"Poor lass, she is very handsome," said the major to himself, "and it seems as if her bit of life romance is not going so smoothly as it should. Hah! that was a capital drop of water; it gives one life. Crying in the woods, eh--after a signal that the old lady heard. Gipsy lad, eh? Bad sign--bad sign. Ah, well," he added, with a sigh, "I'm getting too old a man to think of love affairs; but, somehow, I often wonder now that I did not marry." That thought came to him several times as he walked homeward over the boggy common, and rose again more strongly as he came in sight of The Firs and the grim, black mansion on the hillock. Fort Science, as he had jestingly called it, looked at times bright and sunny, and then dull, repulsive and cold. The major reached home after his very long walk rather out of spirits; and his valet, unasked, fetched him a cup of tea. Volume 2, Chapter X. LUCY EXAMINES THE EXAMINER. "I wish you would be more open with me, Moray," said Lucy to her brother. He was gazing through one of his glasses intently upon some celestial object, for the night was falling fast, and first one and then another star came twinkling out in the cold grey of the north-east. Alleyne raised his head slowly and looked at his sister's pretty enquiring face for a few moments, and then resumed his task. "Don't understand you," he said quietly. "Now, Moray, you must," cried Lucy, pettishly; "you have only one sister, and you ought to tell her everything." As she spoke, in a playful, childish way, she began tying knots in her brother's long beard, and made an attempt to join a couple of threads behind his head, but without result, the crisp curly hairs being about half-an-inch too short. Alleyne paid no heed to her playful tricks for a time, and she went on,-- "If I were a man--which, thank goodness, I am not--I'd try to be learned, and wise, and clever, but I'd be manly as well, and strong and active, and able to follow all out-door pursuits." "Like Captain Rolph," said Alleyne, with a smile, half reproach, half satire. "No," cried Lucy, emphatically; "he is all animalism. He has all the strength that I like to see, and nothing more. No, the man I should like to be, would combine all that energy with the wisdom of one who thinks, and uses his brains. Captain Rolph, indeed!" What was meant for a withering, burning look of scorn appeared on Lucy's lips; but it was only pretty and provocative; it would not have scorched a child. "No, dear, the man I should like to be would be something very different from him. There, I don't care what you say to the contrary, you love Glynne, and I shall tell her so." "You love your brother too well ever to degrade him in the eyes of your friend, Lucy," said Alleyne, drawing her to him, and stroking her hair. "Even if--if--" "There, do say it out, Moray. If you did or do love her. I do wish you wouldn't be so girlish and weak." "Am I girlish and weak?" he said thoughtfully.