“That Mr. Lowther has been saying something to annoy her,” thought Miss Grunderson; “and I hate him. What business has he to be always dancing attendance upon her instead of her husband? And now he’s not content with getting her talked about, so he must needs go and make her unhappy, poor darling.” Thus mused the meditative Rosa, while Roderick Lowther rowed her homeward over the placid water. The diplomatist’s fascinations were almost thrown away upon her during this brief journey from Richmond to the Cedars, although he had progressed so far in Miss Grunderson’s affections during a leisurely promenade on the terrace, that he had serious thoughts of calling on Grunderson _père_ within the week to make a formal offer for the young lady’s hand and fortune. “I have no idea of wasting my time and trouble upon the girl, to find myself thrown out at the last moment by the impracticable parent,” thought Roderick, as he shot through the water with that long deliberate stroke for which the Oxonians are celebrated. “I must know exactly where I am, before I devote myself to the plump Rosa. There must be no nonsense about settlements and so forth. I won’t have any legal brick wall and _chevaux de frise_ between me and my wife’s fortune. A man doesn’t quarter a cabbage with the arms of the oldest untitled family in Hampshire without getting well paid for the humiliation. I must understand what I’m going in for, when I propose to my charming Rosa.” Lionel Hillary was in the drawing-room when the water-party returned to the Cedars; but he accepted his daughter’s assurance that she was too tired and too ill to dine with him, and escorted her to her carriage as soon as it was ready for her. Maude was quite composed now, and there was no suspicion of the truth aroused in the merchant’s mind when he kissed her and bade her good-bye. “It was foolish of you to go on the water in the hottest part of the day, darling,” he said; “and I’m afraid you are going out a little too much in town; but the season will soon be over, and I suppose you will be leaving London.” Mrs. Tredethlyn murmured something unintelligible, and the barouche rolled away. She saw her father and the two Lowthers standing on the wide stone steps dimly through a mist, athwart which the group seemed only a confusion of familiar faces and dark garments; and then she found herself driving Londonwards through the still evening, with Julia by her side, and Rosa’s anxious face opposite to her.