Dismissing the sedan at the barbican gate, he led Lilian up the steps to the door of the house, lingering at each; for there was something on his lips which he longed, but dared not to utter. Ere he pulled the ring of the risp, he softly pressed her hand and said, in a very gentle voice,-- "Lilian--dear Lilian--restore the glove of which you deprived me." "Glove--glove?" reiterated Lilian in a great flutter. "Forgive me, dear Madam--oh, you cannot have forgotten, when last we walked by the loch yonder." "Foh! what a droll request, Mr. Fenton." "All night you have called me Walter. Alas, I shall be very wretched if you refuse this little boon." "I am sorry for that; but you must learn that Aunt Grisel's marmoset carried it off from my toilet-table and quite tore it to pieces." "Ah, the provoking ape! But, dear Lilian, do not be so cruel as to cloud this dream of joy by dismissing me without a token of--of your favour to-night. I will not see you often now--we leave Scotland very soon, 'tis said." Walter's voice trembled, for a first love (while it lasts) is always a timid and a true one. His passion was rapidly mastering him. Lilian soon began to tremble too, but had sufficient tact to answer with a tone of raillery,-- "I owe you something for your chairman's fee--ah, rogue Walter, you are pulling my glove off! Come, Sir! tirl the risp, or must I stand here all night." The risp rang; but first she permitted him to untie and remove a glove from her hand, which he immediately pressed to his lips. His heart glowed within him, his feelings became tumultuous and impetuous--at all risks he would have pressed her to his heart and transferred to her soft cheek that burning kiss--but unluckily the door was opened at that instant by a sleepy old servant (who still carried the pewter flagon which he had drained in the spence an hour before), and Meinie Elshender, who appeared very coyly in a very becoming dishabille, with all her fine hair gathered up, _en papillotes_. Pleased with all the passages of the night, Walter retired, and preserved in his gauntlet the little blonde glove which his braced corslet of steel prevented him from consigning to his bosom--the romancer's grand emporium for all tokens of love and friendship, save,--cash. Happy Walter walked briskly forward between fields and hedges, shaded by trees that were now clothed in the heaviest foliage of summer, and skirted the western rhinns of the lake, where the scared coots squattered among the sedges at his approach. The vast expanse of water lay still as death; its dark unruffled bosom reflecting only the occasional stars and the masses of flying cloud which by turns revealed and obscured them.