Beneath me lie the gardens, a mass of glowing color, while far beyond them as the eye can reach stretches the wood in all its green and bronze and brown-tinged glory. Upon the right spreads the park soft and verdant. Below me the gayly-robed guests pass ceaselessly to and fro, and the sound of their rippling laughter climbs up the old ivy-covered walls and enters the window where I stand. "Oh, how lovely it is?" I cry, delightedly. "Oh, I am so glad I came! How far away they all appear, and how small!" Marmaduke is watching me with open content: he never seems to tire of my many raptures. Suddenly I lean forward and, with flushed cheeks, follow the movement of one of the guests, who hitherto has been unnoticed by me. "Surely--surely," I cry, with considerable excitement, "that is Sir Mark Gore." Marmaduke stares. "Sir Mark is here," he says. "Do you know him?" "Of course I do," I answer, gayly, craning my neck farther out of the window, the better to watch my new-old acquaintance; "that is, a little. What a handsome man he is! How odd he should be here to-day!" "I don't see the oddness of it," rather coldly. "I have known him intimately for many years. How did you become acquainted with him, Phyllis?" "Oh," I say, laughing, "our first meeting was a very romantic affair--almost as romantic as my second interview with you." I say this with a glance half shy, half merry; but Mr. Carrington does not seem as much alive to my drollery as usual. "Billy and I had ridden into Carston--I on the old white pony, you know--and just as we came to the middle of the High street, Madge shied at a dead sheep, my saddle turned, and but for Sir Mark Gore, who happened to be passing at the moment, I would certainly have fallen off. He rushed to the rescue, caught me in his arms, and deposited me safely on the ground. Was it not near being a tragedy? Afterwards he was even condescending enough to tighten the girths himself, though Billy was well able, and to speed us on our homeward journey. Was it not well he was there?" "Very well, indeed. And was that all you saw of him?" "Oh, dear, no; we became great friends after that. I found him wonderfully good-natured and kind." As I speak I am ignorant of the fact that Sir Mark has the reputation of being the fastest man about town. "I have no doubt you did," says my betrothed, sarcastically. "And where did you meet him again?" "At a bazaar, a week later. He got Mrs. Leslie, with whom he was staying, to introduce him to me. And then he called with the Leslies, and I think took a fancy to Dora, as he was continually coming to Summerleas after that. Not that he ever came to the point, you know; he did not propose to her or that; which disappointed us all very much, as Mrs. Leslie told mamma he was enormously rich and a good match." "You seem to think a great deal of a good match," says Marmaduke, very bitterly. "Are you so extremely fond of money?"