'Rather say he scarcely spoke to me! But we are fated to see quite enough of each other, I suppose,' replied Olive, as with slender fingers she coiled and knotted up the silky masses of her rich brown hair. 'How absurd it is,' she added, petulantly, 'to think, as I have said a hundred times, that I have a lover cut and dry for me--a _fiancé_--ever since he was in jackets and knickerbockers!' After a pause, during which she was critically and approvingly regarding herself sideways in the swinging cheval-glass, she said, 'When I heard that he was returning to Dundargue, I was quite prepared to dislike him intensely.' 'Olive!' 'Fact, dear; and since then he must have been sorely puzzled by my various moods towards him.' 'You speak but with truth in this; and yet he seems to have been somewhat the same with you.' 'Poor fellow--but ever so good and kind.' 'And--and you think, Olive dear, that you are beginning to love him as mamma wishes?' 'Nay--nay, I cannot admit that.' 'Even to me?' said Eveline, caressing her. 'Even to you. Did you not see his manner to-night with Ruby Logan?' 'To pique you, if possible, Olive; but when Allan proposes to you, as I am sure he will, and must do----' '_Must_ do!' interrupted Olive. 'Yes--there it is.' 'Well?' 'Then, and in that case, as the will has it, I shall tell him that, however I may esteem and regard him as my cousin, he can never be more, or nearer, or dearer than as such.' Eveline sighed and smiled; but she told this reply next day to Allan, and hence he became less in a hurry to bring matters to an issue, though love was growing in his heart, nevertheless. 'Oh, why is it that women cannot speak their minds as men do? I wish I dared run away!' exclaimed the petulant beauty, beating the carpet with a little impatient foot. 'To-day I saw two great brown eagles winging their way skyward from the rock of Dundargue; and oh! Eveline, you can't think how long and wistfully I watched them till they dwindled into tiny specks.' 'Why?' 'They seemed such free agents, and, as such, to be envied. They had no wills or last testaments made by others to control their actions--no parents to rule them in the matters of love and marriage.' 'How droll you are, Olive! To whom but you would such speculations occur? I hope you did not express them to--to----' 'Allan?' 'Yes.' 'Not to Allan.' 'To whom then?' 'Mr. Holcroft.' 'Then, you were very wrong to do so,' said Eveline, almost severely; 'he will be certain to draw his own deductions therefrom.' 'In something else I was, I fear, wrong too.' 'How?' 'I permitted him to try one of my gold bangles--one sent me by Allan from Delhi--on his arm, and it would not come off again.' 'And the bangle?' 'Is still there,' said Olive, laughing, but not without a little emotion of alarm. 'Oh, Olive!' exclaimed Eveline, with something of dismay, 'how could you? This is worse than the photo.' CHAPTER VIII. THE RIDING-PARTY.