Frank Orde soon followed his step-mother to Hardlands. He had taken his long leave before Christmas, with the intention of spending it at Thorpe. Anthony had never liked the thought of this arrangement, and when he arrived there was something so attractive about him that he felt all his prejudices confirmed. It was like a breath of fresh air coming into the midst of the little household who were moving about with saddened quiet faces, and already falling into the little feminine ways which mark the absence of the more vigorous race. Captain Orde had the physical activity which made him send his luggage in the carriage, and himself walk from Underham on the day of his arrival; he had also a taste for exploring and geological theories, the enthusiasm of which roused his cousins into interest; indeed he was so full of energy, so open-hearted, and so secure of sympathy, that to withhold it was as difficult as to avoid being warmed by the sun of midsummer. They were all at dinner one evening when the day had been so persistently rainy that only Captain Orde, to whom weather was apparently a matter of indifference, had faced it, coming in just in time to avoid breaking the punctual routine which the Squire had established at Hardlands. Mrs Orde sat with her back to the fire: a thin woman, with a plain pleasant face, high cheek-bones, rugged features, and an upper lip too long for proportion, but curving in to a well-closed mouth; there were the two girls in their black dresses, and Captain Orde, unlike them all with his dark twinkling eyes and a fresh look of unbroken health. He had been telling them, with the vivid enjoyment that characterised his talk, his adventures in the muddy lanes round Thorpe, and of the difficulties he had met with in the way of extracting information; but it was not until the old butler had left the room, and they had drawn their chairs after a pleasant old-fashioned winter custom round the fire, that he said,-- "By the way, I fell in again to-day with my friend the local Wesleyan, as he tells me he calls himself. You haven't any of you taken to him more kindly, have you?" "Do you mean that dreadful David Stephens?" Bessie said, setting a chestnut on the bar of the grate, and holding up her hand to screen herself. "It has been hard to do anything for him," said Winifred, thinking of Captain Orde's old words, "almost impossible, although I dare say you cannot believe it. How can one help him?" "He would say, build him a chapel." "Frank!" Bessie said indignantly, from her knees before the fire. "I thought you were in earnest," said Winifred with a touch of disappointment. "I only say that is what he would choose. I don't recommend you to do it. There is something he really wants a good deal more." "Tell us what you mean," said Bessie, tossing a hot chestnut into his lap. "Never mind. It is nothing you will ever give, my dear," said Frank, who was looking at Winifred, while his mother looked at him.