‘“Her eyes of tenderest April blue glance up shyly into his dark volcanic orbs, in which there is a half-smothered fire that causes her heart to flutter like an imprisoned bird. A moment later, and her slender willowy form is swept up in a passionate embrace by those stalwart arms, and Love’s first burning kisses are showered on the sweet rosebud of her lips.”’ ‘Rather tropical, is it not, my dear?’ hinted the vicar mildly. ‘Oh, there’s nothing namby-pamby about my readers, I assure you,’ answered Miss Pen with a merry laugh. ‘They like their love-making warm—and plenty of it.’ For ten minutes longer the busy scratching went on; then Miss Gaisford laid down her pen with a sigh of relief. ‘There—not another line to-day,’ she said. ‘Now that I have got my hero and my villain in the midst of a terrific encounter on the verge of a precipice, I can leave them there for a few hours in comfort.’ ‘That seems rather cruel to the pair of them,’ remarked Dr Mac. ‘Oh, heroes and villains are used to that sort of treatment.—But I hope you will keep my little secret a secret still, doctor. If it were to reach the ears of any of the goody-goody people at home, that the parson’s sister writes foolish love-stories for young people, what hands would be uplifted in holy horror—what ejaculations over her backslidings would be whispered across half the tea-tables in the parish! Neither the squire’s wife nor Lady Pinchbeck would ever speak to me again, and what, oh! what would existence be worth under such terrible circumstances!’ ‘My dear madam, you may rest assured that your secret is perfectly safe with me.’ ‘It will be a bad day for the poor of my parish when Penelope gives up writing her love-stories,’ remarked the vicar, who was busy with his tackle book. ‘Every penny she earns goes to buy blankets, and coals, and such-like comforts for those who have no money to buy them for themselves.’ ‘My dear Septimus!’ exclaimed Miss Gaisford with a flaming face. ‘My dear Pen!—Now that Mac has been taken into our confidence as regards one side of the question, it is only right that he should be made acquainted with the other.—But here come our two truants,’ added the vicar a moment later, as Mr Archie Ridsdale and Miss Clarice Loraine, looking somewhat conscious, emerged from one of the winding walks, and came towards the hotel, each of them laden with a quantity of wild-flowers, ferns and grasses. ‘The lovers, eh,’ said Dr Mac, half to himself. ‘A very bonnie young lady—very bonnie indeed.’ ‘We were just thinking of sending the bellman round,’ said Miss Pen, as the truants came up. ‘Ting-ting-a-ling. Lost since early this morning, a pair of sweethearts. When last seen, he had his arm round the waist of she, and she had her head on the shoulder of he. Whoever will’—— ‘Stop, do!’ cried Miss Loraine, as she dropped her ferns and grasses on the table and stuffed her fingers into her ears.