"By which, of course, you'll be thoroughly influenced, and if I won't approve give her up at once. No, Gordon, I'm not much experienced in these things, but I _do_ know enough not to commit myself in the way you suggest. However, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make half holiday for once, and go with you to the _fête_--reserving my opinion of the young lady to myself." "Well, it's something to have got you to leave that old desk for an hour, to get you to look at trees and flowers instead of foolscap and red-tape. And as for Miss Guyon--well, you'll say something about her, I've no doubt." "I'm not sorry this opportunity offered," said Charley Yeldham to himself as he was undressing. "I've not much curiosity; but I confess I'm anxious to see the girl who has so captivated Master Gordon--partly on her own account, and partly to see if I can trace in her manner any suspicion of a---- No; no woman could be bad enough to lay herself out to entrap a man at her father's desire! And besides, Gordon Frere's not worth snaring!" CHAPTER VII. KATHARINE GUYON. So, three men, all good fellows in their way, and two possessed of qualities not common, and destined to be influenced throughout all their lives by the seeming chance that had made them acquainted with her, were thinking of Katharine Guyon, rather than of any or all their more immediate and important concerns. She had dawned, a new luminary, on their horizon; and two were conscious worshippers of the bright visible presence, the other had not yet turned his eyes that way. He will do so before long, and then----? As for Katharine Guyon herself, she had thoughts at present for but one person, and speculations only on one subject. Her warm, impulsive, wholly undisciplined heart had accepted Gordon Frere as its tenant and ruler, after a sudden fashion, which was not to be defended or excused if judged by the standard of conventionality, or indeed of common-sense. When the latter quality shall be in any one instance admitted into a case of love-at-first-sight, it may advance a claim to invariable acknowledgment; certainly not otherwise. As for conventionality, Katharine in no way bowed to its authority; and it was fortunate indeed that her good taste and innate good-breeding preserved her from any boldness or vulgarity of demeanour; for those were her only safeguards. Legitimate rule over her there was none, and she would not for a moment have brooked usurped authority. Her position was peculiar, and, though there was a good deal of the glitter of fashion and the reality of enjoyment about it, to clear-sighted eyes, looking below the surface, pitiable.