Laura Dimsdale was a tall, graceful-looking woman. She was fair, with a lovely clear complexion, which, especially when she became at all animated, had not yet lost all the tints of girlhood. She had large hazel eyes, instinct with sweetness and candour, delicately arched eyebrows, and a mass of brown silky hair. If the usual expression of her face when alone, or when not engaged in conversation, was not exactly one of melancholy, it was at least that of a woman who has lived and suffered, and to whom the world has taught more than one bitter lesson. And yet in the old days at the vicarage, which now seemed so far away, there had been no merrier-hearted girl than Laura Langton; and even now, after all these years, the boundary that divided her tears from her smiles was a very narrow one. She was gifted with a keen sense of humour, and it did not take much to cause her eyes to fill with laughter and her mobile lips to curve into a merry mocking smile. Sir Frederick lifted his hat, and twisted his mouth into a smile that was a capital advertisement for his dentist. ‘This is indeed an agreeable surprise, Lady Dimsdale. I came in search of Captain Bowood, and I find—you!’ ‘How cleverly you hide your disappointment, Sir Frederick!’ She gave him her fingers for a moment as she spoke. ‘As I have not seen the Captain since breakfast, I cannot tell you where to look for him. But you have been quite a truant during the last few days. We have all missed you.’ There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she said these words. ‘Hum, hum. You flatter me, Lady Dimsdale. Business of importance took me to town for a few days.’ He had turned with her, and was now pacing slowly by her side. ‘Do you know, Lady Dimsdale, he went on presently, ‘that I never see a garden nowadays which seems half so charming to me as that dear, delightful wilderness of old-fashioned flowers behind your father’s vicarage?’ ‘It was certainly a wilderness, and very old-fashioned into the bargain; but the flowers that grew there were very sweet.’ ‘I spent many happy hours among its winding walks.’ ‘And a few uncomfortable ones, I’m afraid. Have you forgotten that afternoon when, as you sat eating strawberries and cream in the summer-house, a caterpillar crawled down your neck? You made such extraordinary faces, that for a minute or two I felt quite frightened.’ ‘Hum. I had certainly forgotten the caterpillar,’ answered the Baronet, not without a shade of annoyance. ‘And then I used to fancy that you were never quite easy in your mind as we sat together in the garden. There were certainly a great many frogs, and I think you never liked frogs.’ ‘Not unless they were fricasséed. Trifling annoyances there might be, Lady Dimsdale; but when the presiding divinity was so fair’——