June ripened, and bloomed, and grew daily more beautiful. It was peerless weather, with just such blue skies and sunny noontides as there had been at Fontainebleau last year, but without the baking heat and the breathless atmosphere. Here there were cool winds to lift the rippling hair from Daphne’s brow, and cool grass under her feet. She revelled in the summer beauty of the earth; she spent almost all her life out of doors, on the river, in the woods, in the garden. If she studied, it was under the spreading boughs of the low Spanish chestnut which made a tent of greenery on the lawn. Sometimes she carried her drawing-book to some point of vantage on a neighbouring hill, and sketched the outline of a wide range of landscape, and washed in a sky, and began a tree in the foreground, and left off in disgust. She never finished anything. Her portfolio was full of beginnings, not altogether devoid of talent: mouse-coloured cows, deep-red oxen, every kind of tree and rock and old English cottage, or rick-yard, or gray stone village church; but nothing finished—the stamp of an impetuous, impatient temper upon all. There had been no definite announcement as to Gerald’s return. He was in Sweden, seeing wonderful falls and grottoes, which he described in his letters to Madoline, and he was coming back soon, perhaps before the end of July. He had told the Abbey servants to be prepared for him at any time. This indefiniteness kept Madoline’s mind in a somewhat perturbed state; yet she had to be outwardly calm, and full of thoughtfulness for her father, who required constant attention. His love for his elder daughter was the one redeeming grace of a selfish nature. It was a selfish love, for he would have willingly let her waste her life in maiden solitude for the sake of keeping her by his side; but it was love, and this was something in a man of so stern and unyielding a temper. He liked her to be always near him, always within call, his companion abroad, his counsellor at home. He consulted her about all the details of his estate and her own, rarely wrote a business letter without reading it to her. She was wanted in his study continually. When he was tired after a morning’s business, she read the newspapers to him, or a heavy political article in Blackwood or one of the Quarterlies, were he inclined to hear it. She never shirked a duty, or considered her own pleasure. She had educated herself to be her father’s companion, and counted it a privilege to minister to him. ‘Faultless daughter, perfect wife,’ said Sir Vernon, clasping her hand as she sat beside his sofa; ‘Goring is a lucky fellow to get such a prize.’ ‘Why should he not have a good wife, dear father? He is good himself. Remember what a good son he was.’ ‘To his mother, admirable. I doubt if he and old Goring hit it quite so well. I wish he came of a better stock.’ ‘That is a prejudice of yours, father.’