Wilton took her down to dinner, with a sort of friendly glow pervading his manner, well calculated to deceive the object of his attentions. He was dimly aware that, after all his reasoning, all his struggles for self-control, his dominant idea was that if Miss Saville was not the rose, she lived with her. "I have never seen you since the coming of age at Brantwood; you have been out when I called, and in when I rode about in search of you--in short, you have scarce cast me a crumb of notice since my polyglot cousin has taken up the running and left me nowhere," said Wilton, under the general buzz of talk, while the chief butler whispered a confidential query as to whether he would have hock or champagne. "If you will not come in search of the crumbs, you cannot expect to get them," said Miss Saville, looking boldly into his eyes with a smile. "Mamma asked you to dinner the day after our return, but in vain." "Ah! that day I knew we were to hunt with the ----, and I feared I should not be able to reach Brosedale in time for dinner. Now, tell me, how is everyone? Your sister--I mean the school-room one--I see my opposite neighbor is flourishing. How is young Fergusson?" "Isabel has a cold; but Donald has been wonderfully well. I think we cheer him up! Benevolence seems to run in your family, Colonel Wilton. You set the example, and Mr. St. George Wilton followed it up. Now, we are so anxious to amuse Donald that we congregate on wet, stormy mornings or afternoons in his room, and try to draw--are fearfully snubbed by the young heir! and silently endured by his little companion, who is such a strange girl! By the way your cousin seems to have known some of her clique abroad. He says they were a dreadful set of communists and freethinkers." "Indeed," he returned carelessly, as he raised his glass to his lips and made a mental note of the information. "And, pray, how much longer do you intend to foster my delightful relative in the genial warmth of Brosedale?" "As long as he likes to stay; but he talks of leaving next week." "Ah! he finds it difficult to tear himself away?" "That I know nothing about. How long do you remain here?" "Till the day after to-morrow." "Then you had better dine with us on the twentieth. I know mamma intends to ask you. The Brantwood party are to be with us, and some people we met at Scarborough last autumn." "Of course I shall be most happy."