dull, hazy, sultry blue of the sky above her, and felt the warmth of perfect summer in every vein. Turning and raising her eyes, she saw Wellfield coming from the great gateway towards her. He was on his way from Burnham, where he had been trying to learn how to become a business man in her father’s office. ‘Good-afternoon, Miss Bolton. I have brought you good news.’ ‘Have you? What kind of news?’ ‘The news that I am at last going to relieve you of my presence here, which you must have thought lately was to become a permanent infliction. I have just been down to Monk’s Gate. The men wish to persuade me that it is not nearly what it ought to be, but I told them it would do very well for me, and that I should have no money to pay them with if they did anything else. I showed them exactly what I would have done. They are to finish to-night, by working an hour overtime, and I shall go there to-morrow.’ He had taken his place by her side, as if he were accustomed to walk there; had deprived her of the book, which she had shut up, and of the sunshade that she had been carrying, and now he looked down at her and waited for her to speak. ‘It—you—I think you have rather hurried them. Is it not rather a sudden resolve?’ ‘Sudden action, perhaps. But for more than a week I have been chafing at the delay, and at the way in which I have been obliged to quarter myself upon you here—a proceeding for which I have not the least justification.’ ‘Except that of having been often invited to remain as long as you liked, or felt it convenient,’ said Nita, in a low voice. ‘I know you and Mr. Bolton have been kindness itself, and I can never be grateful enough to you.’ ‘I don’t see why, I am sure. Who has so good a right as you to be here?’ He laughed. ‘If I were obliged to bring a lawsuit for the restitution of my property, I should like you to be the defendant,’ he said. ‘I should win in a canter.’ Nita was silent. ‘At least, I shall not be far away from the Abbey,’ he went on, ‘and I am glad of it. You will let me come up and see you, I hope, sometimes, though I don’t hope for such privileges as Leyburn enjoys.’ ‘John is like one of ourselves,’ said Nita, originally. ‘And I am not. I know that, and am constantly reminded of it.’ ‘Shall you send for your sister now?’ asked Nita. ‘Not at once. I must wait till things are a little more certain. I am getting on in my lessons at Burnham. I know how to do book-keeping now, and your father has so much foreign correspondence that he says I shall be of use to him.’ ‘Do not speak in that way!’ exclaimed Nita; ‘you know I hate it.’ ‘I only do it in the hope of making you see how reasonable it all is, and how absurd it would be in me to expect anything else, and how lucky I may feel myself.’ ‘And how unlucky you feel yourself in reality,’ she replied. ‘Don’t try to deceive me by talking in that way. Well, I hope you will like Monk’s Gate, and that you will be—happy there.’ ‘And I may come here sometimes?’