"I assure you that he is very gentle; but he is permitting himself to be too free, and very few young ladies would, like you, have seen such an animal approach them without betraying signs of alarm, and all that sort of thing. Get up sir!" "Oh, please don't," said Sybil holding out an ungloved and very pretty hand, deprecatingly, between the dog and the young man's uplifted cane; "all dogs, and even cats, like me." "Thereby acknowledging your power--eh?" responded the stranger, looking down admiringly into the soft, bright, earnest face, and clear dark eyes that were turned upward to his own. "I don't know what you mean by my power," said Sybil, with simplicity; "but, as most people like me, why should not dogs--and--and this is such a splendid fellow!' "I have brought him from a very distant country--he was the farewell gift of a friend who died, otherwise," he added, gallantly, "I should beg your acceptance of him." Sybil now coloured more deeply, and became uneasy; but the stranger resumed in his most suave tone,-- "And you have been sketching this pretty little lake--like me? Our tastes and occupation are quite similar!" Sybil had closed her book of sketches. "Will you not do me the favour to----" "Show you my poor production--do you mean, sir?" "Yes." "But you may be an artist, and a well-skilled one." "And what then?" "I should blush for my work." "Nay. Well, then, I am not an artist, but merely an amateur--an officer on leave; yet I am fond of using my pencil, and have the regimental reputation of doing so with pretty good success." Sybil thought of her brother Denzil--he too was an officer; poor Denzil, now so far, far away--and she gave her new acquaintance a half shy and half doubtful glance, that served to charm him very much, and then showed her sketch, which he praised warmly, as by good breeding and in duty bound. It was doubtless cleverly done, but his eye wandered to the rare and delicate beauty of the little hand that had achieved it. Her sketch, however, was inferior to his own, which he now produced, with Sybil's own figure seated on the camp-stool introduced in the middle distance, so as to give the exact proportion of the great rock-pillar. "Oh, sir," she exclaimed, "you have me in your sketch, as well as the big stone." "Could I omit the most pleasing feature in my little landscape?" Sybil coloured again, for her education, and the peculiar mode in which she had been reared, made her, at times, shy and reserved; she knew not why, for to be so was not her natural character, which was rather candid, frank, and free; so, to change the subject from herself, she hastened to turn over the leaves of the stranger's sketch-book, wherein were many drawings full of spirit and interest.