The Dell was one of those picturesque cottages which all of us have, at some time or other in our lives, had a hankering after. It stood in a hollow, shaded by some beautiful trees, and in a garden which was literally ablaze with crocuses and hyacinths, and the spring flowers which Wordsworth--and Lord Beaconsfield--so dearly loved. The roof was of thatch, the windows diamond-paned, and the whole place as choice a specimen of a country cottage as ever shone on painter’s canvas. Olivia glanced at it for a moment, then turned aside to follow a lane opposite the gate, when a voice called in accents of delighted greeting: “Miss Vanley! Olivia!” and a young fellow sprang over a stile and ran toward her. He was young, not more than twenty, with bright blue eyes, and hair--too short to allow it to curl--of a bright golden yellow. When he smiled--as he was doing now--his whole face, eyes, lips, and even his slight yellow mustache, seemed to smile, and his voice rang out soft and musical almost as a girl’s. This was Viscount Granville, the Earl of Carfield’s son and heir, though Bertie and the Cherub were his usual appellations, bestowed on him by a vast circle of friends and admirers of both sexes, who did their level best to spoil one of the sweetest natures which Heaven had ever bestowed upon a lad. Olivia went to meet him with a smile which Mr. Bartley Bradstone would have given a thousand pounds to have called up. “Why, Bertie!” she exclaimed. “I’m the luckiest beggar in the world,” he said, laughingly, as he wrung her hand in his own ridiculously small one. “Do you know I was going up to the Grange; but I just stepped into the wood to see if I could find an anemone or two--I know you like them--and I saw the dogs. Now, fancy my meeting you, and having you all to myself to walk up to the Grange with! But perhaps you weren’t going back? If not, let me come with you, will you?” “I’m not going anywhere in particular,” said Olivia, still smiling at the fair, girlishly boyish face. “I’ll go back. Why, what a time it is since I saw you!” “Isn’t it! Isn’t it!” he responded, letting go her hand reluctantly, and taking his hat off his forehead, which was the only part of his face untanned. “I am so glad to come back. Yes, two years; seems like twenty. Have I got very gray? Now, be candid, Olivia--I mean Miss Vanley,” he corrected himself, with a blush. “Why Miss Vanley?” said Olivia, blushing too, but looking at him with her frank eyes in a sisterly way that was inexpressibly sweet. “Well,” he said, raising his eyes to her face, “you--you have altered so, you know.” “Is that a polite way of informing me that I am gray?” said Olivia, archly. “You--you have grown such a woman,” he said, his blue eyes all aglow with admiring wonder. “You were quite a girl when I left; at least, I seem to remember. And now”--the pause was as significant as any verbal finale could be--“I suppose I must mind my manners, and call you Miss Vanley?”