Until now I had thought that my benevolent host had here been my greatest friend; but there was another for whom, to my infinite surprise, I found that I felt far more intensely. Yet it was odd that, in her presence, I was apparently cold and inattentive, and thus, perhaps, it might have ever been, had she not unguardedly attracted my attention by what she meant for a severe rebuke. I happened to be walking with her and a gentleman whose wife had lately experienced, on some occasion, a narrow escape of her life; "and so Miss Bassett I had nearly become a gentleman free of incumbrance, and then I should have come and proposed to you." "But then I should have tried to thwart you, for the mere sake of opposition," was my rather too free and easy reply. "Oh, Mr. Graham," she answered, "you might have set your mind quite at rest on the subject, for I should have preferred Mr. Goodriche a thousand times before you." "For what possible reason, Miss Bassett?" I asked, in sober earnest. "Because I could have led a quiet, happy life with him--now perhaps I might have liked you, and then you would have immediately behaved like a wretch, and broken my heart." FOOTNOTES: [1] One who kills game exclusively to lessen his butcher's bill. CHAPTER III. It was on my way to London, in company with her father, that, as the sun rose, I caught a glimpse in the horizon of the hill, on the other side of which the abode of my family was situated--I may not call it home, for it is too true, that "without hearts there is no home." Still, how I must have loved the spot! its woods, its lawns, and its valleys! No sooner had the steamer touched at a port, than I left my luggage to go on with it as it might, and jumped out, in order to take one more peep at a place which set at defiance every recollection that I could force to rise up in judgment against it. Having walked twenty miles, I stopped at a public-house within a mile and a half of the place, for some refreshment, as well as to await the darkness of night. At ten o'clock I sallied forth, and the first of the paternal estate on which I trespassed was a large wood, every tree of which, I might say, was an old acquaintance. Here, then, what a contrast was I conscious of! Some years back, I used to range this very wood, the sworn friend of the keeper, in order to detect the poacher; and now I was listening to every rustle, and peering along the gloomy paths, lest I myself should be detected by my former ally. So much did my fears on this point increase on me, that I took to the open fields, and gained the park.