John Devereux spoke seriously, almost jealously, for an old suspicion was beginning to awaken once more within him. But Hugh laughed in a way to forever remove any such feeling from his friend's mind. "I--I love Mary!" he exclaimed. "I never dreamed of such a thing, Jack, although I admit that she is very beautiful, and possesses everything to call forth any man's best and deepest love. But, my dear Jack, if you were not blinded, you might see that the world holds other girls than Mary." And he looked wistfully at his friend, as if wishing him to know something he hesitated to put into words. "Do you mean that you are in love with some one, Hugh?" asked Jack, laying his hand on the other's broad shoulder. Hugh's blue eyes lowered as bashfully as those of a girl, and Jack, now smiling at him, said, "Who is it--Polly Chine, over at the Fountain Inn?" "Polly Chine!" Hugh answered disgustedly. "A great strapping red-cheeked clatter-tongue, who can do naught but laugh?" "Well, if 't is not Polly, then I am all at sea, for I never knew you to do more than speak to another girl, unless--" And he paused, as something in Hugh's pleading eyes caught his attention and awoke his senses with a rush. "Oh, Hugh--it surely is not--" But Knollys interrupted him. "Yes, Jack," he said with slow earnestness, "it is--Dorothy." Silence followed this avowal, and Jack's hand fell from his friend's shoulder. Then with an incredulous laugh he said: "Dorothy--why she is little more than a baby, with no thought beyond her horse and other pets. 'T was not long since I came upon her playing at dolls with little 'Bitha." "She will be seventeen her next birthday," Hugh retorted with some impatience; "and that is but a year less than Mary Broughton's age." "Yes," Jack admitted. "But it is several months yet to Dot's birthday; and those months, nor yet another year, can scarce give to my little sister the womanly depth for sentiment and suffering that Mary now possesses." "Think ye so, Jack?" said Hugh, as though inclined to argue the matter. "You know 't is odd, sometimes, how little we guess aright the nature of those akin to us, however dear we may love them." The young man sighed as he thought of the look he caught in Dorothy's eyes when the olive-faced horseman uncovered his handsome head, and also recalled the flushing of her cheeks at his mother's banter. Jack's hand was now once more upon Hugh's shoulder, and he said in his warm, impulsive way: "See here, old fellow, I'd sooner have you for a brother than any other man I know; and my father is well-nigh certain to approve. Only I feel sure he would say what I now ask of you, and that is, not to speak of such matters to little Dot--not yet awhile; for it would only risk making her think of what otherwise might never come into that wilful head of hers. And while there seem to be such grave matters gathering for our attention, it were best not to give her heart aught to trouble over."