‘Not a bad afternoon for a ramble on yonder moor,’ said Gerard, standing in the bay window, looking out at the landscape. ‘Would you have the courage to be my pioneer, Miss Clare?’ Celia looked at her brother interrogatively. ‘I’m not in the humour for any more scribbling to-day,’ said Edward, ‘so perhaps a good long walk would be the easiest way of getting rid of the afternoon. Put on your waterproof and clump soles, Celia, and show us the way.’ Celia ran off, delighted at the opportunity. A moorland ramble with a conversable young man was at least a novelty. In the hall the damsel met her mother, and, in a sudden overflow of spirits, stopped to give her a filial hug. ‘Let us have something nice for dinner, mother dear,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s his last evening.’ The tone of the request inspired Mrs. Clare with vague fears. A girl could hardly have said more had the visitor been her plighted lover. ‘What an idea!’ she exclaimed good-humouredly. ‘Of course I shall do the best I can, but Monday is such an awkward day.’ ‘Of course, dear. We all know that, but don’t let it be quite a Monday dinner,’ urged Celia. ‘As for that young man, I don’t believe he knows what he is eating.’ ‘Heaven forbid that he should be like my father, and his dinner the most important event in his day!’ retorted Celia, whereat Mrs. Clare murmured mildly,-- ‘My love, your father has a very peculiar constitution. There are things which he can eat, and things which he cannot eat.’ ‘Of course, you dear deluded _mater_. Cold mutton is poisonous to his constitution; but I never heard of his being the worse for truffled turkey.’ And then Celia skipped off to attire herself, not unbecomingly, in a dark gray ulster, and the most impertinent of billycock hats. The ramble on the moor was a success. Edward held himself aloof, and smoked his cigar in gloomy silence, but the two others were as merry as a brace of schoolboys taking a stolen holiday. They clambered the steepest paths, crossed the wildest bits of hill and hollow, narrowly escaped coming to grief in boggy ground, and laughed and talked with inexhaustible spirits all the time. George Gerard hardly knew himself, and was struck with wonder at finding that life could be so pleasant. The wintry air was fresh and clear, the wind whistled gaily over the vast sweep of undulating turf and heather. Just at sunset there came a flood of yellow light over the low western sky; a farewell smile from a sun that had hidden himself all day. ‘Good gracious!’ cried Celia, ‘we shall barely have time to scamper home to dinner; and if there is one thing that irritates papa more than another, it is to wait five minutes for his dinner. He never waits more than five minutes. If he did, I believe lunacy would ensue before the tenth. You ought not to have led me astray so far, Mr. Gerard.’