“I didn’t! I made an appointment with him. We went to a big wood, some miles out of Oxford, belonging to some people he knows, where there are beautiful grass rides. He has the key of the gates—we sent away the groom—and I was an hour alone with him—quite! There!” There was a defiant accent on the last word. Annette shook her head. She had been fifteen years in the Risboroughs’ service, and remembered Connie when she was almost a baby. “Whatever were you so silly for? You know your mamma wouldn’t have let you.” “Well, I’ve not got my mamma,” said Connie slowly. “And I’m not going to be managed by Aunt Ellen, Netta. I intend to run my own show.” “Who is it?” said Annette, knitting busily. Connie laughed. “Do you think I’m going to tell you?” “You needn’t. I’ve got eyes in my head. It’s that gentleman you met in France.” Connie swung herself round and laid violent hands on Annette’s knitting. “You shan’t knit. Look at me! You can’t say he’s not good-looking?” “Which he knows—a deal sight more than is good for him,” said Annette, setting her mouth a little grimly. “Everybody knows when they’re good-looking, you dear silly! Of course, he’s most suitable—dreadfully so. And I can’t make up my mind whether I care for him a bit!” She folded her arms in front of her, her little chin fell forward on her white wrappings, and she stared rather sombrely into vacancy. “What’s wrong with him?” said Annette after a pause—adopting a tone in which she might have discussed a new hat. “Oh, I don’t know,” said Connie dreamily. She was thinking of Falloden’s sudden departure from Oxford, after his own proposal of two more rides. His note, “crying off” till after the schools, had seemed to her not quite as regretful as it might have been; his epistolary style lacked charm. And it was impertinent of him to suggest Lord Meyrick as a substitute. She had given the Lathom Woods a wide berth ever since her first adventure there; and she hoped that Lord Meyrick had spent some disappointed hours in those mossy rides. All the same it looked as though she were going to see a good deal of Douglas Falloden. She raised her eyes suddenly. “Annette, I didn’t tell you I’d heard from two of my aunts to-day!” “You did!” Annette dropped her knitting of her own accord this time, and sat open-mouthed. “Two long letters. Funny, isn’t it? Well, Aunt Langmoor wants me to go to her directly—in time anyway for a ball at Tamworth House—horribly smart—Prince and Princess coming—everybody begging for tickets. She’s actually got an invitation for me—I suppose by asking for it!—rather calm of her. She calls me ‘Dearest Connie.’ And I never saw her! But papa used to be fond of her, and she was never rude to mamma. What shall I say?” “Well, I think you’d much better go,” said Annette decidedly. “You’ve never worn that dress you got at Nice, and it’ll be a dish-cloth if you keep it much longer. The way we have to crush things in this place!”