He could tell her that Jabez had avowed overhearing their conversation in the Lovers’ Walk, though where he could have been to overhear, or what strange fatality could bring Mr. and Mrs. Ashton to Carr in time to become the recipients of his eavesdropping and defeat their plans, was a puzzle to both. Be sure Laurence put the worst colour on the encounter in the lane, and urged all he had himself endured to strengthen his claims upon her—claims she was quite willing to admit, had she the power to concede to them. Having shown with very evident annoyance how impossible it was for her to meet or give him a private interview, he exclaimed with indignation— “What! not allowed to visit a relative, or to go abroad without a gaoler! My dearest Augusta, this is a cruel state of captivity. But my bird must not be allowed to fray her beautiful plumage in beating against the bars of her cage. I must devise a better plan for her escape. Any means are justifiable to obtain release from tyranny like this. What says my love? Is she still willing to trust her Laurence?” “To the death!” she whispered, emphatically. “You are alone here every morning?” Her lips could barely frame a “Yes,” when a voice and step in the hall warned her to close the window with a hurried gesture to him; and before Mrs. Ashton, who had lingered to give an order to James, could enter the room, Black Ralph was cantering towards the Portico, and Augusta occupied with the third volume of “Alinda, or the Child of Mystery.” Very little escaped Mrs. Ashton’s eye. The clatter of hoofs on the flags, audible through the thick front door, had left no sensible impression on her brain, but the heightened colour of Augusta attracted her attention at once. She brought her work-basket from the panel-cupboard, took thence a strip of cambric muslin, and handed it to her daughter. “My dear,” said she, quietly, “‘all play makes no hay.’ Your eyes are younger than mine, and I think it will do you more good to hem your father’s shirt-frills than to pore over sentimental books from morning until night. So much romance-reading is not good for you. I see that you are quite flushed and excited over the one you are perusing now.” There was a sharp rat-tat on the lion’s head, and in burst Mr. Ashton, much more flushed and excited than his daughter. He had met Mr. Laurence on Black Ralph just as he was quitting the Portico, after an angry discussion with Mr. Aspinall the elder.