ve asked you to accompany me; will you do so to-morrow, and
mount the jennet?"

"Oh, thank you; I should like it so much."

Darrell turned abruptly away from the bright, grateful eyes. "I am only
sorry," he added, looking aside, "that our excursions can be but few.
On Friday next I shall submit to you a proposition; if you accept it, we
shall part on Saturday,--liking each other, I hope: speaking for myself,
the experiment has not failed; and on yours?"

"On mine!--oh, Mr. Darrell, if I dared but tell you what recollections
of yourself the experiment will bequeath to me!"

"Do not tell me, if they imply a compliment," answered Darrell, with
the low silvery laugh which so melodiously expressed indifference and
repelled affection. He entered the stable-yard, dismounted; and on
returning to Lionel, the sound of the flute stole forth, as if from the
eaves of the gabled roof. "Could the pipe of Horace's Faunus be sweeter
than that flute?" said Darrell,

"'Utcunque dulci, Tyndare, fistula,
Valles,' etc.

What a lovely ode that is! What knowledge of town life! what
susceptibility to the rural! Of all the Latins, Horace is the only one
with whom I could wish to have spent a week. But no! I could not have
discussed the brief span of human life with locks steeped in Malobathran
balm and wreathed with that silly myrtle. Horace and I would have
quarrelled over the first heady bowl of Massie. We never can quarrel
now! Blessed subject and poet-laureate of Queen Proserpine, and, I
dare swear, the most gentlemanlike poet she ever received at court;
henceforth his task is to uncoil the asps from the brows of Alecto, and
arrest the ambitious Orion from the chase after visionary lions."

CHAPTER XI.

Showing that if a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good
heart is a letter of credit.

The next day they rode forth, host and guest, and that ride proved
an eventful crisis in the fortune of Lionel Haughton. Hitherto I have
elaborately dwelt on the fact that whatever the regard Darrell might
feel for him, it was a regard apart from that interest which accepts a
responsibility and links to itself a fate. And even if, at moments, the
powerful and wealthy man had felt that interest, he had thrust it from
him. That he meant to be generous was indeed certain, and this he had
typically shown in a very trite matter-of-fact way. The tailor, whose
visit had led to such perturbation, had received instr