"Let us give credit where credit is due," she said. "I believe it cost Mr. Haldane some pains to compose that answer, short as it is. If you ever speak to him about it, will you say that we considered it very terse and straightforward, and rather epigrammatic? Don't show it to mamma, though. I wonder when she knew Mr. Haldane? Is it not odd that she never alluded to it when his name has been mentioned? Ah, there are the horses at last. Alan, do you see Maimouna arching that beautiful neck of hers? I am certain she is thinking of me. I defy the crossest of uncles to spoil _my_ ride to-day. Will he yours?" Every shade of bitterness had passed away, and the sunniest side of Helen's nature--wayward and wilful at times, but always frank and honest and affectionate--showed itself before she finished speaking. Reader of mine, whether young or old--suppose yourself, I beseech you, to be standing, with none to witness your weakness, by the side of the Oriana of the hour; let the loveliest of dark eyes be gazing into yours, full of provocative promise, till their dangerous magnetism thrills through brain and nerve and vein, and then--tax your imagination or your memory for Alan Wyverne's answer. You will write it out better than I, and it will be a charity to the printer; for, were it correctly set down, it would be so curiously _broken up_ as to puzzle the cleverest compositor of them all. Alan and his cousin enjoyed their ride thoroughly, without one _arrière pensée_. Thus far there was not a shadow of suspicion on one side, not the faintest consciousness of intentional concealment on the other; nevertheless, there was already one subject on which they could not speak quite openly and freely. It was early, too early, to begin even a half reserve. When such a sign appears in the "pure æther" so soon after the dawning of love, however light and small and white the cloudlet may be, the weatherwise foretell a misty noon and a stormy sunset. CHAPTER IX. THE LONG ODDS ARE LAID.