After several desperate man[oe]uvres, in which she perilled herself and her neighbours, more than once, with the spike at the end, she gave up the attempt, and trusted to the sole attraction of her lilac bonnet. Harriet was far up the stream with Mr. Gage; and Everard, who was wandering about with his play-book in his hand, finding Miss Campbell disengaged, insisted on her hearing him; and she had the delightful task of listening to his blunders, while she was calculating whether, if Mr. Haveloc proved obstinate, it would be possible for her to accept a younger son. Mr. Haveloc had managed to detach Margaret from the rest of the party, and they sat watching the stream, as it glided through the tangled roots of the hawthorns. They had time to say, not all they wished; but all there was any occasion for before they were interrupted; for Mr. Haveloc well knew the precise angle of the rocky bank at which they would be invisible to the party below. Harriet, coming down with her basket on her shoulder, and her rod unjointed, was the first to discover them. She suspended her song; stood before them a minute, enjoying Margaret's rosy blushes, and Mr. Haveloc's look of extreme unconcern; and then shrugging her shoulders, and throwing down her basket on the grass, exclaimed:-- "Well! never say I did not have a hand in it." The ladies had settled to go home after a late luncheon. The gentlemen adhered to their original plan. Everybody thought Mr. Haveloc was rather particular in his attentions to Margaret; fortunately, for her comfort, they did not know how particular. They did not know that he had obtained her permission to write to Mr. Warde and to Mr. Casement, by that day's post. They did not know that when he went up to dress, the letters were written; and that Margaret's last words as he put her in the carriage, were to beg "that he would be very polite to poor Mr. Casement." Harriet happened to be alone with Margaret, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick went back with Lady Raymond; and she caressed and teazed her alternately all the way home, but Margaret could now bear teazing very bravely. This was destined to be a day of events, for when they returned to Wardenscourt, they found Captain Gage and Elizabeth already arrived. Lucy and Harriet, both warmly attached to Lady d'Eyncourt, flew to welcome her. "And Margaret," said Elizabeth enquiringly, when she had embraced her cousins. Margaret was in her arms at once, sobbing with joy and emotion. Elizabeth stroked down her hair, and spoke soothingly to her: she had grown older so fast, that Margaret was really a child to her now.