r Malcolm, in sheer honesty, was obliged to confess
to himself that Miss Elizabeth Templeton was a very attractive woman,
and would cast many prettier and younger faces into the shade. "I
wonder where her charm lies," he soliloquised when he had retired to
his bedroom that evening; "her sister is really almost beautiful, but,
with the exception of a pair of very bright and expressive eyes, Miss
Elizabeth has not a single good feature, and yet one is compelled to
admire her. She is a little dignified and reserved with a stranger, and
yet she is not shy; even while she talked to Mr. Carlyon, who certainly
seems a sort of tame cat at the Wood House, I could see her looking at
me as though she regarded me with interest, but we have broken the ice
now with a vengeance."

"One thing I have discovered," he went on, as he looked dreamily down
into the scented darkness of the garden, "she is a woman of large
sympathies, with an excellent sense of humour, which her good heart and
kindly nature keeps in good control; and if I do not mistake, she is
the leading spirit of the house. The sisters seem to be devoted to each
other; and the way they spoil that boy--" and here Malcolm shook his
head in strong disapproval, without being in the least aware that he
was not free from that fault himself. He had just sent the lad away
proud and happy by his delicately implied praise of the Wood House and
its inmates.

"I am quite sure that I shall get on with your sisters, Cedric," he had
said with good-natured condescension; "they seem to me such thoroughly
good, kind-hearted women, and very superior to the generality of folk.
How beautifully your sister Elizabeth sings! I have seldom heard a
voice that pleased me better."

"They both like you," returned Cedric shyly. "Dinah told me so at once;
and though Elizabeth did not actually say so, I could see by her manner
how she enjoyed talking to you;" and indeed Malcolm had never been in
better form.

It had been a very pleasant evening; the small oval dinner-table, with
its flowers exquisitely arranged, the open windows, with the dogs lying
out on the terrace, were all to Malcolm's taste. Everything was so
well-appointed and so well-managed. The servants were evidently old
retainers, and took a warm interest in their mistress's guests.

After dinner they had their coffee on the terrace, and watched the sun
setting behind the fir woods, and when the last yellow gleam had faded
away from the