"Thanks!" Evelyn said, smiling, and just touching the brown hand. She needed no help, but she was too gracious a being to refuse. "Thanks!" she repeated, reaching the level path, with a kind look at Jem which finished him off completely, though it was no more than she would have given to gardener or butler for a service rendered. "Is anything wrong with Cyril?" "He turned giddy, crossing the river," said Jem. "But I'm going to try again, and I mean to do it," exclaimed Cyril. "He says he was just as bad, Evie, and he got over it. And I mean to be brave. Jean says I must." "Jean says!" repeated Evelyn. It recalled Miss Devereux's perpetual citing of "dear aunt." "He's a boy," explained Jean. "And I'll be a man some day," cried the little baronet. "You'll see, Evie. I'll take care of Jean when I'm a man." "Jean is more likely to take care of you at present." "That state of things is often reversed later," observed Jem, feeling for once unaccountably shy, and striving after self-possession. He was not given to shyness commonly. "Cyril and I had to perform self-introductions. Jean was our connecting link." "Then perhaps you are General Villiers' friend?" "And he isn't a boy," cried Cyril, drowning Jem's assent. Evelyn did not blush. She said, "No?" and looked straight at Jem with a soft laugh, which put him at his ease, but tightened the strings of fascination. "I reached Dutton Park last night. General Villiers, is an old friend of some of my family. A delightful man." The girl's eyes drooped. "He is—I don't know anyone like him!" "A sort of modern preux-chevalier style." "And always so gentle." Jem wondered whether any human being could be otherwise than gentle to Evelyn. He knew little of Miss Devereux. Evelyn made a move as if to go. "Come, Cyril—" she said; "we will walk round by the bridge. I suppose you have had enough of the stepping-stones for one day." "There's a prettier path to the Brow up the glen—crossing the rustic bridge," observed Jem. "But of course you know." "Oh, I know it all. I have spent so many of my holidays here—only not very lately. That is my favourite ramble. But it is supposed to be too lonely for me, with only Cyril; and somehow nobody is ever free to escort us." "Why, I go alone anywhere," said Jean. Jem's glance went from the one to the other. "That is different," he remarked; and then he turned again to Evelyn, audacious though embarrassed. "If you would not mind—Jean and I would gladly act escort. The glen is perfect just now. You really ought to see it. I have been the whole round this morning." "Thanks!" in a considering tone. "Jean and I are cousins," apologetically. "So I thought—" "A sort of cousins," corrected Jean, trained in habits of rigid accuracy. "My father was first cousin to Jean's father, so Jean and I are 'seconds.' It is a convenient tie where people suit; and Jean and I do suit; so perhaps—" "Perhaps, on the strength of it, we may count ourselves acquainted."