"Still, it must needs be with a man if you fall in love at all," said her uncle, seating himself on the stone seat beside her, "and there is something I want to say on this matter, Barbara. It is well that you should have seen something of the town, but it is not a good place in which to judge men." "And around Aylingford I know of no men worth troubling about," said Barbara, "so it would seem that I am on the high road to dying a spinster." "Never was woman more unlikely to do that than you," answered Sir John. "When a young girl talks like that, an old campaigner like myself begins to wonder in which direction her heart has fluttered. No woman ever yet regarded being a spinster with complacency, and few women jest about it unless they are satisfied there is no danger. Is there a confession to be made, Barbara?" "None. Except for you and Martin Fairley, all men are--well, just men, and of little interest to me. It is certain I cannot marry my uncle, and I am not likely to fall in love with Martin, am I? By the way, where is Martin? I have not seen him since I returned to the Abbey." "I met him just a week ago, here on the terrace, with his fiddle under his arm. He was starting to tramp to the other end of the county, he told me, to play at a village wedding." "Poor Martin!" said the girl. "Mad Martin, rather," said Sir John; "and yet not so mad that he has not had a certain effect upon us all, and upon you most of all. Ever since you were a child he has been your willing slave, and he has taught you many things out of that strange brain of his. I sometimes fancy that he has made you look upon life differently from the way in which most women look upon it, has filled it with more romance than it can hold, and taken out of it much that is real." "In fact, made me as mad as he is," laughed Barbara. "I am not jesting," Sir John said gravely. "You have come back to the Abbey a woman. You are more beautiful than I thought you were. You have made something of a sensation. You say you have no confession to make." "That I have no confession to make is true, and for the other items I am glad I please you." "But you do not please me," returned Sir John. "I should have been more gratified had you made a confession. I have no son, Barbara." She put her hand upon his arm in a quick caress, full of sympathy, knowing how sore a trouble this was to him. "So you see my interests are centred in you," he went on after a moment's pause which served to intensify the meaning in his words. "One of those interests--indeed, the chiefest of them--is your marriage. It must be a wise marriage, Barbara, one worthy of a Lanison. Have you never thought of it at all?" "Never, definitely." "And yet it is time." "Yesterday I was a child," she answered, her eyes looking towards the distant hills. A pair of grey eyes seemed to be watching her.