Ay, you may well stare. It sounds strange, but it is true, that the poor forlorn horseman, hanging like a broken man, as he was, over his tired horse, and wending his solitary way from her he loved, and resigning the field, like a goose, to the very rival he feared, did yet (like the retiring Parthian) shoot an arrow right into that pretty boudoir and hit both his sweetheart and his rival,--hit them hard enough to spoil their sport, and make a little mischief between them--for that afternoon, at all events. The arrow came into the room after this fashion. Kate was sitting in a very feminine attitude. When a man wants to look in any direction, he turns his body and his eye the same way, and does it; but women love to cast oblique regards; and this their instinct is a fruitful source of their graceful and characteristic postures. Kate Peyton was at this moment a statue of her sex. Her fair head leaned gently back against the corner of the window-shutter; her pretty feet and fair person in general were opposite George Neville, who sat facing the window, but in the middle of the room; her arms, half pendent, half extended, went listlessly aslant her, and somewhat to the right of her knees, yet, by an exquisite turn of the neck, her gray eyes contrived to be looking dreamily out of the window to her left. Still in this figure, that pointed one way and looked another, there was no distortion; all was easy, and full of that subtile grace we artists call repose. But suddenly she dissolved this feminine attitude, rose to her feet, and interrupted her wooer civilly. "Excuse me," said she, "but can you tell me which way that road on the hill leads to?" Her companion stared a little at so sudden a turn in the conversation, but replied by asking her, with perfect good-humor, what road she meant. "The one _that gentleman on horseback has just taken_. Surely," she continued, "that road does not take to Bolton Hall." "Certainly not," said George, following the direction of her finger. "Bolton lies to the right. That road takes to the sea-coast by Otterbury and Stanhope." "I thought so," said Kate. "How unfortunate! He cannot know; but, indeed, how should he?" "Who cannot know? and what? You speak in riddles, Mistress. And how pale you are! Are you ill?" "No, not ill, Sir," faltered Kate; "but you see me much discomposed. My cousin Charlton died this day; and the news met me at the very door." She could say no more. Mr. Neville, on hearing this news, began to make many excuses for having inadvertently intruded himself upon her on such a day; but, in the midst of his apologies, she suddenly looked him full in the face, and said, with nervous abruptness,-- "You _talk_ like a _preux chevalier_. I wonder whether you would ride five or six miles to do me a service." "Ay, a thousand!" said the young man, glowing with pleasure. "What is to do?" Kate pointed through the window.