On Saturdays Brune generally spent several hours with her; and if the weather were fine, they rode or walked in the Park. Brune was a constant wonder to Aspatria. Certainly his handsome uniform had done much for him, but there was a greater change than could be effected by mere clothes. Without losing that freshness and singleness of mind he owed to his country training, he had become a man of fashion, a little of a dandy, a very innocent sort of a lady-killer. His arrival caused always a faint flutter in Mrs. St. Alban's dove-cot, and the noble damosels found many little womanly devices to excuse their passing through the parlour while Brune was present. They liked to see him bend his beautiful head to them; and Lady Mary Boleyn, who was Aspatria's friend and companion, was mildly envied the privileges this relation gave her. During the vacations Aspatria was always the guest of one or other of her mates, though generally she spent them at the splendid seat of the Boleyns in Hampshire, and the unconscious education thus received was of the greatest value to her. It gave the ease of nature to acquired accomplishments, and, above all, that air which we call distinction, which is rarely natural, and is attained only by frequent association with those who dwell on the highest social peaks. Much might be said of this phase of Aspatria's life which may be left to the reader's imagination. For three years it saw only such changes as advancing intelligence and growing friendships made. The real change was in Aspatria personally. No one could have traced without constant doubt the slim, virginal, unfinished-looking girl that left Seat-Ambar, in the womanly perfection of Aspatria aged twenty-four years. She had grown several inches taller; her angles had all disappeared; every joint was softly rounded. Her hands and arms were exquisite; her throat and the poise of her head like those of a Greek goddess. Her hair was darker and more abundant, and her eyes retained all their old charm, with some rarer and nobler addition. To be sure, she had not the perfect regularity of feature that distinguished some of her associates, that exact beauty which Titian's Venus possesses, and which makes no man's heart beat a throb the faster. Her face had rather the mobile irregularity of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the charming face that men love passionately, the face that men can die for. At the close of the third year she refused all invitations for the summer holidays, and went back to Seat-Ambar. There had not been much communication between Will and herself. He was occupied with his land and his sheep, his wife and his two babies. People then took each other's affection as a matter of course, without the daily assurance of it. About twice a year Will had sent her a few strong words of love, and a bare description of any change about the home, or else Alice had covered a sheet with pretty nothings, written in the small, pointed, flowing characters then fashionable.