Ida looked round her wonderingly, feeling as if she was in a dream. Dr. Rylance had disappeared. Urania was smiling at her sweetly, more sweetly than it was her wont to smile at Ida Palliser. 'One would think she knew that I had refused her father,' mused Ida. They all climbed the hill, the children talking perpetually, Ida unusually silent. The smoke of a gipsy fire was going up from a hollow near the Druid altar, and two figures were standing beside the altar; one, a young man, with his arm resting on the granite slab, and his head bent as he talked, with seeming earnestness, to Bessie Wendover. He turned as the crowd approached, and Bessie introduced him to Miss Palliser. 'My cousin Brian--my dearest friend Ida,' she said. 'She is desperately fond of the Abbey,' said Blanche; 'so I hope she will like you. "Love me, love my dog," says the proverb, so I suppose one might say, "Love my house, love me."' Ida stood silent amidst her loquacious friends, looking at the stranger with a touch of wonder. No, this was not the image which she had pictured to herself. Mr. Wendover was very good-looking--interesting even; he had the kind of face which women call nice--a pale complexion, dreamy gray eyes, thin lips, a well-shaped nose, a fairly intellectual forehead. But the Brian of her fancies was a man of firmer mould, larger features, a more resolute air, an eye with more fire, a brow marked by stronger lines. For some unknown reason she had fancied the master of the Abbey like that Sir Tristram Wendover who had been so loyal a subject and so brave a soldier, and before whose portrait she had so often lingered in dreamy contemplation. 'And you have really come all the way from Norway to be at Bessie's picnic?' she faltered at last, feeling that she was expected to say something. 'I would have come a longer distance for the sake of such a pleasant meeting,' he answered, smiling at her. 'Bessie,' cried Blanche, who had been grovelling on her knees before the gipsy fire, 'the kettle will go off the boil if you don't make tea instantly. If it were not your birthday I should make it myself.' 'You may,' said Bessie, 'although it is my birthday.' She had walked a little way apart with Urania, and they two were talking somewhat earnestly. 'Those girls seem to be plotting something,' said Reginald; 'a charade for to-night, perhaps. It's sure to be stupid if Urania's in it.' 'You mean that it will be too clever,' said Horatio. 'Yes, that kind of cleverness which is the essence of stupidity.' While Bessie and Miss Rylance conversed apart, and all the younger Wendovers devoted their energies to the preparation of a tremendous meal, Ida and Brian Wendover stood face to face upon the breezy hill-top, the girl sorely embarrassed, the young man gazing at her as if he had never seen anything so lovely in his life.