'Or because,' said Desvoeux, cutting in with great promptitude, '"true wit is nature to advantage dressed;" and so, I am sure, is Mrs. Sutton.' 'Very nice!' cried Maud, glowing with pleasure; 'now, General Beau, you must pay forfeit, you know. I will give you a bad one for deserting me so cruelly.' 'Forfeits!' said Desvoeux, 'spare us, spare us--they are too fatiguing.' 'Not a bit,' said Maud, 'you bow to what is wisest, and kneel to what is prettiest, and kiss what you love best.' 'Well, then,' said Desvoeux, kissing his hand sentimentally and blowing it into the air, 'there is a kiss for what I love best, wherever it may be.' 'Dear me,' said Mrs. Vereker, 'what a touching idea! There goes my kiss.' 'And,' cried Maud, laughing and kissing the tips of her pretty fingers, 'there goes mine! What a state the air will be in! But here comes Major Fenton with a plate of plumcake, which is what I love best; so my kiss is for that!' 'Happy plumcake!' said the Major, gallantly, 'to be loved, eaten and kissed by a mouth so fair.' 'Give me a bit too, Fenton,' said Desvoeux; 'I must eat some for sympathy, though it is not what I love best.' Then the quiet valley shadows crept about them, and it grew sad and sombre; and while they sat and talked and laughed, the day was done and all steps were turned towards home. So Maud and Desvoeux found themselves travelling home together in the moonlight and falling behind the crowd of riders, to enjoy, undisturbed, the pleasure of a _tête-à-tête_. One of the great dangers of the Hills is that the paths admit only of two people riding abreast; the _terzo incomodo_ must ride behind, and might, so far as prudence is concerned, just as well not be there at all. No such inconvenient intruder, however, threatened Desvoeux's enjoyment of the present occasion or aided the faltering monitions which Maud's half-silenced conscience whispered to her. Her nerves were overstrung, and the excessive loveliness of the scene seemed only to add to her excitement. Along the winding path which crept up the mountain-side, and through the dark green forest-trees towering sublimely over them and all ablaze in moonlit patches with silver floods of light, their journey took them. Far away, miles below, a hundred tiny sparks showed where the villagers were cooking the evening meal; across the valley, on the opposite side, a great streak of woodland was blazing, scarcely seen by day, but now a ruddy lurid glow in the white light that lit up all the scene around. In the horizon was the great, cold, snowy range, standing out hard and clear in the moonlight--still, majestic, awful. How sweet, how bright, how exhilarating to a heart so prompt for enjoyment, senses so quickly impressible, nerves so alive to every surrounding influence as Maud's! Again and again she burst into exclamations of pleasure as each turn in the road brought them to some new scene of enchantment.