‘Baedeker thinks no more of precipices than I think of a country lane,’ answered Aunt Rhoda. ‘I am sure Lina would like to have Mr. Goring at home sometimes,’ said Daphne. Gerald had strolled out into the garden while they talked. ‘Could we not get a guide?’ ‘I detest guides,’ replied her aunt, who knew that those guardians of the strangers’ safety were expensive, and fancied she might have to pay her share of the cost. ‘Gerald may just as well be with us as moping here. I know what my brother is, and that he will keep Lina dancing attendance upon him all day long.’ Mr. Goring went with them everywhere, and seemed nothing loth to labour in their service. He knew the ground thoroughly, and led them over it in a quiet leisurely way, unknown to the average tourist, who goes everywhere in a scamper, and returns to his native land with his mind full of confused memories. He had to put up with a great deal of Aunt Rhoda’s society during all these excursions, and was gratified with lengthy confidences from that lady; for Daphne was loyal to her faithful lover, and walked with him and talked with him, and gave him as much of her company as was possible. She talked of Hawksyard and her future mother-in-law, of the tenants, and the villagers, the horses and dogs. She talked of hunting and shooting, of everything which most interested her lover; and then she went home in the evening so weary and worn out and heart-sick that she was glad to sit quietly in the verandah after dinner, petting a tawny St. Bernard dog called Monk, a gigantic animal, who belonged to the house, and who had attached himself to Daphne from her first coming with a warm regard. He was her sole companion very often in her boating excursions, when she went roaming about the lake in her light skiff, enjoying all the loveliness of the scene, as she could only enjoy it, in perfect solitude. ‘Surely it is hardly safe for that child to go about without a boatman,’ exclaimed Mrs. Ferrers, as she stood at the open window of her brother’s study, watching the swallow-sail as it flitted across the sunlit ripples, bending to every movement of the water. ‘Vernon, do you know that the lake is over a thousand feet deep?’ ‘I don’t think the depth of water makes any difference,’ replied Sir Vernon calmly. ‘The Avon is deep enough to drown her; yet we never troubled ourselves about her aquatic amusements in Warwickshire. I have Turchill’s assurance that she is perfect mistress of her boat, and I think that ought to be enough.’