"But I did not fall in love, as you phrase it, with the first who presented himself, any more than I am likely to do with the _last_," replied Ethel, with an air that now was one of unconcealed annoyance. "My sister Rose is a girl whom all allow to be charming, and is as much admired as any in the county, and she has passed seventeen, your rubicon, your girlish equator, your ideal line, without 'falling in love' with anyone----" "That you know of, Miss Basset," said Hawkshaw, sharply. "Rose has no secrets from me, sir!" "Do not let us quarrel, for Heaven's sake. I apologise." "How tiresome--how impertinent! and yet I dare not tell Morley," sighed Ethel, in her heart, as she continued to walk very fast; but Laurel Lodge was a long way off, and the sunlit waste of the chase stretched for, at least, a mile before them yet. Bitterly did she now repent having entrusted Morley with the ring, as it might lead to some unseemly quarrel between him and Hawkshaw; on this occasion she had an admirable opportunity for returning it personally. After a pause: "With all this fancied attachment to your first love, I do not think you very romantic, Ethel," said Hawkshaw. "You are right, sir; indeed, I am quite matter-of-fact." "_Caramba!_ it is too bad for a charming girl of two-and-twenty to be so." "What right have you to deem me charming, or to assume my age?" asked Ethel, angrily, and with her eyes now full of tears, which the short veil of her little hat concealed. "I can no more help deeming you so than help admiring the sunshine. But, ah, Ethel, if I had you where I have been--where the volcanic mountains of the Sierra Nevada look down on the valley of the Colorado, I could teach you, or perhaps infuse into your impulsive nature something of the fire, the romance--the glorious romance--of Spanish South America." "Thank you," replied Ethel, relieved and laughing, when she found Hawkshaw was indulging in one of his platitudes; "but I would rather learn it here, amid a sweet English landscape, like this old wooded chase, than among flaming volcanoes, tawny savages, stinging mosquitoes, and your old friends, the Barradas." "The Barradas!" repeated Hawkshaw, starting, as his eyes flashed with a gleam of malevolence and alarm; his brows knit, his hands twitched spasmodically, and he gave Ethel a keen glance of inquiry; for she had unwittingly touched some hidden spring, some secret sore--or it might be sorrow. For a moment he looked as if he could have sprang upon her; but he laughed, and said, with an evident effort at being jocular: "To return to the subject--to this love of thrilling, blushing, and susceptible seventeen, which deprives me of you, occurred five years ago?" "And since then I have found no reason to change my mind. Here is the gate of Miss Page's house, where I wish to call. Good evening, captain. Her brother Jack will see me home." Ethel bowed, left him, and closed the iron gate.