Thus, as they both grew older, she seldom replied to the letters which Allan wrote to her, by his parents' desire, perhaps, rather than his own, till he ceased to write to her at all, on which she became severely piqued; and once when she was a little way on in her 'teens,' and when Allan was at home for a very brief period before departing to India, she treated him with an indifference--almost animosity--that made him deem the girl wayward, cold-hearted, even purse-proud, and everything unpleasant; and with this fatal impression he rejoined the Black Watch, and amid many a flirtation might soon have forgotten the heiress that was growing up for him at Dundargue, but for the letters he received from thence, and in which ample references to her and her beauty and accomplishments were never omitted; while she, on the other hand, when she became of a marriageable age, seldom ceased to stigmatise the will as outrageous, indelicate, grotesque, and unjust. And now that her cousin Allan was coming home--nay, _had_ come home--for a protracted period on leave of absence, she felt that a crisis was at hand in her fate--a crisis in which she, like a hunted creature, knew not how to escape. 'Yes, Allan will soon learn to love you for your own sake,' returned the gentle Eveline, after a pause. 'How can I ever be certain of that? Oh, I owe little indeed to papa, who by such a will as his seeks to degrade both your brother and myself,' replied Olive. 'Degrade!' exclaimed Eveline, her hazel eyes distending. 'Yes--by forcing us into a marriage on one hand, or to accepting starvation on the other.' 'Starvation!--such strong language, Olive,' said Eveline, in a tone of rebuke. Of the alleged tie that bound her to Allan Graham, and of the latter himself, personally, she had never thought so seriously as she had done of _late_; and, truth to tell, in the opportunities afforded by mutual residence in a country house--that great rambling castle especially--Mr. Hawke Holcroft, by his subtle attentions when no one else was near, had begun to interest her more than Lord or Lady Aberfeldie could have relished or conceived; and to her it seemed that for some time back at Dundargue (continuing a sentiment he had striven to rouse during a past season in London) his eyes bad been telling in imploring and passionate glances what his lips had not yet the audacity to utter; but then the girl was young, enthusiastic, impressionable, and far from insensible to admiration and flattery. Though she did not and could not regard Allan Graham as a lover, and disliked thus to view him in the light of her intended husband, circumstances now compelled her to _think_ of him; and though she remembered him chiefly as the playmate of her childhood, she was piqued that he seemed in no haste to meet and see her, but instead had openly manifested, as she thought, indifference and lack of interest or curiosity, by shooting at Aberfeldie Lodge for days.