Sir Edward, who had been endeavouring to hit a bumblebee with his whip, and was lost in the excitement of the sport, burst into a roar of self-applause at an unexpectedly successful stroke:— “Saw you that? I hit him. I hit him!… A great bumblebee!” Ratcliffe clenched his hand, exasperated. Then, recalling his self-control, shrugged his shoulders, caught his cousin by the arm, and marched him determinedly toward the upper terrace stairs. * * * * * The two whose doings were exciting so much interest in Lionel Ratcliffe’s mind, came slowly along the Peacock Walk and halted beneath the watchers: a pair so well-matched in youth and looks as well to justify apparently the jealous kinsman’s fears.—Harry Rockhurst, stripling just hardening into manhood, keeping some of his boy graciousness in the virility of the newer stage, sunburnt, vigorous; with brown curls tossed back from a broad forehead, and brilliant hazel eyes, keen and bold of vision, as should be those of the noted follower of hounds and hawk: by his side, as tall nearly as her cavalier, Diana Harcourt, the young widow, radiant with the sun on her auburn hair! As her lover spoke to her, she listened, not unwillingly, and her glance rested on his face with pleasure. Yet there was something well-nigh maternal in this complacence which might have bidden him pause. “Diana,” the boy cried passionately, “you must hear me; I will speak.” She moved a pace from him and, sitting down on the bench, drew a hanging branch of wild rose to the wild rose of her cheek. “The last of my country flowers,” she murmured. “Stay,” he exclaimed. “Let me pluck you a posy!” High over their unconscious heads, Lionel Ratcliffe, peering cautiously over the balustrade, had a sneer for the childish eagerness. But Diana took the flowers with a simple grace. “Thank you, and thank you.… Nay, how sweet they are! And to think that to-morrow evening we shall be so far away. ’Tis hard to leave the garden for the town.” * * * * * (“Mark you, now,” whispered Ratcliffe overhead, nipping Hare by the arm, “and take a lesson in Dan Cupid’s ways. ’Twill be: ‘Think of me, and do not forget me!’ And a prate of hopes, and a whisper of pledges. And then the word will hop out like a hot coal, Love! and their little world will be all ablaze—And ’twill be Love … Love … Love, and everything lost if some one be not at hand to spray cold water at the right moment.” “The garden can?” suggests the practical Ned, in a mouthing undertone. “Hush! lad,” murmured the other, “hast yet to learn metaphor. Nay—hark! Not a breath, on thy life.”) * * * * * “I shall dream, I think, of the gardens of Rockhurst,” Diana was saying. “The gardens?” echoed Harry. He was leaning against the wall, by the bench, looking down at her, bending close. “Gardens? Is that all you regret, Mistress Harcourt?”