‘The transparent diplomacy of a girl in love!’ said Madame De Vigne as her eyes followed her sister’s retreating figure. ‘Not having her sweetheart with her to talk to, she must needs talk about him to some one else. Happy, happy days!’ She turned away with a sigh. ‘And now? Shall I sit here and wait for Harold, and try to think what I shall say to him? No; I cannot rest anywhere till the worst is over. He may be here at any moment. I will walk to the top of the hill and watch for him as he comes up the valley. O Harold, Harold, won only to be lost in one short hour!’ She took a narrow footpath to the right, which wound upwards through the trees and undergrowth to a small plateau, from which the whole of the valley was visible. * * * * * ‘I did not think that I should be so fortunate as to have you all to myself for so long a time this morning.’ The speaker was Mr Richard Dulcimer, and it need scarcely be said to whom his words were addressed. They had been wandering about the glen at their own sweet will, penetrating into all sorts of odd nooks and corners, and now, emerging from the shade of the trees, found themselves on a small rocky table close to the shallow basin into which the stream fell and broke when it took its first leap from the summit of the cliff. It was a pretty spot, and just then the two young people had it all to themselves. ‘You have my aunt to thank for that,’ answered Miss Wynter, as she seated herself daintily on a fragment of rock. ‘It was she who sent me to you.’ ‘Dear old damsel! I could almost find in my heart to kiss her,’ answered Richard as he deposited himself at his sweetheart’s feet and drew the brim of his straw hat over his eyes to shade them from the sun. ‘But of course she believes you to be a bishop’s son.’ ‘Which I am, so far as having a bishop for a godfather goes. Otherwise—woe is me!—I’m only a poor beggar of a quill-driver in the Sealing-wax Office. Why wasn’t Providence kind to me? Why wasn’t I born with a rich father, like Archie Ridsdale?’ ‘Why weren’t we all born with rich fathers?’ ‘That would have been much nicer, if it could have been so arranged.’ ‘I don’t at all see how you are going to extricate yourself from the awful scrape you have got into.’ ‘I am not aware that I’m in any awful scrape, so far.’ ‘But you will be, when my aunt finds out what a wicked impostor you are.’ ‘Her ladyship’s anger doesn’t matter two farthings to me. It’s her influence over you that I’m afraid of.’ ‘Her influence over me!’ ‘The lessons she is continually preaching—the maxims she is for ever dinning into your ears.’ ‘Yes; I know she looks upon it as a sacred duty which I owe to Society that I should marry myself to the highest bidder.’ ‘And you?’ asked the young man as he sat up, pushed back his hat, and gazed into the pretty face above him.