Lady Crawford repeated her question, but Dorothy was too intently watching the scene in the courtyard to hear. I went over to her, and looking out at the window discovered the object of Dorothy's rapt attention. There is no need for me to tell you who it was. Irony, as you know, and as I had learned, was harmless against this thick-skinned nymph. Of course I had no authority to scold her, so I laughed. The object of Dorothy's attention was about to mount his horse. He was drawing on his gauntleted gloves and held between his teeth a cigarro. He certainly presented a handsome figure for the eyes of an ardent girl to rest upon while he stood beneath the window, clothed in a fashionable Paris-made suit of brown, doublet, trunks, and hose. His high-topped boots were polished till they shone, and his broad-rimmed hat, of soft beaver, was surmounted by a flowing plume. Even I, who had no especial taste nor love for masculine beauty, felt my sense of the beautiful strongly moved by the attractive picture my new-found friend presented. His dress, manner, and bearing, polished by the friction of life at a luxurious court, must have appeared god-like to Dorothy. She had never travelled farther from home than Buxton and Derby-town, and had met only the half-rustic men belonging to the surrounding gentry and nobility of Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Stafford. She had met but few even of them, and their lives had been spent chiefly in drinking, hunting, and gambling--accomplishments that do not fine down the texture of a man's nature or fit him for a lady's bower. Sir John Manners was a revelation to Dorothy; and she, poor girl, was bewildered and bewitched by him. When John had mounted and was moving away, he looked up to the window where Dorothy stood, and a light came to her eyes and a smile to her face which no man who knows the sum of two and two can ever mistake if he but once sees it. When I saw the light in Dorothy's eyes, I knew that all the hatred that was ever born from all the feuds that had ever lived since the quarrelling race of man began its feuds in Eden could not make Dorothy Vernon hate the son of her father's enemy. "I was--was--watching him draw smoke through the--the little stick which he holds in his mouth, and--and blow it out again," said Dorothy, in explanation of her attitude. She blushed painfully and continued, "I hope you do not think--" "I do not think," I answered. "I would not think of thinking." "Of course not," she responded, with a forced smile, as she watched Sir John pass out of sight under the arch of the innyard gate. I did not think. I knew. And the sequel, so full of trouble, soon proved that I was right. After John had passed through the gate, Dorothy was willing to go home; and when Will Dawson brought the great coach to the inn door, I mounted my horse and rode beside the ladies to Haddon Hall, two miles north from Rowsley.