“Why does not Miss Trevor play croquet?” St. Clair said. “I have been playing; but it is prettier to look on,” said Lucy; “and I am not at all good. I have never been good at any game.” “You are quite good enough for me, Miss Trevor,” said Ray. “I never can get on with your fine players, who expect you to study it; now Walford does study it. He gets up in the morning and practices.” “Mr. Walford is a clergyman, it is part of his duty,” said St. Clair. “A layman has a great many exemptions. He may wear colored ties, and he need not play croquet--unless he likes.” Now Raymond had a blue tie, which was generally considered very becoming to him. “Do you remember the day we had at the old abbey?” said Ray. “I wonder if we could do that again this season. It was very jolly. Don’t you think we might try it again, Miss Trevor? The ruins are all covered with that red stuff that looks so nice in the autumn; and I hear Mayflower is all right again this morning. I went to the stable to ask. I thought as sure as fate she had got a strain; I had a long talk with Simpson about her.” “It was very kind of you, Mr. Rushton.” “Oh, not at all kind--but you can’t think I should not be interested in Mayflower. If she did not carry you so nicely even, she’s a beauty in herself. And she does carry you beautifully--or rather it’s you, Miss Trevor, that--” “Yes,” said St. Clair, “that is how I would put it. It is you, Miss Trevor, who witch the world with such noble horsemanship that any animal becomes a beauty. That is the right way to put it.” “But there is no noble horsemanship in my case,” Lucy said with a smile. “Oh, come, I don’t know that,” cried Ray; “if it comes to circus tricks that wouldn’t answer for a lady; but there aren’t many better riders than you, Miss Trevor. You don’t make any show, but you sit your mare as if you were cut out of one piece, you and she.” “That is quite a poetical description,” St. Clair said. “Why am I only a pedestrian, while you two canter by? You cover me with dust, and my heart with ashes and bitterness when you pass me on the road. Why is one man carried along on the top of the wave, in the most desirable company, while another trudges along in the dust all by himself? Your ride opens all the problems of life, Miss Trevor, to the poor wretch you pass on the way.” Lucy looked at him wistfully. It was the look which Jock had described, and it moved St. Clair greatly, but yet he did not know what meaning was in her eyes. Mrs. Rushton saw it too, and it seemed to her that St. Clair was getting the best of it. She called to him suddenly, and he left his post with great reluctance. He had more to say than they had, he had more experience altogether; and it was not to subject the heiress to the seductions of Mrs. Stone’s nephew that Mrs. Rushton had asked him here.