"I think, Mrs. Churchill," said Mr. Rutledge, standing at the open door of the carriage, "that perhaps you had better make a place for this young lady inside. She is not very strong as yet, I fancy, and the evening air"---- "Oh! pray," I exclaimed, shrinking back, "let me go in the open carriage. I hate a close carriage--it always makes my head ache." "There's not the least dampness in the air to-night," urged Mr. Viennet, and meeting with no further opposition, I turned to the open carriage, and at a whispered suggestion from him, mounted up upon the front seat. He sprang up beside me, and taking the reins from Michael, who, bowing delightedly, had been saying, "Welcome back, Miss," ever since the train stopped, we only waited for Grace and Ellerton Wynkar to get in, before we started off at a round pace, leaving the carriage and the captain, and Mr. Rutledge, who was on horseback, far behind. It was a lovely evening. The fields and woods were in their freshest green; everything, from the grass by the roadside to the waving forest trees, looked as they never can look after June. The dust of summer, and its parching heat, had not yet soiled and shrivelled the smallest leaf or blade; but fresh from the warm spring rains, and the pleasant spring sunshine, they budded and shone as if there were no such thing as scorching summer heats, and choking dust, and parching thirst, to come. The sky--fit sky to bend over such an earth--was of the clearest blue, and the few clouds that hung around the setting sun were light and fleecy, tinged with rose and tipped with gold. The soft breeze, coming out of the west over fields of clover and acacias in bloom, and lilac hedges, and cottage gardens full of early flowers, and cottage porches covered with blowing roses and climbing honeysuckles, steeped the listening senses with a sort of silent ecstasy, that made commonplace conversation a profanation of the hour. Why _would_ Grace and her companion keep up such a constant chattering. It was unbearable; and when Ellerton, leaning forward, offered Victor his cigar-case, the latter, with a quick gesture of impatience, exclaimed: "Ah! _merci_, not to-night. It's too nice an evening, my good friend, to be spoiled with such perfumes. The young ladies like roses better than cigars, I fancy." And Ellerton, who reverenced Victor as a high authority on all social questions, quietly put away his cigar-case, and said no more about it.