Walden looked in the direction indicated, and saw the couple at some distance off, under the great cedar-tree which was the chief ornament of the lawn,--Cicely seated in a low basket-chair, and Adderley stretched on the grass at her feet. Both were talking eagerly, both were gesticulating excitedly, and both looked exactly what they were, two very eccentric specimens of humanity. "They seem perfectly happy!" he said, smiling--"Adderley is a curious fellow, but I think he has a good heart. He puts on a mannerism, because he has seen the members of a certain literary 'set' in London put it on--but he'll drop that in time,--when he is a little older and wiser. He has been in to see me once or twice since he took up his residence here for the summer. He tries to discuss religion with me--or rather, I should say. irreligion. His own special 'cult' is the easy paganism of Omar Kayyam." "Is he clever?" "I think he is. He has a more or less original turn of mind. He read me some of his verses the other day." "Poor you!" laughed Maryllia. "Well, I was inclined to pity myself when he first began"--said Walden, laughing also--"But I must confess I was agreeably surprised. Some of his fancies are quite charming." They had been walking slowly across the lawn, and were now within a few steps of the big cedar-tree. "I must take you into the rose-garden, Mr. Walden!"--and she raised her eyes to his with that childlike confiding look which was one of her special charms,--"The roses are just budding out, and I want you to see them before the summer gets more advanced. Though I daresay you know every rosebush in the place, don't you?" "I believe I do!" he admitted--"You see an old fogey like myself is bound to have hobbies, and my particular hobby is gardening. I love flowers, and I go everywhere I can, or may, to see them and watch their growth. So that for years I have visited your rose-garden, Miss Vancourt! I have been a regular and persistent trespasser,--but all the same, I have never plucked a rose." "Well, I wish you had!" said Maryllia, feeling somewhat impatient with him for calling himself an 'old fogey,'--why did he give himself away?--she thought,--"I wish you had plucked them all and handed them round in baskets to the villagers, especially to the old and sick persons. It would have been much better than to have had them sold at Riversford through Oliver Leach." "Did he sell them?" exclaimed John, quickly--"I am not surprised!" "He sold everything, and put the money in his own pocket"--said Maryllia,--"But, after all, the loss is quite my own fault. I ought to have enquired into the management of the property myself. And I certainly ought not to have stayed away from home so many years. But it's never too late to mend!" She smiled, and advancing a step or two called "Cicely!" Cicely turned, looking up from beneath her spreading canopy of dark cedar boughs.