On this bright summer day, when the woods were all aglow with beauty, and the birds filled the air with song, Sir Ronald had almost determined to tell Lady Hermione how dearly he loved her. “I must see if my queen be propitious,” he said. “In some moods all wooing would be useless. I know how difficult it will be; she will be like some beautiful, strange, bright forest bird that is difficult to catch.” He was not well versed in the lore of woman’s looks, or he would have read the story told by those sweet, frank eyes, that never met his own, and the fair face turned so coyly away. When Lady Hermione talked to any one else she was not sparing of her glances, she was not sparing of her bright, defiant words; but with Sir Ronald it was different. She used only monosyllables, and those only when it was necessary. A man better read in woman’s ways would have understood; he did not. He had looked forward to the picnic with great pleasure. “We shall be free and easy in the woods,” he thought; “she will not escape me there.” He asked her for the first dance--she was engaged. “I do not care about a quadrille,” he said, “but I should like a waltz with you, Lady Hermione.” She knew in her mind there was nothing she would like so much as a waltz with him; but the natural perversity innate in women came to her now. She looked up at the handsome face, so eloquent with love, the eyes with a love-light shining in them, and she owned to herself that it would be pleasant to have that strong arm thrown around her, and to float with him through fairyland. He looked so tall, so strong, so brave and handsome. Then, to punish herself for the thought, and perhaps with the same delight a cat takes in torturing a mouse, she cast down her eyes and said she was engaged, she feared, for all the waltzes she should be able to dance. He was forced to be content with the quadrille. Half an hour afterward, lingering under the spreading shade of an oak tree, he saw Miss Severn. Sir Ronald hastened to her. The music was enchanting. “How can you stand here so quietly, Miss Severn?” he asked. “That music would put a soul even in the leaves of a tree.” She looked at him with a bright smile. “The truth is, Sir Ronald, I am forsaken; my partner has forgotten me.” She looked, still with smiling eyes, to a little group in the small glade--Lady Hermione and Kenelm Eyrle. She would not have told the lie; but her eyes said plainly Kenelm was her partner, and had forgotten her in Lady Hermione’s smiles--a fact that was perfectly untrue, for she was engaged to dance with Captain Langham, who had not forgotten her, but had been suddenly summoned to another part of the grounds. The impression on Sir Ronald’s mind remained the same. He believed Lady Hermione and Kenelm to be so deeply engrossed in each other as to forget everything else; the consequence of which belief was that he resolved to delay the question he had intended to ask her.