yself, and saluted every one at the
breakfast table with the frankness of Harry Richmond. Congratulated on
my splendid spirits, I was confirmed in the idea that I enjoyed them,
though I knew of something hollow which sent an echo through me at
intervals. Janet had become a fixed inmate of the house. 'I've bought
her, and I shall keep her; she's the apple of my eye,' said the squire,
adding with characteristic scrupulousness, 'if apple's female.' I
asked her whether she had heard from Temple latterly. 'No; dear little
fellow!' cried she, and I saw in a twinkling what it was that the squire
liked in her, and liked it too. I caught sight of myself, as through
a rift of cloud, trotting home from the hunt to a glad, frank,
unpretending mate, with just enough of understanding to look up to
mine. For a second or so it was pleasing, as a glance out of his library
across hill and dale will be to a strained student. Our familiarity
sanctioned a comment on the growth of her daughter-of-the-regiment
moustache, the faintest conceivable suggestion of a shadow on her soft
upper lip, which a poet might have feigned to have fallen from her dark
thick eyebrows.

'Why, you don't mean to say, Hal, it's not to your taste?' said the
squire.

'No,' said I, turning an eye on my aunt Dorothy, 'I've loved it all my
life.'

The squire stared at me to make sure of this, muttered that it was to
his mind a beauty, and that it was nothing more on Janet's lip than down
on a flower, bloom on a plum. The poetical comparisons had the effect
of causing me to examine her critically. She did not raise a spark of
poetical sentiment in my bosom. She had grown a tall young woman, firmly
built, light of motion, graceful perhaps; but it was not the grace
of grace: the grace of simplicity, rather. She talked vivaciously and
frankly, and gave (to friends) her whole eyes and a fine animation in
talking; and her voice was a delight to friends; there was always the
full ring of Janet in it, and music also. She still lifted her lip when
she expressed contempt or dislike of persons; nor was she cured of her
trick of frowning. She was as ready as ever to be flattered; that was
evident. My grandfather's praise of her she received with a rewarding
look back of kindness; she was not discomposed by flattery, and threw
herself into no postures, nor blushed very deeply. 'Thank you for
perceiving my merits,' she seemed to say; and to be just I should add
that one could fan