Certain words of William Halliburton to Patience had run in this fashion: "Were Anna to be drawn into a liking for Herbert Dare, I am sure it would not be agreeable to Mr. Lynn. He would never consider the Dares a desirable family for her to marry into." In thus speaking, William had striven to put the case in a polite sort of form to the ears of Patience. As to any probability of marriage between one of the Dares and Anna Lynn, he would scarcely have believed it within the range of possibility. The Dares, one and all, would have considered Anna far beneath them in position, whilst the difference of religion would on Anna's side be an almost insurmountable objection. The worst that William had contemplated was the "liking" he had hinted at. He cared for Anna's welfare as he would have cared for a sister's, and he believed it would not contribute to her happiness that she should become attached to Herbert Dare. But for compromising Anna--and he had given his word not to do it--he would have spoken out openly and said there was a danger of this liking coming to pass, if she met him as he feared she had been in the habit of doing. Certainly he would not have alluded to the remote possibility of marriage, the mention of which had so scared Patience. What had William thought, what had Patience said, could they have known that this liking was already implanted in Anna's heart beyond recall? Alas! that it should have been so! Quiet, childish, timid as Anna outwardly appeared, the strongest affection had been aroused in her heart for Herbert Dare--was filling its every crevice. These apparently shy, sensitive natures are sometimes only the more passionate and wayward within. One evening a few months previously, Anna was walking in Atterly's Field, behind their house. Anna had been in the habit of walking there--nay, of playing there--since she was a child, and she would as soon have associated harm with their garden as with that field. Farmer Atterly kept his sheep in it, and Anna had run about with the lambs as long as she could remember. Herbert Dare came up accidentally--the path through it, leading along at the back of the houses, was public, though not much frequented--and he spoke to Anna. Anna knew him to say "Good day" when she passed him in the street; and she now and then saw him at Mrs. Ashley's. Herbert stayed talking with her a few minutes, and then went on his way. Somehow, from that time, he and Anna encountered each other there pretty frequently; and that was how the liking had grown. If a qualm of conscience crossed Miss Anna at times that it was not quite the thing for a young lady to do, thus to meet a gentleman in secret, she conveniently put the qualm away. That harm should arise from it in any way never so much as crossed her mind for a moment; and to do Herbert Dare justice, real harm was probably as far from his mind as from hers.