She was quite a sister of charity, Mary Montgomerie, in that part of the country, and sometimes Cecil drove her pony-carriage on her missions--a tiny basket carriage, full of gifts for the poor, all of which were bestowed upon them in a friendly rather than a charitable way by the softly-eyed chatelaine of Eaglescraig, who loved to cultivate thus a link, a bond, between the cottage and the great house; and Falconer, no doubt to please her, never forgot the various relationships and names of the recipients of her bounty, and contrived to have always for each man or woman a packet of that peculiar tobacco which they specially affected; thus he too became a favourite with them all. He never forgot the joy of these little drives, in the deep old lanes of Cunninghame, with such a companion as Mary Montgomerie, nestled together in the tiny pony-carriage, covered by the ample skin of a dreadful man-eater, whom the general's gun had brought down in the swampy Terrai of Nepaul, and the inevitable Snarley coiled up at her pretty feet; drives in the clear, frosty winter afternoons, when the skies were blue and bright, or flecked by golden cloud, when the distant hills were capped with snow, and the smoke of the steamers in the Firth of Clyde towered straight upward till lost in the pure and ambient air. Already they felt quite like old friends, these two; they had a thousand topics and views in common, and they became perfectly unconstrained, familiar, and easy with each other--familiar with a rapidity that surprised themselves. Little by little Mary wound her way quickly round the heart of Cecil Falconer; but dread of her relations with Hew Montgomerie tied up the tongue of the former more than even the crushing knowledge of his own meagre exchequer did. She soon discovered that sentiment which every young officer possesses--a pride in his regiment, and drew him out to talk enthusiastically of its achievements and ancient history, and watched with pleasure his animated face while he expatiated on a topic so congenial; though, to her, in reality, the glories of Her Majesty's Cameronians had been rendered long ago a worn-out household theme by Sir Piers. When Cecil touched her hand, ever so gently, she felt every nerve in her body thrill with that exquisite sensibility which was a part of her nature. She saw how his colour changed at times, and _he_ saw how hers did so too; she felt in her own heart the hesitation that was in _his_ voice, and, with the quick perception of a young girl, thought to herself: 'Can it be that--that he loves me--loves me, and yet dare not say so?' and then she would think of the sweet love song of Montrose, about one who 'feared his fate too much.'