Harry Stanhope was well accustomed to find himself a favourite with women; and he was of an age and temperament which inclined him to repay the obligation impartially and liberally. But there was a fascination to Harry, little as he was accustomed to analysis, in the manner in which Fan Constable’s dignified reserve melted at his approach into a proportionate depth and wealth of cordiality. He had a perception that the conquest of her formal coldness was not a common occurrence, and was flattering to his bearing and address. And somehow the lad, with his volatile disposition, had a capacity which Oliver Constable did not possess, of fathoming and rightly estimating a woman’s nature. Fan’s brother, who had known her all her life, might accuse her most erroneously of changing like the wind; but the stranger, who had only known her an hour, guessed, without being in fault, that steadfastness was the key-note to her character. ‘A famous acquisition Constable’s turning up at Friarton Mill will be to us,’ Harry announced complacently, if brokenly, between puffs of his pipe, when he and Horace trudged over to such accommodation as had been improvised for them at their farm. ‘We have fallen on our feet. There is not only Constable, an old acquaintance and a man to be trusted—all the more that he is apt to be as crusty as any governor’s port—there is Miss Constable, an awfully nice girl and thunderingly ladylike to boot. Upon my word, Horry, if millers’ daughters are like that, I don’t wonder at fellows getting spoony and spouting verses about them, and I do wonder at fine ladies holding their own. What a pair of eyes she has got! as dark a brown as those of “Pin Him,”’ naming with fond regret the supreme pet of the host of dogs which had in their time called Harry master, which, having passed away from earth to the happy hunting ground of dogs, was farther exalted in her late owner’s fond imagination. It was an immense compliment from Harry when he compared Fan’s eyes to the orbs of the departed ‘Pin Him,’ and when he added with pensive meditativeness, ‘I dare say she would prove just such another little brick in standing by her friends. How kind she was after the first ten minutes!’ ‘I think Constable might have had the hospitality to offer to put us up for the night till the rest of our traps turned up,’ objected Horace, querulously. The poor fellow had an unfortunate constitutional instinct by which he invariably laid hold first of all the flaws in an encounter, or an individual. ‘The sister ain’t a bouncing, barn-door specimen of a woman such as one might have expected from the surroundings. But it struck me there was rather too much starch and buckram about her, to begin with, for good form—not to say the real thing.’ ‘Oh, come along, old Diogenes,’ cried Harry. CHAPTER X. OLIVER’S NOTION OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP.