Lewis was delighted to see Sylvia, and showed his pleasure by shy, adoring glances and vivid blushes whenever she smiled at him. Things at Deerchase appeared very grand to Sylvia’s provincial eyes, but she seemed to fit easily and gracefully into the surroundings. Skelton had never lacked for charm, and he was impelled to do his best in his own house. Old Tom tried to talk racing once or twice, but Skelton adroitly headed him off. He fascinated Sylvia with his conversation. It was thoroughly unaffected, racy, full of anecdote, and all about things that Sylvia wanted to know. Skelton had been to Abbotsford, and had spent some days under the great man’s roof. He had travelled post with Byron, and had walked with Goethe in his garden at Weimar. To a girl at that time and in that part of the world all this was a splendid dream. Sylvia looked at Skelton with new eyes. That brown, sinewy hand had touched Byron’s; that musical voice had talked with Scott and Goethe; he had walked over the field of Waterloo, and knew London and Paris like a book. Skelton was pleased and amused with Sylvia’s breathless interest--her innocent wonder at many very simple things. Much of it was new to Lewis, and when Sylvia turned to him and said: “Ah, Lewis! is it not delightful?” Lewis answered: “Yes, and it is so delightful for us to hear it together.” Lewis was not quite conscious of the meaning of what he said, but a roar from old Tom, and much laughter from Skelton, and Sylvia’s retiring behind her fan, made him blush more than ever and abstain from further communications with Sylvia. After luncheon and the pictures, old Tom would by no means be denied a visit to the stables and Jaybird, so Sylvia was left to the tender mercies of Bob Skinny as cicerone, who showed her the greenhouses and gardens. Lewis kept close to her, and plucked up spirit enough to squeeze her hand whenever he had half a chance, and to offer to take her out in his boat every day if she would go. Bob Skinny was in his glory. He wore a blue coat and brass buttons, and a huge cambric ruffle decorated with cotton lace adorned his shirt-front. If Bob Skinny had had anything whatever to do in the way of work, this style of dress would have been an impossibility; but as he managed to make the other negroes do his work, while he devoted himself to answering Skelton’s bell, to the care of his own person, and playing the “fluke,” he could afford to be a magnificent coxcomb. “Now, Miss Sylvy,” he began loftily, “of co’se Mr. Skelton an’ me is got sumpin’ else ter do den to go circumventin’ roun’ dese heah flowers an’ truck. We has got our gre’t work on philosophy ter write. Fifteen thousan’ books in dat ar libery, Miss Sylvy; fifteen thousan’, ez sho’ as I’se Mr. Skelton’s vally--not dat I breshes his clo’s none, nor black he boots; Jake, he do dat kin’ o’ demeanin’ work.” “But I see you are the butler, Bob,” remarked Sylvia, thinking this an astute bit of flattery.