g sound. I hope you will not get into the habit of using
it--for your own sake.'

'I am not likely to use it much. I suppose I have heard it so often
from Alfred lately. Please don't think,' she added rather hastily, 'that
I have become a Socialist. Indeed, I dislike the name; I find it implies
so many things that I could never approve of.'

Her way of speaking the last sentence would have amused a dispassionate
critic, it was so distinctively the tone of Puritan maidenhood. From
lips like Adela's it is delicious to hear such moral babbling. Oh, the
gravity of conviction in a white-souled English girl of eighteen! Do you
not hear her say those words: 'things that I could never approve of'?

As her companion did not immediately reply, she again raised the
field-glass to her eyes and swept the prospect.

'Can you see your brother on the road?' Hubert inquired.

'No, not yet. There is a trap driving this way. Why, Alfred sitting in
it! Oh, it is Mr. Mutimer's trap I see. He must have met Alfred at the
station and have given him a ride.'

'Evidently they are great friends,' commented Eldon.

Adela did not reply. After gazing a little longer, she said--

'He will be home before I can get there.'

She screwed up the glasses and turned as if to take leave. But Hubert
prepared to walk by her side, and together they reached the lane.

'Now I am going to run down the hill,' Adela said, laughing. 'I can't
ask you to join in such childishness, and I suppose you are not going
this way, either?'

'No, I am walking back to the Manor,' the other replied soberly. 'We had
better say good-bye. On Monday we shall leave Wanley, my mother and I.'

'On Monday?'

The girl became graver.

'But only to go to Agworth?' she added.

'I shall not remain at Agworth. I am going to London.'

'To--to study?'

'Something or other, I don't quite know what. Good-bye!'

'Won't you come to say good-bye to us--to mother?'

'Shall you be at home to-morrow afternoon, about four o'clock say?'

'Oh, yes; the very time.'

'Then I will come to say good-bye.'

'In that case we needn't say it now, need we? It is only good
afternoon.'

She began to walk down the lane.

'I thought you were going to run,' cried Hubert.

She looked back, and her silver laugh made chorus with the joyous
refrain of a yellow-hammer, piping behind the hedge. Till the turn of
the road she continued walking, then Hubert had a glimpse of white folds
waving in the