These were informal and often delightful. Lord Medway knew that about five o'clock Agnes would be setting the tea-tray, and he liked to sit beside Maria and watch her do it. And sometimes Maria made the tea, and poured his out, and put in the sugar and cream with such enchanting smiles and ways that he vowed never tea in this world tasted so refreshing and delicious. And not infrequently Quentin Macpherson would come clattering in when the meal had begun, take a chair at the round table, and drinking his tea a little awkwardly, soothe his self-esteem by an aggressive self-importance. For Lord Medway's nonchalant manner provoked him to such personal assertion as always mortified when the occasion was over. About half-past seven was Neil's hour, and then the conversation became general, and love found all sorts of tender occasions; every glance of meeting eyes, and every clasp of meeting hands, bearing the one sweet message, "I love you, dear!" It was usually in the morning that Harry came springing up the garden path. There was neither work nor lessons that day, nor any pretense of them. Harry had too much to tell, and both Agnes and Maria hung upon his words as if they held the secret of life and happiness. Now, granted two beautiful girls with a moderate amount of freedom, and four lovers in that pleasantly painful condition between hope and fear that people in love make, if it is not made for them, and put all in a position where they have the accessories of sunlight and moonlight, a shady garden, a noble river, the scent of flowers, the goodness of fine fruit, the pleasures of the tea-table, and if these young people do not advance in the sweet study their hearts set them, they must be either coldly indifferent, or stupidly selfish. This company of lovers was however neither stupid nor selfish. In the midst of war's alarms, while fleets and armies were gathering for battle, they were attending very faithfully to their own little drama. Quentin Macpherson had one advantage over both his rivals: he went to the Semple house every Sunday evening, and then he had Maria wholly under his influence. He walked in the garden with her, she made his tea for him, he sat by her side during the evening exercise, sung the psalm from the same Bible, and then, rising with the family, stood, as one of them, while the Elder offered his anxious yet trustful prayer. It was Madame who had thought of connecting this service with the young soldier. "It is little good he can get from thae Episcopals," she said, "and it's your duty, Alexander, to gie him a word in season," and though Macpherson was mainly occupied in watching Maria, and listening to her voice, he had been too well grounded in his faith not to be sensible of the sacredness of those few minutes, and to be insensibly influenced by their spirit.