It was a clear and brilliant day early in October, when the blue sky was flecked by fleecy clouds, and the far-stretching scenery of the fertile Carse, overlooked by the long chain of heights, named the Sidlaw Hills, lay steeped in sunshine. The parks of Dundargue, with their broad acres of velvet-like turf, their stately oaks and towering beeches, among the gnarled branches of which legions of gleds were cawing to each other, and brown squirrels were gliding to and fro; their hedges of ancient thorn, and others where the hawthorn berries showed red and the wild roses were blooming--the parks, we say, were left behind, with all their groups of deer, and the party, certainly a merry and a well-mounted one, accompanied by the stag-hounds Shiuloch and Bran, careering joyously on either hand, followed by a couple of splendidly-horsed grooms, cantered along the highway, and ere long broke, or fell, into that slow and ambling pace which is suited for conversing with ease. And Holcroft, who was well versed in all horsey details, and had a very appreciative eye, could see that his fair companion's _tout ensemble_, her riding costume, her hat, veil, and gauntlets were all perfect, from the coils of brown glossy hair to the little foot that rested firmly in its tiny stirrup of burnished steel; and that foot was indeed a model--arched, small, and always full of character in its elasticity of tread; and, more than all, intoxicated by the ambient air, the sunshine, her own high spirits, and the pleasure of being mounted on her own favourite pad, Olive Raymond was looking her brightest and her best. He had, while engaging all her attention in conversation, contrived, unknown to her, by the pacing of his horse, to leave the trio referred to at some distance behind; while, luckily for him, Allan Graham, lured on by Ruby Logan--who was something between a flirt and a hoyden--had gone ahead with her suddenly at a hand-gallop, and now the pair were out of sight. There could be no engagement, despite all rumour thereof--not even a passing fancy--between the cousins, was now Holcroft's conviction, and of his own ultimate success with Olive he began to have little doubt, could he but warily mould her to his purpose; and already in fancy he saw her thousands--how many there were he knew not--firmly in his grasp. Though swallowed up by mortgages, his place in Essex--or the few acres that nominally still remained to him there--caused the retention of his name among the 'landed gentry of England,' and he based much upon that circumstance as aiding his designs on Lord Aberfeldie's ward, to whom he had sometimes dropped glowing hints of possession that were not nor ever had been his.