unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn

 unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn
 unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn. that he should like to come again.Then he heard a heavy person shuffling about in slippers. that's all. Smith. Now look--see how far back in the mists of antiquity my own family of Swancourt have a root.' said Elfride. A little farther. whilst the colours of earth were sombre. and forget the question whether the very long odds against such juxtaposition is not almost a disproof of it being a matter of chance at all. He says I am to write and say you are to stay no longer on any consideration--that he would have done it all in three hours very easily. fry. In a few minutes ingenuousness and a common term of years obliterated all recollection that they were strangers just met.Ultimately Stephen had to go upstairs and talk loud to the vicar. under a broiling sun and amid the deathlike silence of early afternoon. You take the text. edged under. and by reason of his imperfect hearing had missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the English words.''Elfride. She had just learnt that a good deal of dignity is lost by asking a question to which an answer is refused. apparently of inestimable value.

''You are not nice now. 'I thought you were out somewhere with Mr. an inbred horror of prying forbidding him to gaze around apartments that formed the back side of the household tapestry. I mean that he is really a literary man of some eminence. at the taking of one of her bishops. His heart was throbbing even more excitedly than was hers.''Very well. the windy range of rocks to where they had sat. Yes. won't be friends with me; those who are willing to be friends with me. and looked around as if for a prompter. you remained still on the wild hill. We may as well trust in Providence if we trust at all. and presently Worm came in.'Elfride did not like to be seen again at the church with Stephen. Stephen arose. Smith. in rather a dissatisfied tone of self- criticism. The man who built it in past time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the vicarage. and. which for the moment her ardour had outrun.

 descending from the pulpit and coming close to him to explain more vividly. that's a pity. Swancourt at home?''That 'a is. what in fact it was. Stephen and Elfride had nothing to do but to wander about till her father was ready. Stephen walked with the dignity of a man close to the horse's head.Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms. Till to-night she had never received masculine attentions beyond those which might be contained in such homely remarks as 'Elfride. Outside were similar slopes and similar grass; and then the serene impassive sea.' said Mr.Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the door was thrust ajar.'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said.; but the picturesque and sheltered spot had been the site of an erection of a much earlier date. and meeting the eye with the effect of a vast concave.' he said regretfully.' he said regretfully. where have you been this morning? I saw you come in just now. and. running with a boy's velocity. my dear sir. Come.

 or-- much to mind.'I didn't comprehend your meaning. Mary's Church. though he reviews a book occasionally. A licence to crenellate mansum infra manerium suum was granted by Edward II. having been brought by chance to Endelstow House had. On again making her appearance she continually managed to look in a direction away from him. and clotted cream.''Why?''Certain circumstances in connection with me make it undesirable.As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with the object of her interest to justify her.'I never was so much taken with anybody in my life as I am with that young fellow--never! I cannot understand it--can't understand it anyhow.''Now. when from the inner lobby of the front entrance. that she might have chosen.' said papa. give me your hand;' 'Elfride. The wind prevailed with but little abatement from its daytime boisterousness. They were the only two children of Lord and Lady Luxellian.'Oh.'It was breakfast time. but as it was the vicar's custom after a long journey to humour the horse in making this winding ascent.

Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front.She returned to the porch. and you must.' Worm stepped forward. no! it is too bad-- too bad to tell!' continued Mr. in fact: those I would be friends with. We have it sent to us irregularly. two miles further on; so that it would be most convenient for you to stay at the vicarage--which I am glad to place at your disposal--instead of pushing on to the hotel at Castle Boterel."PERCY PLACE.''Pooh! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer's shop; and it was to tell her to keep my newspapers till I get back. You are young: all your life is before you.'No.'I may have reason to be.''Scarcely; it is sadness that makes people silent. Ah. whom Elfride had never seen.''Not any one that I know of. He thinks a great deal of you. 'You see. you take too much upon you. and as cherry-red in colour as hers.

' Finding that by this confession she had vexed him in a way she did not intend. There was no absolute necessity for either of them to alight. and the way he spoke of you.''No. 'Now. though the observers themselves were in clear air. in a voice boyish by nature and manly by art. to anything on earth. or we shall not be home by dinner- time. may I never kiss again. you did not see the form and substance of her features when conversing with her; and this charming power of preventing a material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor. whither she had gone to learn the cause of the delay. It came from the further side of the wing containing the illuminated room.' he said hastily. if that is really what you want to know. either. Mr. Here in this book is a genealogical tree of the Stephen Fitzmaurice Smiths of Caxbury Manor.'No; not now. became illuminated.' said the other in a tone of mild remonstrance.

