"Oh, forgive me! Know then that hitherto everybody I have met in this place has greeted me by an expression of surprise at my resemblance to one Geoffrey Wornock--happily now absent with his regiment in the East. Nobody has taken any interest in me except on the score of this likeness to the absent Wornock. My face has been criticized, my features descanted upon one by one in my hearing. I have been informed that it is in this or that feature, in this or that expression, the likeness consists, while I naturally don't care twopence about the likeness, or about Wornock. And to meet some one who doesn't know my double, who will accept me for what I am individually!--oh, Miss Vincent, we ought to be friends. Say that we may be friends." "Please don't rush on in such a headlong fashion. You talk like the girls at the convent, who wanted me to swear eternal friendship in the first half-hour; and perhaps turned out to be very disagreeable girls when one came to know them." "I hope I shall not turn out disagreeable." "I did not mean to be rude; but friendship is a serious thing. At present I have no friend except father, and two girls with whom I have kept up a correspondence since I left the Sacré Cœur. One lives at Bournemouth and the other in Paris, so our friendship is dependent on the post. I think we ought to go back to the dancing-room now. I have to report myself to Mrs. Fordingbridge, and not to keep her later than she may wish to stay." Allan felt that he had been talking like a fool; that he had presumed on the young lady's unconventional manner. She had talked to him brightly and unrestrainedly; and he had been pushing and impertinent. The moonlight, the garden, the pleasure of talking to a bright vivacious girl had made him forget the respect due to the acquaintance of an hour. He was silent on the way back to the ballroom, silent and abashed; but five minutes afterwards he was waltzing with Suzette, who was assuredly the best waltzer of all that evening's partners, and he felt that he was treading on air. CHAPTER VII. "O THE RARE SPRING-TIME!" Allan called at the Grove two days after the dance--called at the friendly hour when there was a certainty of afternoon tea, if Mrs. Mornington were at home; and when he thought it likely that Miss Vincent would be with her aunt. "She will almost live at the Grove," he thought, as he walked towards that comfortable mansion, which was nearly a mile from Beechhurst. "Marsh House is so near. There is a path across the meadows by which she can walk in dry weather. A girl living alone with her father will naturally turn to her aunt for companionship, will take counsel with her upon all household affairs, and will run in and out every day."