That careless, easy-going personage had disposed himself, in the mean time, on the most sloping of garden chairs under a tree. Helen had brought him the morning and weekly papers, also one of the evening before. He was cool, comfortable, and thoroughly satisfied with Sir Henry Hallaton. His rings were more abundant, his whiskers more riotous, his handkerchief of brighter hues than ever. Had he not looked so like a gentleman his style of dress would have been gaudy and almost slang; but the combination had done him good service for many years, and he stuck to it still. Smoking a huge cigar, he watched its wreathes curling and clinging about the dark, crisp foliage of the cedar-branch over-head, while his thoughts wandered dreamily amongst the various interests of his pleasant, lazy, useless, and rather selfish life: his Alderneys at Blackgrove; his bailiff's book; the two-year old they were breaking at home; the brougham Barker was building him in London; Outrigger's chance in the Thames Handicap to-day; Uncle Joseph's dry champagne last night; the dress Mrs. Lascelles wore yesterday at the races; how Miss Ross had pulled in her waist this morning; on divine women in endless perspective, whom he had loved, or _thought_ he loved, or made love to, without even that excuse, concluding how very few were equal to Helen. What a dear little thing it was as a child! What a graceful, engaging girl! So frank, so gentle, such a _lady_, and so fond of _him_! Suspecting that, after all, he _really_ cared more for his own daughter than he had ever cared for the daughter, or wife, or mother of anybody else. Arriving at this conclusion, and the end of his cigar, he was aware of a light step on the lawn, a rustle of muslin skirts trailing across the sward,--a familiar sound, to which, I fear, Sir Henry's ear turned, as turns the charger's to the trumpet call, the hunter's to the well-known challenge of a "find." Miss Ross, carrying a plateful of strawberries, bent over him, a world of mirth and mischief gleaming in her bright black eyes. "You take life very easily, Sir Henry," said she, looking down on his recumbent figure with a sort of sarcastic admiration. "I'm a pretty cool hand myself, so people tell me, but I can't hold a candle to _you_, I must confess." "Exactly," replied Sir Henry. "Prettier, but not so cool. I quite agree with you. I know what you mean." "I don't mean it a bit!" exclaimed Miss Ross; "and of all people in the world I don't want _you_ to tell me I'm pretty. You know that, or, at least, you ought to know it by this time!" "Don't you think I'm a good judge?" asked this incorrigible person, with a smile of entire satisfaction. She could not help laughing. "Perhaps _too_ good a judge," she answered, "but a judge that shall never find _me_ guilty, I promise you! No; what I envy is your unrivalled _sang-froid_, your entire freedom from anxiety in a position that would make most people feel awkward, if not uncomfortable."