“Miss de la Vera, the morning after your arrival home I came up to the hall, not by appointment, not to take you to Sandy Isle, for I knew you could not go in such a storm, but to ask you to fix another day when I might have the honor of serving you. I was met by Colonel de Crespigney, to whom I made known my errand. He told me that the weather would not permit Miss de la Vera to go out that day, nor was it likely that it would be any more favorable for a week to come, and when, in fact, it should be so, and when his ward should desire to make a visit, he would himself escort her. His manner told me that my visit was uncalled for, unwelcome, and improper. I bowed very low, and left him.” “He never told me that you had been here. I blamed you for neglect. And it is all his fault. Oh! I am glad I met you, David Lindsay! Tell me more! You came again?” “Yes, many times, Miss de la Vera, but I was always met by Colonel de Crespigney, who told me that you were occupied and could not see me.” “But in the first place, you must have seen one of the servants. Did you then ask for me, or for the colonel?” “For you, Miss de la Vera. I always asked the servant I happened to see to take my respectful message to yourself, that I waited on you, according to your orders. And always Colonel de Crespigney came out and told me that you were engaged, or words to the same effect, and so dismissed me, showing by his manner that he considered my call impertinent. Yet, as he did not actually forbid me to come again, and as I considered that I was acting under your orders, I continued to come once or twice a week. I was on my way to the house when we met.” “Oh!” burst forth Gloria, with one of her irrepressible impulses. “I think it was most outrageous for any one to interfere with my liberty of action in that way! I will never submit to such control! Never! It was the farthest thing from my dear father’s thoughts that my will should be so hampered! He made every provision for my freedom and happiness!” “Miss de la Vera,” said the young man, speaking conscientiously and generously, “I think your guardian acted for the best. He had the right to deny any visitor to you whom he disapproved of for any reason. My grandmother said so when I told her of my failure. And she always said, besides, that Colonel de Crespigney was the most indulgent guardian that she ever heard of, and that you had more freedom, even when a child, than any young lady she ever knew, having your own way in almost everything. And you know my old grandmother is a wise and good woman.” “Yes, I know she is, and I honor her, and I love her dearly, and that is the reason why I wanted so much to go to see her, and asked you to come and row me over in the boat. And to think you came so often and I did not know it. Oh-h!” “Perhaps I ought not to have persisted in coming. Perhaps I ought to have taken a hint from the colonel’s manner, and stayed away after my first repulse,” said the young fisherman.