“I don’t like her best,” said Edgar. “I don’t like anybody best, except you. When you marry, then perhaps it will be time to think of it; but in the meantime I am very happy. I think, Clare, you should let well alone.” “But it is not well,” said Clare, with her usual energy. And then she added, under her breath, “Arthur Arden is your heir-presumptive. He will be the one who will be looked up to; and if you don’t marry soon, people will think--Edgar, you had much better make up your mind.” This was said very rapidly, and with great earnestness. Was it a last attempt to stand by her brother, and resist the influence of the other, who, whether visibly or not, was her brother’s antagonist? Edgar turned round upon her with tranquil wonder, entirely unmoved. She was excited, but he was calm. Arthur’s pretensions, it was evident, were nothing to him. “Well?” he said. “Of course Arthur Arden is my heir; and probably he would make a much better Squire than I. The only thing for which I have a grudge at him is that he is like you. I confess I detest him for that. He may have my land when his time comes and I am out of the way; but I don’t like him to be nearer than I am to my sister. He is an Arden, like you.” “He _is_ like the old Ardens,” said Clare, with a faint smile; and then the conversation dropped. She did not care to prolong it. They went across the cheerful country, still in the glory of the fresh foliage. The blossoms were beginning to fall, the first flush of spring verdure was past, but still the road was pleasant and the morning fine. Whether it was that Clare found enough to occupy her thoughts, or that she did not wish to disclose the confused state of feeling in which she was, it would be difficult to say; but, at all events, she gave up the talk, which it was her wont to lead and direct. And Edgar, left to himself, ran over his recent experiences, and, for almost the first time since he had seen her, thought of Gussy Thornleigh. She was very “nice;” she was a very different person to have at your elbow from that pretty Alice Pimpernell, whom Clare held in such needless terror. If a man could secure such a companion--so amusing, so pretty, so full of brightness, would not he be a lucky man? Edgar let this question skim through his mind, with that sense of pleasant exhilaration which moves a young man who is sensible of the possibility of power in himself, the privilege of making choice, before any real love has come in to change the balance of feeling. He had not been made subject by Gussy, had not set his heart on her, nor transferred to her the potential voice; and it half amused, half disturbed him to think that he probably might, if he chose, have for the asking that prettiest, liveliest, charming little creature. He did not enter so deeply into the question as to realize that it was his position, his wealth, his name, and not himself which she would be sure to marry.