‘That’s my own Damask Rose,’ he exclaimed triumphantly; ‘give me a kiss, dear, just one to seal the contract; there’s no one looking!’ He held up his face towards her as he spoke—his handsome _insouciant_ face with its bright eyes and smile, and she stooped hers to meet it, and give the embrace he petitioned for. But someone _was_ looking. Almost as Rosa’s lips met Darley’s a frightened look came into her eyes, and she uttered a note of alarm. ‘What is it, darling?’ ‘It’s my brother George! He’s coming this way. Oh! go, Mr Darley—pray go across the field and let me canter on to meet him.’ He would have stayed to remonstrate, but the girl pushed him from her, and thinking discretion the better part of valour, he jumped over a neighbouring stile and walked away in the direction she had indicated, whilst she, with a considerable degree of agitation, rode on to make what excuses she best could for the encounter to her brother. George Murray was sauntering along the hedge-row switching the leaves off the hazel bushes as he went, and apparently quite unsuspicious of anything being wrong. But the first question he addressed to his sister went straight to the point. ‘Who was that fellow that was talking to you just now, Rosa?’ She knew it would be of no use trying to deceive him, so she spoke the truth. ‘It was Mr Darley!’ ‘What’s he doing over here?’ ‘How should I know? You’d better ask him yourself! Am I accountable for Mr Darley’s actions?’ ‘Don’t talk nonsense. You know what I mean perfectly well. Did he come over to Rooklands to see you?’ ‘To see me—what will you get into your head next?’ ‘Well, you seemed to be hitting it off pretty well together. What were you whispering to him about just now?’ ‘I didn’t whisper to him.’ ‘You did! I saw you stoop your head to his ear. Now look here, Rosa! Don’t you try any of your flirtation games on with Darley, or I’ll go straight to the governor and tell him.’ ‘And what business is it of yours, pray?’ ‘It would be the business of every one of us. You don’t suppose we’re going to let you marry a gamekeeper, do you?’ ‘Really, George, you’re too absurd. Cannot a girl stop to speak to a man in the road without being accused of wanting to marry him? You will say I want to marry every clodhopper I may dance with at the harvest-home to-night next.’ ‘That is a very different thing. The ploughboys are altogether beneath you, but this Darley is a kind of half-and-half fellow that might presume to imagine himself good enough to be a match for you.’ ‘Half-and-half indeed!’ exclaimed Rosa, nettled at the reflection on her lover; ‘and pray, what are _we_ when all’s said and done? Mr Darley’s connections are as good as our own, and better, any day.’