The way from the kirk to Morphie house lay through the fields, past the home farm, and Lady Eliza stopped as she went by to inquire for the health of a young cart-horse which had lamed itself. Cecilia and Crauford waited for her at the gate of the farmyard. A string of ducks was waddling towards a ditch with that mixture of caution and buffoonery in their appearance which makes them irresistible to look at, and a hen’s discordant Magnificat informed the surrounding world that she had done her best for it; otherwise everything was still. ‘We shall have to wait some time, I expect, if it is question of a horse,’ observed Cecilia, sitting down upon a log just outside the gate. ‘_I_ shall not be impatient,’ responded Fordyce, showing two very large, very white front teeth as he smiled. ‘I was thinking that Mr. Fullarton might get tired of waiting for you and drive home. The mails will have been given out long ago, and he is probably at Morphie by this time.’ ‘Come now, Miss Raeburn; I am afraid you think me incapable of walking to Fullarton, when, in reality, I should find it a small thing to do for the pleasure of sitting here with you. Confess it: you imagine me a poor sort of fellow--one who, through the custom of being well served, can do little for himself. I have seen it in your expression.’ Cecilia laughed a little. ‘Why should you fear that?’ she asked. ‘Because I am extremely anxious for your good opinion,’ he replied,--‘and, of course, for Lady Eliza’s also.’ ‘I have no doubt you have got it,’ she said lightly. ‘You are not speaking for yourself, Miss Raeburn. I hope that you think well of me.’ ‘Your humility does you credit.’ ‘I wish you would be serious. It is hard to be set aside by those whom one wishes to please.’ ‘But I do not set you aside. You are speaking most absurdly, Mr. Fordyce,’ said Cecilia, who was growing impatient. ‘But you seem to find everyone else preferable to me--Speid, for instance.’ ‘It has never occurred to me to compare you, sir.’ Her voice was freezing. ‘I hope I have not annoyed you by mentioning his name,’ said he clumsily. ‘You will annoy me if you go on with this conversation,’ she replied. ‘I am not fond of expressing my opinion about anyone.’ Fordyce looked crestfallen, and Cecilia, who was not inclined to be harsh to anybody, was rather sorry; she felt as remorseful as though she had offended a child; he was so solid, so humourless, so vulnerable. She wondered what his uncle thought of him; she had wondered often enough what Fullarton thought about most things, and, like many others, she had never found out. It often struck her that he was a slight peg for such friendship as Lady Eliza’s to hang on. ‘Il y’a un qui baise et un qui tend la joue.’ She knew that very well, and she had sometimes resented the fact for her adopted aunt, being a person who understood resentment mainly by proxy.