The ladies looked at each other, and there came a faint “oh!” that universal British interjection which answers to every emergency--from some unidentified person. But a sort of awe stole over the party. Who was this lady that could not be taken home in a dog-cart? Lady Jean had been driven from the pier in a dog-cart many and many a day. Did the woman who had married this foundry lad from Glesco, this railway man, that had made his fortune in India, did she think herself better than Lady Jean? Mr. Rowland walked away through his own woods, much amused by this incident generally. They were not his own woods: they were the Earl’s woods, which was a reflection very unpleasant to him. If money could smooth over the difficulty, they should be his own woods still before he was done with them; and in the meantime he had a long lease, and a strong determination to call them his own. He looked at every tree, and put a mental mark upon it, to prove to himself that he was right. There was a great silver fir, an unusually fine tree, near the gates, at which he paused, saying to himself, “this is not mine,” with an assumption that all the rest were, which was strange in such a sensible man; but his mind had a little twist in it so far as Rosmore was concerned. He smiled at the little society of the place with a sense of superiority, at which they would have been extremely indignant. The Miss Elizas of the peninsula were nothing to him, and their gracious intention of calling upon his wife, gave him such a feeling of the ridiculous, that he laughed aloud as he went on. Call upon Evelyn! Mr. Rowland had perhaps as exaggerated an idea of Evelyn’s claims as the village people had a humble one. They had heard that she was a governess whom he had picked up in India; and he was of opinion that she was a very high-born lady, as good as the Queen. He chuckled to himself as he realised how she would look amid the ladies who came to Kilrossie for the sea-bathing, and the ladies of the parish: Miss Eliza with her big rusty hat and shawl, and the two ministers’ wives. Evelyn with the look of a princess, and her beautiful dresses, that were like nothing else in the world, which her mere putting them on gave the air of royal robes to! This was his way of looking at the matter, which probably would not have been at all the way of the county ladies, who had a general idea what was the fashion, though they did not take the trouble to adopt it. But to Mr. Rowland whatever Evelyn wore was the fashion, and it was she, he felt, who ought to be everybody’s model, to dress after, as far as it was in vain flesh and blood to follow such an ideal. Lady Jean herself would be but a rural dowdy in presence of Evelyn. He thought of the impression she would make. The startled “oh!” of wonder which would burst from all their lips when she was first seen. It would be something altogether new to them to see such a lady! It restored him to his