they tell us: let us hope Scrope felt
rewarded! Whether he did or not, I know he was considerably frightened
when Clarissa (having discovered who had been the instigator of this
"plot" to drive her from her beloved Gowran) came down to Scrope Hall,
and, dashing into his presence like a small whirlwind, abused him for
his well-meant interference in good round terms, and, having refused
even to say good-by to him, had slammed the door in his face, and,
starting from home next morning, had seen no more of him for six long
years.

At seventeen, her aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Greville, had brought her back
from Brussels to her own house in town, where she kept her for twelve
months, and where she once more renewed acquaintance with her old
friends, Dorian and Horace Branscombe. Mrs. Greville took her to all
the most desirable balls of her season, to concerts and "small and
earlies," to high-art entertainments of the most "too, too," and,
having given her free scope to break the hearts of half the men in
town, had sent her at last to her father, hopelessly in love with a
detrimental.

The detrimental was Horace Branscombe. Mrs. Greville was intensely
annoyed and disgusted. After all her care, all her trouble, to have
this happen! She had married her own girls with the greatest _eclat_,
had not made one false move with regard to any of them, and now to see
Clarissa (who, with her beauty and fortune, might have married any
one) throw herself away upon a penniless barrister seemed to her to
savor of positive crime.

Horace, certainly, so far, had not proposed in form, but Mrs. Greville
was not to be hoodwinked. He meant it. He was not always at her
niece's side for nothing; and, sooner or later, Clarissa, with all her
money, would go over to him. When she thought of this shocking waste
of money, she groaned aloud; and then she washed her hands of the
whole affair, and sent Clarissa back to Gowran, where her father
received her with open arms, and made much of her.

CHAPTER III.

"O Helen, fair beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair,
Until the day I die!"

Across the lawn the shadows move slowly, and with a vague grace that
adds to their charm. The birds are drowsy from the heat, and, sitting
half hidden in the green branches, chant their songs in somewhat lazy
fashion. All nature has succumbed to the fierce power of Phoebus
Apollo.

"The morn is merry June, I