‘You go too far,’ says Wyndham, looking a little agitated, however. ‘I am not in love with her, as you seem to imagine.’ Crosby smothers a smile, as in duty bound. ‘And, besides, even if I did desire to marry her, how could I do it? It would kill Shangarry with his queer, old-fashioned ideas.... A girl with no name.... And our name—so old.... It would kill him, I tell you. And—and besides all that, George, I don’t care for her, and she doesn’t care for me ... not in that way.’ ‘Well, you are the best judge of that,’ says Crosby. ‘And if it is as you say, I am sorry you ever saw her. She has brought you into a decidedly _risqué_ situation. And she is too good-looking to get out of it—or you either, without scandal.’ ‘You have seen her?’ Wyndham’s face is full of rather angry inquiry. ‘My dear fellow, don’t eat me! We all saw her yesterday, if you come to think of it, in that tree of hers. You may remember that ass Jones’s remarks about a Hamadryad.’ ‘Oh yes, of course. And you thought——’ ‘To tell you the truth,’ says Crosby, ‘I thought her the very image of—don’t hit a little one, Wyndham! But I did think her more like Mrs. Prior than even Mrs. Prior’s own daughter is.’ ‘What absurd nonsense! And yet, now I remember it, she—Ella—Miss Moore said she felt as if she had seen Mrs. Prior before.’ ‘That’s odd. And yet not so odd as it seems. Many families totally unrelated to each other are often very much alike; I dare say Mrs. Prior and Miss Moore’s mother, though in different ranks of life, might have possessed features of the same type, and nature very similar, too. Same features, same manners, you know, very often.’ ‘That ends the argument for me,’ says Wyndham, with a frown; ‘Miss Moore’s manners are as far removed from my aunt’s, and as far above them, as is possible.’ He brushes rather hurriedly past his friend. But his friend forgives him. He stands, indeed, in the middle of the avenue, staring after Wyndham’s vanishing form. ‘And to think he doesn’t know he is in love with her!’ says he at last. ‘Any fellow might know when he was in love with a woman. Well,’—with a friendly sigh of deep regret—‘I am afraid it will cost him a good deal.’ CHAPTER XLVIII. ‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made! How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks, And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’ Autumn is dead. It has faded slowly and tenderly away, with no great sudden changes, no desperate looking back towards the life departing, no morbid rushing towards the death in front. Delicately, but very sorrowfully, it went to its grave, and was buried almost before one realized its loss. And now winter is with us; chill and still chiller grow the winds, and harsh the biting frosts.