There was an indescribable expression on her countenance as she sat awaiting his answer--keen anxiety, ill-concealed under an air of pretended artlessness. "Vaga!" It was not he who pronounced her name; though "Vaga," with "Powell" adjoined, were the words nearest to his lips. She would have given the world to hear him speak them. But it could not be then. Her sister had called to her, at that moment approaching with Sir Richard. Most ill-timed approach, for it interrupted a dialogue which, allowed to continue, might, and likely would, have ended in declarations of love-- confessions full and mutual. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. "DEAR LITTLE MER." "Turn and turn, sister," said Sabrina, as she rode up. "You've had sport enough with your great eagles. Suppose we go up to the hill, and give my dear little Mer a cast-off?" "Dear little Mer" was a merlin, that sate perched on her left wrist, in size to the peregrines as a bantam cock to the biggest of chanticleers. Withal a true falcon, and game as the gamest of them. Why its mistress proposed changing the scene of their sport was that no larks nor buntings--the merlin's special quarry--were to be met with by the marsh. Their habitat was higher up on the ridge, where there was a tract bare of trees--part pasture, part fallow. To her sister's very reasonable request Vaga did not give the readiest assent. The petted young lady looked, and likely felt, some little vexed at her _tete-a-tete_ with Eustace Trevor having been so abruptly brought to an end. It had promised to make that spot--amid reeds and rushes though it was--hallowed to her, as another on the summit of a certain hill, among hazels and hollies, had been made to her sister. Whatever her thoughts, she showed reluctance to leave the low ground, saying in rejoinder,-- "Oh! certainly, Sab. But won't you wait till the dogs have finished beating the sedge?" "If you wish it, of course. But you don't expect them to find another heron?" "No; but there may be a widgeon or wild duck. After such an easy victory, I'm sure my pers would like to have another flight. See how they chafe at their hoods and pull upon the jesses! Ah, my beauties! you want to hear the _hooha-ha-ha-ha_ again--that do you." "Oh! let them, then," said the more compliant Sabrina, "if the dogs put up anything worth flying them at; which I doubt their doing. We've made too much noise for that." The conjecture of the sage sister proved correct. For the marsh, quartered to its remotest corners, yielded neither widgeons nor wild ducks; only moor-hens and water-rails--quarry too contemptible to fly the great falcons at. "Now," said Sabrina, "I suppose you'll consent to the climbing?" Her motto might have been _Excelsior_; she seemed always urging an uphill movement.