"Oh, please do not say that!" I cry, dismayed: "you must not keep it as a specimen of my handiwork. Once properly washed, you will forget all about it: but if you keep it before your eyes in its present state--- Mr. Carrington, _do_ put it in your clothes-basket the moment you go home." He only laughs at this pathetic entreaty, and throws a pebble into the tiny river that runs at our feet. "Why are you alone?" he asks, presently. "Why is not the indefatigable Billy with you?" "He reads with a tutor three times a week. That leaves me very often lonely. I came here to-day just to pass the time until he can join me. He don't seem to care much about Greek and Latin," I admit, ingenuously; "and, as he never looks at his lessons until five minutes before Mr. Caldwood comes, you see he don't get over them very quickly." "And so leaves you disconsolate longer than he need. Your sister, Miss Vernon--does she never go for a walk with you?" Ah! now he is coming to Dora. "Dora? Oh, never. She is not fond of walking; it does not agree with her, she says. You may have noticed she is not very robust, she looks so fragile, so different from _me_ in every respect." "Very different." "Yes, we all see that," I answer, rather disconcerted by his ready acquiescence in this home view. "And so pretty as she is, too! Don't you think her very pretty, Mr. Carrington?" "Extremely so. Even more than merely pretty. Her complexion, I take it, must be quite unrivaled. She is positively lovely--in her own style." "I am very glad you admire her; but indeed you would be singular if you did not do so," I say, with enthusiasm. "Her golden hair and blue eyes make her quite a picture. _I_ think she has the prettiest face I ever saw: don't you?" "No; not the prettiest. I know another that, to me at least, is far more beautiful." He is looking straight before him, apparently at nothing, and to my attentive ear there is something hidden in his tone that renders me uneasy for the brilliant future I have mapped out for my sister. "You have been so much in the world," I say, with some dejection, "and of course in London and Paris and all the large cities one sees many charming faces from time to time. I should have remembered that. I suppose, away from this little village, Dora's face would be but one in a crowd." "It was not in London or Paris, or any large city I saw the face of which I speak. It was in a neighborhood as small--yes, _quite_ as small as this. The owner of it was a mere child--a little country-girl, knowing nothing of the busy world outside her home, but I shall never again see any one so altogether sweet and lovable." "What was she like?" I ask, curiously. I am not so uneasy as I was. If only a child she cannot, of course, interfere with Dora. "Describe her to me?"