head happily on the pillow.

As for Dick, he had a long ordeal before him ere he could make his
escape to the smoking-room, where his friends awaited him. Mr. Mayne
had a great deal to say to him about the day, and Dick had to listen
and try to look interested.

"I am sure Dick behaved beautifully," observed Mrs. Mayne, when the
son and heir had at last lounged off to his companions.

"Well, yes; he did very well on the whole," was the grudging response;
"but I must say those Challoner girls made themselves far too
conspicuous for my taste;" but to this his wife prudently made no
reply.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. TRINDER'S VISIT.

The next few days passed far too quickly for Nan's pleasure, and
Dick's last morning arrived. The very next day the Maynes were to
start for Switzerland, and Longmead was to stand empty for the
remainder of the summer. It was a dreary prospect for Nan, and in
spite of her high spirits her courage grew somewhat low. Six months!
who could know what might happen before they met again? Nan was not
the least bit superstitious, neither was it her wont to indulge in
useless speculations or forebodings; but she could not shake off this
morning a strange uncanny feeling that haunted her in spite of
herself--a presentiment that things were not going to be just as she
would have them,--that Dick and she would not meet again in exactly
the same manner.

"How silly I am!" she thought, for the twentieth time, as she brushed
out her glossy brown hair and arranged it in her usual simple
fashion.

Nan and her sisters were a little behind the times in some ways; they
had never thought fit to curl their hair _en garcon_, or to mount a
pyramid of tangled curls in imitation of a poodle; no pruning scissors
had touched the light-springing locks that grew so prettily about
their temples; in this, as in much else, they were unlike other girls,
for they dared to put individuality before fashion, and good taste and
a sense of beauty against the specious arguments of the multitude.

"How silly I am!" again repeated Nan. "What can happen, what should
happen, except that I shall have a dull summer, and shall be very glad
when Christmas and Dick come together;" and then she shook her little
basket of housekeeping keys until they jingled merrily, and ran
downstairs with a countenance she meant to keep bright for the rest of
the day.

They were to play tennis at the Paines' that afternoon, and afterwards
the th