“I devoutly hope so!” exclaimed Mr. Crosbie. “May I ask, Margery, what your basket contains?” “Cakes and apples,” she answered, promptly. “Hum!” observed Stuart, meditatively. “That sounds solid, Margery.” “Don’t you like cakes and apples?” “Do you?” he asked. “Very much.” “Then I do, too. Now let us get into the woods. By the by, is Reuben about?” “No; I believe he has gone to some of Sir Hubert’s farms. He started very early this morning, but he will be home to dinner. Did you want him, Mr. Stuart?” “No, not particularly. But what a lark if they take us up for trespassing--eh, Margery!” Margery laughed heartily at the idea. “What would they do to us?” she asked. “Transport us for life, perhaps,” Stuart replied, with a laugh, as he mounted the narrow wall. “How would you like that, Margery?” he added. “Would that mean going away from here?” Stuart nodded. “I should not like it at all, then,” she declared. “Then you intend to live in Hurstley all your life? Give me your hand; there--that is right. The dogs will clear it.” Margery jumped lightly from the wall to the soft turf, and then watched the easy way in which the collie and retriever scaled the wall. “How clever they are!” she cried, stooping to pat them. “But you have not answered me. Do you intend to live here all your life?” said Stuart, as they strolled in the cool shade of the trees. Margery looked at him quickly. “I have never thought about it, Mr. Stuart,” she replied. “Would it be wrong to wish it?” “Wrong?” he repeated. “No, Margery, of course not.” “I love Hurstley,” the girl went on, thoughtfully. “Mother lives here, and Reuben, and Lady Coningham, though I cannot remember her well--still I love her; then there are Miss Lawson and all the village.” “No one else?” queried Mr. Crosbie, fixing his eyes on her face. “Yes--you, Mr. Stuart,” Margery answered, softly. “You are here, too.” “But suppose that all these friends were to go away--suppose you were left alone--would you care for Hurstley then?” Margery’s face paled. “I never thought of that,” she murmured. “Oh, I could not stay then; it would be terrible!” Stuart opened his lips as if to speak, then closed them firmly again, and for a while there was silence between them as they walked. At last the young squire spoke. They had reached a clump of trees, a cooler, shadier spot, and here he stopped. “Let us unpack that gigantic basket here, Margery,” he said, lightly. “This is the very nook for a picnic.” Margery tossed off her bonnet, and the young man, stretched at full length on the soft grass, feasted his eyes on her radiant beauty, feeling that with every look his determination to see less of this girl was slipping from him, and that for him happiness was found only when in her presence. CHAPTER VII.