'I can remember nothing when you talk so wildly,' said Ida, crimson to the roots of her hair. Never before had a young lover talked to her of love. 'Pray let me go. Miss Pew will be angry if I am not at tea.' 'To think that such a creature as you should be under the control of any such harpy,' exclaimed Brian. 'Well, if I must go, at least tell me I am forgiven, and that I may exist upon the hope of seeing you again. I suppose if I were to come to the hall-door, and send in my card, I should not be allowed to see you?' 'Certainly not. Not if you were my own cousin instead of Bessie's. Good-bye.' 'Then I shall happen to be going by in my boat every afternoon for the next month or so. There is a dear good soul at the lock who lets lodgings. I shall take up my abode there.' 'Please never land on this pathway again,' said Ida earnestly 'Miss Pew would be horribly angry if she heard I had spoken to you. And now I must go.' She withdrew her hand from his grasp, and ran off across the meadow, light-footed as Atalanta. Her heart was beating wildly, beating furiously, when she flew up to her room to take off her hat and jacket and smooth her disordered hair. Never before had any man, except middle-aged Dr. Rylance, talked to her of love: and that this man of all others, this man, sole master of the old mansion she so intensely admired, her friend's kinsman, owner of a good old Saxon name; this man, who could lift her in a moment from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to place and station; that this man should look at her with admiring eyes, and breathe impassioned words into her ear, was enough to set her heart beating tumultuously, to bring hot blushes to her cheeks. It was too wild a dream. True, that for the man himself, considered apart from his belongings, his name and race, she cared not at all. But just now, in this tumult of excited feeling, she was disposed to confuse the man with his surroundings--to think of him, not as that young man with gray eyes and thin lips, who had walked with her at The Knoll, who had stood beside her just now by the river, but as the living embodiment of fortune, pride, delight. Perhaps the vision really dominant in her mind was the thought of herself as mistress of the Abbey, herself as living for ever among the people she loved, amidst those breezy Hampshire hills, in the odour of pine-woods--rich, important, honoured, and beloved, doing good to all who came within the limit of her life. Yes, that was a glorious vision, and its reflected light shone upon Brian Wendover, and in somewise glorified him. She went down to tea with such a triumphant light in her eyes that the smaller pupils who sat at her end of the table, so as to be under her _surveillance_ during the meal, exclaimed at her beauty. 'What a colour you've got, Miss Palliser!' said Lucy Dobbs, 'and how your eyes sparkle! You look as if you'd just had a hamper.'