‘Of course I am not angry with _you_, you goose of a Fanchen?’ said Oliver with affectionate bluster. ‘How can you help Stanhope’s unconscionable coolness, which begins to be rank impudence? But why in the name of justice, should I blame you for his faults?’ enquired Oliver in all simplicity. ‘You are compelled to listen to his rigmarole in your own house, when I turn him over to you. I own I ought not to do it, to such an extent,’ admitted Oliver, contritely; ‘but the young wretch is so indefatigable in preying on our hospitality, and has acquired such a fatal fluency in airing his farming bosh, that I must have some relief, or knock him down. I often admire your powers of endurance, but don’t give the beggar too much line, Fan, if you love me. I am not sure, whether, after all, his class are the finest judges of courtesy.’ Fan had flushed crimson at her brother’s words. She knitted her delicate brows—black brows at the same time, and then as if she had thought better of it, her lips parted in a half-smile. ‘No, no; don’t speak treason either of me, or of another,’ she said; and then she added, a little incoherently, ‘I believe there is nobody so good and kind as you are, yourself, Oliver, in the whole world. Remember I have said so, though we quarrelled some time ago, and may quarrel again. Remember I have told you that you are always my own dear good boy, whom I have loved all through our lives, whom I love with all my heart at this moment, whom I could have served, if you would have let me,’ and Fan fairly hugged Oliver, who resisted stoutly in his mystification, with a dim apprehension that he might otherwise pledge himself to something he did not in the least understand. ‘What do you mean?’ cried Oliver. ‘Is Fan also among the wheedlers? For what mighty boon can she deign to wheedle?’ ‘Never mind, it is too late to ask me now—good night.’ Fan succeeded in making her retreat, and in the act of doing so, Oliver might have seen, if he had been quick at reading women’s faces, that all the soft relenting and indescribable yearning which had been in hers a moment ago, had vanished and was replaced by such unmingled exultation that the girl looked radiant. It was the last loving altercation which passed between the brother and sister for many a day. The next morning, Harry Stanhope wound up his offences against domestic privacy by re-appearing at Friarton Mill, as if he had slept at the gate, seeking admission to Oliver before the latter had completed his toilet. Only the most urgent business could warrant such pressing attendance. Harry himself, in his superb self-complacency and confidence, betrayed, nevertheless, a shadow of a doubt of his reception. ‘You will think I am always here, Constable?’ he said with a confused laugh.