He tried to escape her image, to get genuinely interested in his book; but his indignation--and something else, that qualmish something--would always come between. To be faced and flouted by this bantling, adjudged and sentenced of her furious young disdain! It was intolerable--not to be endured. A dozen times he twitched, on the verge of an explosion, and a dozen times, with an ever-diminishing heat, restrained himself. It was true enough, he thought, as his fume evaporated, that he had not condescended to tact in his repulse of her. Diplomatically, at least, he should have been more tender of her feelings, have attained his end more surely without brutality. She had some reason for her resentment; and he must admit she had looked well in expressing it. A clear conscience burned with a clear fire, and there was something cleanly piquant in the warmth it emitted. It gave his arid veins a new sensation. Comparing those immature lines with the fuller which had hitherto besotted his fancy, he found a curious interest in studying them. It was like extracting a fresh, slender, white kernel from its grosser husk--a sweet and rather tasty discovery. Had his eyes been at fault, and his palate? Infatuation, perhaps, had blinded the one and cloyed the other. Well, he might come yet to humour this situation--even to atone in some measure for the unkindness of which he had been guilty. But not at once! She must be taught her little lesson before he could afford to unbend. She was really a pretty child, when all was said and done--a brunette, with large blue eyes appealing and alluring, and a complexion like china roses. The rest, did he choose to will it, should come to ripen in the sun of love, like a peach hung on a wall. There was a thrill in the sense of that power possessed and withheld. With a sigh that was half a new rapture, he turned resolutely to his reading. And at that moment Mr. George Hamilton was announced. He entered gaily, looking the pink of health and comeliness, and, nodding a cheery greeting to my lord his friend, went to the lady, like one full confident of his privileged position. “Good-morrow, cousin,” quoth he. She dropped her hands, with her work, into her lap, and, leaning forward, looked up into his face with a smile. “You are welcome, cousin,” she answered. “I was bored, i’ faith.” He just glanced at the husband, and laughed. “In such company, Kate?” She raised innocent brows. “What company? My own, do you mean? There is none other here but sticks and stocks.” “Well, say I meant your own. Can that bore you?” “O, faith, it can!” “O, faith, then, you’re hard to please!” “’Tis proof I’m not, for your saying so pleases me. Lord, what a novelty to hear a compliment!” He conned her with a puzzled air, then took the piece of work from her hands and stood quizzing it. “What is this?” he asked. “A sampler,” she answered. “Have you never seen one before?” “Not in your hands.”