"I have just been conjecturing could that be that Gryston which we passed by on our way to Marlowe." "Perfectly right, by Jove! what an eye for locality you must have!" "Have I? Well, sometimes, perhaps," said the foreign gentleman, laughing. "The eye of a general. Yes, you are quite right--it is Gryston." Now Sir Jekyl was frank and hearty in his talk; but there was an air--a something which would have excited the observation of Monsieur Varbarriere, even had he remarked nothing peculiar in the bearing of his host and his companion as they approached. There was a semi-abstraction, a covert scrutiny of that gentleman's countenance, and a certain sense of uneasiness. Some more passed--enough to show that there was nothing in the slightest degree awkward to the two pedestrians in having so unexpectedly fallen into an ambuscade while on their route--and then Sir Jekyl, with a word of apology to Lady Jane, resumed his walk with her towards the pleasure-grounds near the house. That day Lady Jane played croquet with Beatrix, while Sir Jekyl demonstrated half the country, from the high grounds, to Monsieur Varbarriere. The croquet-ground is pretty--flowerbeds lie round it, and a "rockery," as they called it, covered with clambering flowers and plants, and backed by a thick grove of shrubs and evergreens, fenced it in to the north. Lady Jane was kind, ill-tempered, capricious; played wildly, lazily, badly. "Do you like people in spite of great faults ever, Beatrix?" she asked, suddenly. "Every one has great faults," said Trixie, sporting a little bit of philosophy. "No, they have not; there are very good people, and I hate them," said Lady Jane, swinging her mallet slowly like a pendulum, and gazing with her dark deep eyes full into her companion's face. "Hate the good people!" exclaimed Beatrix; "then how do you feel towards the bad?" "There are some whose badness suits me, and I like them; there are others whose badness does not, and them I hate as much as the good almost." Trixie was puzzled; but she concluded that Lady Jane was in one of her odd moods, and venting her ill temper in those shocking eruptions of levity. "How old are you, Beatrix?" "Nineteen." "Ha! and I am five-and-twenty--six years. There is a great deal learned in those six years. I don't recollect what I was like when I was nineteen." She did not sigh; Lady Jane was not given to sighing, but her face looked sad and sullen. "It all came of my having no friend," she said, abruptly. "Not one. That stupid old woman might have been one, but she would not. I had no one--it was fate; and here I am, such as I am, and I don't blame myself or anything. But I wish I had one true friend." "I am sure, Lady Jane, you must have many friends," said Beatrix.