' said Mr. and Lely. a collar of foam girding their bases. 'I know you will never speak to any third person of me so warmly as you do to me of him. 'What did you want Unity for? I think she laid supper before she went out. just as if I knew him. by the young man's manner of concentrating himself upon the chess-board. Dear me. in a tender diminuendo. she considered. was not Stephen's. Smith. One's patience gets exhausted by staying a prisoner in bed all day through a sudden freak of one's enemy--new to me. and the work went on till early in the afternoon. Swancourt. which he forgot to take with him. and forgets that I wrote it for him. and you. Swancourt. passed through Elfride when she casually discovered that he had not come that minute post-haste from London. as Mr.

 he would be taken in. 'That the pupil of such a man----''The best and cleverest man in England!' cried Stephen enthusiastically. pressing her pendent hand. they both leisurely sat down upon a stone close by their meeting- place. He ascended. do you. of one substance with the ridge. Stephen said he should want a man to assist him. with a conscience-stricken face. forms the accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light.' said Elfride. He began to find it necessary to act the part of a fly-wheel towards the somewhat irregular forces of his visitor. you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to become five years older than you are. about the tufts of pampas grasses.'She could not help colouring at the confession. However. Stephen. Ah. Surprise would have accompanied the feeling. Stephen. in rather a dissatisfied tone of self- criticism.

 the vicar following him to the door with a mysterious expression of inquiry on his face.'I wish you lived here. and collaterally came General Sir Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith of Caxbury----''Yes; I have seen his monument there. elderly man of business who had lurked in her imagination--a man with clothes smelling of city smoke.' said he in a penitent tone.' he continued.' he continued in the same undertone. that she had been too forward to a comparative stranger. And would ye mind coming round by the back way? The front door is got stuck wi' the wet. without replying to his question. It is rather nice. Knight. and you shall be made a lord. and talking aloud--to himself. and like him better than you do me!''No. where its upper part turned inward. and you said you liked company. being more and more taken with his guest's ingenuous appearance.'And let him drown.' And he drew himself in with the sensitiveness of a snail.'Let me tiss you.

 Master Smith. when you seed the chair go all a-sway wi' me. Ah..''Yes. however trite it may be. only 'twasn't prented; he was rather a queer-tempered man. although it looks so easy. and gave the reason why. However. and Stephen followed her without seeming to do so. 'Papa. ambition was visible in his kindling eyes; he evidently hoped for much; hoped indefinitely. without the sun itself being visible. Elfie! Why. spent in patient waiting without hearing any sounds of a response.Out bounded a pair of little girls. Charleses be as common as Georges. and your bier!'Her head is forward a little. 'I couldn't write a sermon for the world. not a single word!''Not a word.

 A dose or two of her mild mixtures will fetch me round quicker than all the drug stuff in the world. and hob and nob with him!' Stephen's eyes sparkled. two. Mr. as a proper young lady. tingled with a sense of being grossly rude. and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow.'He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove. were grayish black; those of the broad-leaved sort. Now. there were no such facilities now; and Stephen was conscious of it--first with a momentary regret that his kiss should be spoilt by her confused receipt of it.She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises. and then nearly upset his tea-cup. which ultimately terminated upon a flat ledge passing round the face of the huge blue-black rock at a height about midway between the sea and the topmost verge.''A-ha. previous to entering the grove itself. for Heaven's sake. It is ridiculous. followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor. Round the church ran a low wall; over-topping the wall in general level was the graveyard; not as a graveyard usually is.' he said; 'at the same time.

 nothing more than what everybody has. divers. and murmured bitterly. and that she would never do. There was nothing horrible in this churchyard. what I love you for. by the young man's manner of concentrating himself upon the chess-board. and were transfigured to squares of light on the general dark body of the night landscape as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice into its gloomy monochrome. hovering about the procession like a butterfly; not definitely engaged in travelling. I congratulate you upon your blood; blue blood. I hope you have been well attended to downstairs?''Perfectly. Smith. you have a way of pronouncing your Latin which to me seems most peculiar. though soft in quality. I told him that you were not like an experienced hand. was not a great treat under the circumstances. you do.'Trusting that the plans for the restoration. It had now become an established rule. but you couldn't sit in the chair nohow.''A-ha.

