'Wilmot, who admires you so much, will one day be very rich, they say.' 'Don't talk thus, Alison, or I shall begin to deem you what I know you are not--mercenary; but Jerry Wilmot has little just now; he has, however, a knowledge of horseflesh and a great capability for spending money, and thinks a pack of hounds in a hunting country is necessary to existence. He is a detrimental of the first water, and the special _bête-noire_ of Belgravian and Tyburnian mammas.' 'It is a pity you should ever seclude yourself as you sometimes do, Laura,' said Alison, looking at her beautiful friend with genuine admiration; 'all men admire you so much, and you have but to hold up your little finger to make them kneel at your feet.' 'How you flatter me! But I never will hold up my little finger, nor would I marry again for the mines of Potosi and Peru. It is as well that little Netty is so busy with that photographic album, or she might marvel at your anxiety to provide her with a papa.' 'It is not wealth you wait for?' 'No.' 'What then, Laura?' 'Nothing.' 'How I shall laugh if the handsome Captain Dalton stirs that now unimpressionable heart of yours.' 'I shall be very glad to meet him,' said Mrs. Trelawney, with a curious hardness in her voice. 'Why?' 'Because I may compel him to love me, Alison,' and as Mrs. Trelawney spoke her eyes flashed with a triumphant glow such as Alison had never seen in them before. 'Compel him?' 'Yes.' 'It would be easy to make him love you; but would you marry him?' 'How your little head runs on love and marriage! No, Alison, I shall never marry--_again_!' 'Poor soul,' thought Alison, admiringly, 'how much she must have loved her first husband!' And simultaneously with the entrance of Sir Ranald, the three brother officers--Bevil Goring, Jerry Wilmot, and Captain Dalton--were announced, and all these were men of the best style, in accurate morning costume, all more than usually good-looking, set up by drill, easy in bearing, and looking ruddy with their ride from the camp in a chill October day. 'I missed you early in the hunt, Miss Cheyne,' said Jerry, after the introductions were over. 'How you and Goring flew over that first fence!' 'I love to gallop over everything,' replied Alison, 'but I must confess that my sympathies in the field are always with the flying stag, or the poor little panting hare--a miserable, tiny creature, with a horde of men, horses, and dogs after it, and making the welkin ring when in at the death!' 'Yes, though by the way I never know precisely what the said welkin is, unless it be the regions of the air.' All unaware that his name had been so recently and so curiously on her lovely lips, Captain, or Tony Dalton, as his comrades called him, was saying some commonplaces to Mrs. Trelawney, over whose chair he was stooping.