Here was the very heiress he had been in search of right under his eyes all the time, and he had never seen her. He had thought her a child of about fourteen years of age, and here she was sixteen, and considered marriageable. How precocious these young American girls were, to be sure! How very early they were married! At this point the colonel lighted a fresh cigar, strolled out upon the frozen lawn, and sat down on a rustic seat, under the branches of an old yew tree, from which he had a view of the bay, that here spread out from the foot of the hill to the distant horizon. It was not, however, to look at the prospect of nature before his eyes, but to contemplate the prospect of the future in his imagination, that he sat there, and smoked and reflected. "The game is in my own hands," he said to himself. "The daughter is governed entirely by the mother, whom she adores. And she must appear to act from her own free will and for her own pleasure, in order to obtain the consent of her father, who, forsooth, will sacrifice his own family ambition to his child's happiness. "This is the third of December," he mused, "and the young fellow is expected to be home at Christmas. There is no time to be lost. I must turn the screws on my lady. There shall be a New Year's wedding at Mondreer, but Mr. Leonidas Force shall not be the happy bridegroom." CHAPTER V GREENBUSHES Glad voices broke in upon Anglesea's brooding. He looked up, and saw coming toward him the three young daughters of the house--Odalite, Wynnette and Elva, attended by their governess, Miss Meeke. They were all equipped in their warm, brown cloth coats, buttoned up before, and their brown, beaver poke bonnets tied under their chins. They carried little baskets in their hands and dragged along sticks after them. "Will you take a walk with us through the woods this morning, Col. Anglesea? Father has gone into town to attend court, you know; and mother has a little headache, and has locked herself up in her room to lie down and sleep. And we are going for a walk. Will you go?" inquired Odalite, as graciously as she could force herself to do; for the girl secretly detested the interloper, though her native good breeding prevented her from ever betraying her feelings to their object. She had not failed to perceive, through her own fine sympathies rather than through any expression from Mrs. Force, that the lady was very much annoyed and distressed by the presence of this intruder into the privacy of her domestic circle; and so Odalite often quietly relieved her mother by taking charge of the visitor's entertainment, as she did on this occasion by inviting him to join their walking party. Col. Anglesea looked at her with an amused smile, yet with more attention than he had ever regarded her before. "Will you come with us?" she inquired again, seeing that he hesitated to reply. "Thanks, very much! It is a temptation. Miss Force. In what direction do you propose to walk?"