With this he sped across the grounds in all directions and thence into the house, whispering a word of power into the ears of those he met, and then sped back to the rear of the rye-straw shelter, where he had been sorting seeds, while the invalid, lulled by the warmth and beauty, and occupied with her needle, soon forgot her annoyance, and commented to a neighbouring lotus-eater on the pleasantness of that young man's manner, and the great addition he made to the charm and convenience of the house. "And I don't believe a word of what they say about him," she added indignantly; "he's just as nice to the old ladies as to the young ones--and a great deal nicer, too." Meanwhile, the fair Dorris, munching chocolates, and nestling in her two easy-chairs, grew drowsy with warmth and comfort; her novel slipped from her fingers and her eyes closed; her flower-like head drooped on the slender stalk, her neck; she would soon have been in the land of dreams but for the sound of a cheery whistle on the mule-path, at which her blue eyes opened wide, and she started up, alert and listening, under her huge sunshade. Only a careless whistling of that catchy tune played at the Carnival. It broke off in the middle, but soon began again in a cheery tenor, brokenly still, and she recognized the voice of young Trevor, the Oxonian, staying in these parts to recover from something, whether from too much work, or too much play, was not clearly understood. "No," she heard him say, in intervals of switching a juniper-bush on the brink with his stick, "I can't say I admire that black-a-vized style. I like 'em fresh and fair, curds and cream mixed with roses--like Miss Boundrish--_she's_ a ripper and no mistake." A sweet smile illumined the curds and cream features of the ripper at this; she looked pensively at her hands, and wondered at the round whiteness of her wrists, and thought regretfully of the loveliness of her present pose, wasted upon empty air, and held her breath to listen and sniff more incense. A female voice with an American accent rebuked the youth for levity in commenting upon feminine beauty in the concrete; he was told that he should confine his observations to the abstract. "Well, but you can't say she isn't ripping," he remonstrated, "and why on earth shouldn't you mention a girl's name among her friends? You wouldn't discuss her in public, and you couldn't tell it to her face; but I bet anything she wouldn't mind the way I spoke of her, if she could only hear it." Something unintelligible followed in a low voice, that Dorris recognized as the thin man's, and a light gush of laughter ensued. "Well, and whose character is being thrown to the lions now? Oh, don't tell me, I know from the sound of that laugh that scandal's about. Is it poor me?" cried the cheerful voice of Mrs. Allonby at this juncture. She was rather breathless, as if she had just climbed up from somewhere.