression and that her eyes were
perfectly straight; and he wanted to see Leam Dundas.

He had made a long round to-day, and was turning now homeward, when,
as he had almost crossed the moor, athwart which his road led, he saw
standing on a little hillock, away from the main track, the slight
figure of a woman sharply defined against the sky. She was alone,
doing nothing, not seeming to be looking at anything--just standing
there on the hil