"Oh, dear," groaned Bessie; "this is a punishment to me for judging too quickly. To think I had the opportunity for the first time in my life of talking to a hero, and that I called him stupid! This is a case of entertaining angels unawares. But if one could only know they were angels." Edna only laughed at this; but Bessie found food for uncomfortable reflection all the way home. The rain had ceased at last, but not before Edna had grown secretly conscious of the lateness of the hour. It was nearly seven before the weather allowed them to start, and for the last half hour she had stood at the window quite oblivious of Captain Grant's entreaties that she would make herself comfortable, and evidently deaf to his unmeaning compliments for she answered absently, and with a manner that showed that she was ill at ease. The moment the rain ceased, she asked him peremptorily to order her pony-chaise round. "Mamma will be getting anxious at this long delay," she said, so gravely that Captain Grant dare not disobey her. "You will come over next Saturday and see our match with the Hussars," he pleaded, as she gathered up the reins. "Perhaps; but I will not promise," she returned, with a nod and a smile. "Oh, dear; how tiresome these last two hours have been. You have not enjoyed yourself a bit. Bessie. I am so sorry!" "Oh, never mind." returned Bessie wearily, and then they had both been silent. Neither was in the mood to enjoy the delicious freshness of the evening; that clear shining after the rain that is so indescribable, the wet, gleaming hedges, the little sparkling pools, the vivid green of the meadows; for Edna was feeling the reaction after her excitement; and Bessie, tired out with conflicting feelings was thinking regretfully of her unsatisfactory conversation with Captain Broughton. "It serves me right, after all," she thought penitently. "Father always says that we ought to take trouble to please even the most commonplace, uninteresting person, not to let ourselves be bored by anyone, however uncongenial they may be, and of course he is right. I was just fidgeting about the weather, and how we were to get home, and so I did not try to be entertaining." And here Bessie made a mental resolution to be more charitable in her estimate of people. She had no idea that Captain Broughton had said to himself as he left her, "Nice little girl, no nonsense about her; not a bad sort, after the women one sees; can talk to a man without looking for a compliment; like her better than Miss Sefton."