'That Miss Galloway's pony carriage was to meet me here, and drive me home. Ah, there it is----' 'And she too, I think,' said Mary, turning, and growing pale with absolute pain and annoyance at the whole situation; yet, after all, there was nothing in it. However, the Honourable Blanche, after a glance at Mary from under her tied veil, turned away also; and Mary, with pride awakened and a sense of mortification, pursued the path to Birkwoodbrae. But Jack, as if loth that the two should part, scoured backwards and forwards between them, till, after a time, he finally followed his mistress, and even from this, probably, Blanche angrily drew deductions. We fear the captain did not enjoy much his drive home, though driven by a Park beauty in that luxurious pony phaeton, as Blanche put her own construction on the meeting and sudden parting--a construction far apart from the reality. She was sorely piqued, and he was not surprised by her taciturnity, though he strove to ignore it, and expatiated on the beauty of the scenery, on lights and shades, tints and effects, as if he had been a Royal Academician; nor was he surprised when she remarked to him very pointedly and plainly in the drawing-room after dinner, when she was idling over the piano, 'I don't think mamma will approve much of your cultivating those strange girls at Birkwoodbrae.' 'I do not do so,' said he, stooping close to her pretty head; 'but did not you and Lady Dunkeld call for them the other day?' 'Out of curiosity--and urged, perhaps, by Dr. Wodrow, who greatly affects to favour them.' 'Surely this is severe?' urged Colville, gently. 'Men, like women, cannot be too wary of chance medley acquaintances,' persisted Blanche, cresting up her handsome head. 'I have somewhere read,' said her mamma, who was now _au fait_ of the whole episode, 'that men may study women as they do a barometer, but only understand them on a subsequent day.' 'It may be so,' said Colville, 'but what then?' 'I agree with Blanche in her views of these Wellwood girls. People may do much in town that they cannot do in country places, where everyone's actions are, as it were, under a microscope; where every trivial movement is known, freely commented upon, and often exaggerated by menials and the vulgar. Thus,' continued Lady Dunkeld, with a very set expression on her usually placid face, 'I am not sure--nay, I am quite certain--it does not agree with what society calls _les convenances_, visiting these young girls.' 'In some respects you are right,' replied Colville, colouring with real pain; 'but I was not visiting. I only met Miss Wellwood near the old burying-ground--moreover, they are ladies, she and her sister, perfect ladies!' he urged, with a gleam in his dark eyes, which Lady Dunkeld was not slow to detect. 'But living so eccentrically alone?' 'So independently, let us say,' he continued.