The road on which he was walking was one of the beautiful roads common in the scenery of England, a road which dipped and undulated, and wound about and about, making the most of the natural features of the landscape without any real sacrifice of the public convenience, a road shadowed frequently by tall stately trees, and along one side of which the low park paling, with a broad belt of plantation beyond, which formed the boundary of the Sycamores, stretched for three miles. On the other side, a well-kept raised pathway ran alongside a hedge, never wanting in the successive beauties of wild flowers and "tangle," and which furnished shelter to numerous birds. The day was bright and cheerful, and a light breeze was stirring the budding branches and lending a sense of exhilaration to the young man who so rarely looked on the fair face of nature, and who had unhappily had all his purer tastes and sympathies so early deadened. They revived under the influence of the scene and the softening effect of the adventure which had befallen him the day before. He stopped opposite the oaken gates, which had lain open yesterday, but were closed to-day, and he rambled on, further away from the town, and crossing the road, took his way along the park paling, where the fragrant odour from the shrubberies added a fresh pleasure to his walk. He had passed a bend of the road which swept away from the large gates of the park, and was peering in at the mossy tufts, studded with violets and bluebells clustering round the stems of the young trees in the plantation, when his eyes lighted on a small gate, a kind of wicket in the paling, imperfectly secured by a very loose latch, and from which a straight narrow path, bordered with trimly-kept rows of ground ivy, led into a broader road dividing the plantation from the park. "A side entrance, of course," said Dallas to himself, and then, looking across the road, he saw that just opposite the little gate there was a wooden stile, by which a path through the fields, leading, no doubt, into the town of Amherst, could be attained from the raised footpath. "I suppose the land on both sides belongs to Sir Thomas," thought Dallas, and as he made a momentary pause, a large black Newfoundland dog, carrying a basket in his mouth, came down the narrow path, bumped himself against the loosely fastened gate, swung it open, and stopped in the aperture, with a droll air of having done something particularly clever. Dallas looked admiringly at the beautiful creature, who was young, awkward, and supremely happy, and the next instant he heard a voice speaking from the top of the straight walk. "Here, Cæsar," it said; "come here, sir; who told you I was going that way?"