"Oh! I beg your pardon,' exclaimed the same voice, rather shyly; and Hugh took off his hat suddenly in some surprise, for it was no child, but an exceedingly pretty girl, who was looking up in his face with large wondering blue eyes. "I hope I have not startled you," returned Hugh, courteously, with one of his pleasant smiles. What a diminutive creature she was; no wonder he had taken her at first sight for a child; her stature was hardly more than that a well-grown child of eleven or twelve, and the little white frock and broad-brimmed hat might have belonged to a child too. But she was a dainty little lady for all that, with a beautifully proportioned figure, as graceful as a fairy, and a most lovely, winsome little face. "Oh!" she said, with a wonderful attempt at dignity that made him smile--as though he saw a kitten on its best behavior, "I am not at all startled; but of course Nero and I would hardly have had that race if we had known any one was in the shrubbery. Have you lost your way?" lifting those wonderful Undine-like eyes to his face, which almost startled Hugh with their exceeding beauty and depth. "Is Nero your dog?" returned Sir Hugh, patting the retriever absently; "he is a fine fellow, only I am afraid he is rather rough sometimes; he nearly knocked you down just now in his play. I see you do not remember me, Miss Mordaunt. I am Sir Hugh Redmond. I have come to call on you and your aunt." "Oh!" she said, becoming very shy all at once, "I remember you now; but you looked different somehow, and the sun was in my eyes; poor Sir Wilfred--yes, we heard he was dead--he came to see Aunt Griselda once before he went away. It must be very lonely for you at the Hall," and she glanced at his deep mourning, and then at the handsome face that was looking so kindly at her. What a grand-looking man he was, she thought; it must have been his beard that altered him so and prevented her from recognizing him; but then, of course, she had never seen him since she was a little girl, when her father was alive, and they were living at Wyngate Priory. Hugh Redmond! ah, yes, she remembered him now. She had made a cowslip ball for him once, and he had tossed it right into the middle of the great elms, where the rooks had their nest; and once she had harnessed him with daisy chains and driven him up and down the bowling-green, while her father laughed at them from the terrace--what a merry little child she used to be--and Hugh Redmond had been a splendid playfellow; but as she moved beside him down the graveled walk leading to the cottage her shyness increased, and she could not bring herself to recall these old memories; indeed, Hugh could not get her to look at him again.