Mrs. de Burgh's expedition the preceding day did not prove without its fruits. For the next few days, several idle young men of the neighbourhood, who had nothing better to do, came dropping in to dine or stay a night or so at Silverton. Mr. de Burgh received these guests with much courtesy and kindness; though apparently regarding them as the visitors of his wife, he left them almost entirely to her entertainment, and went about his private occupation as usual with a scientific friend of his own, who arrived at this time. As for Mary, although obliged, considering that this gathering had been formed chiefly on her account, to show her sense of the attention by making herself as agreeable as possible, yet before long she began to feel her exertions in that respect a weariness, rather than a pleasurable excitement; and that her powers were not equal when placed in competition with the light and careless spirits around her. Indeed, so gladly would she hail the intervals which set her at liberty, to read, or think, or dream, free from such demands, that she began to suspect very soon that her thirstings after society would easily be satisfied, and that Mr. Temple need not have been alarmed lest she should be too much ensnared by its fascinations; in short, that she was not so sociably inclined in a general way to the degree for which she had given herself credit. One morning, Mary made her escape about an hour before luncheon from the gay party by whom, since breakfast, she had been surrounded; and seated herself, with a new book of poetry, at the open window of a room leading into a little garden, the luscious perfume of whose flowers were wafted sweetly upon her senses; shaded by the light drapery of the muslin curtains, the sound of laughing, talking, billiard-balls falling at an undisturbing distance from her ear-- "Oh, close your eyes and strive to see The studious maid with book on knee!" Mary had not long luxuriated in this enjoyment, when a footstep sounded on the grass without, and a dark shadow obscured the bright light upon her page. Lifting up her eyes, she saw Eugene Trevor standing before her. He smiled at her start of surprise, and apologised for the abrupt intrusion. He had expected, he stated, to have found her and his cousin Olivia in this, Mrs. de Burgh's usual morning-room; and then Mary--the bright glow with which, although not naturally nervous, this sudden apparition had coloured her cheek, fading gradually away--told him how Mrs. de Burgh was engaged in the adjoining room. "And you have deserted her?" he said, taking up the book she had laid down and examining its contents with the greatest apparent interest, though he only smiled when she asked him if he were fond of poetry, smiled--and answered, looking into her face, "Some kind," and replaced the volume; then resting against the window-sill, they conversed on other subjects, and were still thus engaged when luncheon was announced.