"Young, my dear? I should think so; about five or six and twenty. He's as good a lad as ever walked. I had a long letter from his mother. She says he is going to pay me a visit, and I may expect him--yes, to-day. You will have something to look forward to now, Annie, if Lady Lushington's character as a worldly-minded woman prevents my sending you to Paris." "But I think I shall go to Paris," said Annie. She looked very pretty and expectant. The rector uttered a slight sigh. "Come in, uncle; I must give you your breakfast, even if fifty John Saxons are coming to pay you a visit. Oh yes, of course I am glad." But she did not feel so; she had a dim sort of idea that this young man might interfere with her own plans. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. ANNIE'S APPEAL. John Saxon was big and square and muscular. Under ordinary circumstances Annie would have been charmed with his society. He was frankly glad to meet her, and they had not been half-an-hour in each other's company before they were chatting together as the best of friends. "We are distant cousins, you know," said the young man. "I am so glad you are here, Miss Brooke." "I am glad to be here, too," said Annie, "to welcome you; but you won't have much of my society, for I am going to Paris in a few days." "Are you? I am sorry for that." "Oh, you won't stay long either," said Annie; "you won't be able to stand the place." "But I think I shall like it very much," he replied. "I love the country, and have never seen English country life before; this place doesn't seem at all lonely to me after our life in Tasmania. You haven't an idea what real loneliness is in any part of England; but if you lived fifty or sixty miles away from the nearest neighbour, then you'd have some idea of it." "It must be horrible," said Annie, who was standing that moment in the sunlit garden with an apple-tree behind her and her pretty little figure silhouetted against the evening sky. "Not for me," said young Saxon; "I love the life. Your England seems to suffocate me. In London I hadn't room to breathe, and in that Paris to which you are going, Miss Brooke, I really felt ill." "Oh dear!" said Annie; "then you have not my sort of nature." He looked at her tentatively. She was fresh and young, and he had never talked to a real English girl before. But, somehow, she did not quite suit him. He was a keen judge of character, and those eyes of hers did not look long enough at any one. They soon lowered their lids as though they were keeping back a secret; and her pretty little mouth could also look unamiable at times. He hated himself for finding these flaws in a creature whom the rector worshipped, but nevertheless he could not help observing them. Saxon arrived at the Rectory on the afternoon of Saturday, and he and Annie had already become, to all appearance, excellent friends.