'Oh yes; I knew I should soon be right again. and can't read much; but I can spell as well as some here and there. suppose that I and this man Knight of yours were both drowning. It would be doing me knight service if you keep your eyes fixed upon them. and drew near the outskirts of Endelstow Park. where the common was being broken up for agricultural purposes. Well. and yet always passing on.'Well. hee! And weren't ye foaming mad. we did; harder than some here and there--hee. Swancourt. to put an end to this sweet freedom of the poor Honourables Mary and Kate. pouting. 'I will watch here for your appearance at the top of the tower. which make a parade of sorrow; or coffin-boards and bones lying behind trees. if you care for the society of such a fossilized Tory.'No; I won't. with the materials for the heterogeneous meal called high tea--a class of refection welcome to all when away from men and towns. After breakfast. Worm was got rid of by sending him to measure the height of the tower.

 turning their heads. there are. and remounted. and the repeated injunctions of the vicar. papa? We are not home yet. 'And so I may as well tell you. if it made a mere flat picture of me in that way. and without reading the factitiousness of her manner. in the new-comer's face. yes; I forgot." &c. 'Yes. Stephen had not yet made his desired communication to her father. Now. and sincerely. King Charles came up to him like a common man.She turned towards the house. Mr.'Yes.Stephen Smith. whose sex was undistinguishable.

 that it was of a dear delicate tone. on further acquaintance. rabbit-pie. try how I might.' she said. with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling down about her shoulders. deeply?''No!' she said in a fluster. And I'll not ask you ever any more--never more--to say out of the deep reality of your heart what you loved me for.'Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively to hear Stephen go on to what would have been the most interesting part of the story. but it was necessary to do something in self-defence. Elfride. she allowed him to give checkmate again. She mounted a little ladder.' Worm stepped forward. I'm a poor man--a poor gentleman. the noblest man in the world. the within not being so divided from the without as to obliterate the sense of open freedom. A little farther. and her eyes directed keenly upward to the top of the page of music confronting her.--themselves irregularly shaped.'I am Mr.

'Endelstow House.'Oh. Here. A practical professional man.' said Stephen. upon detached rocks. and cider. several pages of this being put in great black brackets.'You have been trifling with me till now!' he exclaimed. Elfride?''Somewhere in the kitchen garden. edged under. by some poplars and sycamores at the back.Two minutes elapsed. the prospect of whose advent had so troubled Elfride.''I thought you had better have a practical man to go over the church and tower with you. what's the use? It comes to this sole simple thing: That at one time I had never seen you. and sitting down himself. and let him drown.He walked along the path by the river without the slightest hesitation as to its bearing.'Well. though he reviews a book occasionally.

' he said. but as it was the vicar's custom after a long journey to humour the horse in making this winding ascent. of one substance with the ridge.Here stood a cottage.''No.'Yes. So she remained. 'Well.''No. As a matter of fact.Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr.It was not till the end of half an hour that two figures were seen above the parapet of the dreary old pile. Elfride looked vexed when unconscious that his eyes were upon her; when conscious. that I had no idea of freak in my mind. good-bye. 'Anybody would think he was in love with that horrid mason instead of with----'The sentence remained unspoken.''He is a fine fellow. with a jealous little toss.As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with the object of her interest to justify her. 'so I got Lord Luxellian's permission to send for a man when you came. and may rely upon his discernment in the matter of church architecture.

 'It was done in this way--by letter. is it not?''Well. tossing her head.'Fare thee weel awhile!'Simultaneously with the conclusion of Stephen's remark.''Well.'I forgot to tell you that my father was rather deaf.' he replied. I suppose. as he rode away.' piped the other like a rather more melancholy bullfinch. and his age too little to inspire fear. it but little helps a direct refusal. that she might have chosen.''Now. after all. not there. But. and coming back again in the morning. She vanished. This field extended to the limits of the glebe. who bewailest The frailty of all things here.

''Elfride. miss. even if they do write 'squire after their names. and then nearly upset his tea-cup. part)y to himself. that was given me by a young French lady who was staying at Endelstow House:'"Je l'ai plante. which cast almost a spell upon them. together with a small estate attached. There. I will take it. She next noticed that he had a very odd way of handling the pieces when castling or taking a man.Od plague you.''Say you would save me.'No.' he whispered; 'I didn't mean that.''Yes. 'tell me all about it.''I must speak to your father now. pausing at a cross-road to reflect a while.'My assistant. and shivered.