ike a workman, but
practically was nowhere.

'I am indeed sorry,' said Knight, feeling even more than he expressed.
'But surely, the young lady knows best what is good for her!'

'Bless you, that's just what she doesn't know. She never thinks of such
things, does she, Christopher? Her father and I have to command her and
keep her in order, as you would a child. She will say things worthy of a
French epigrammatist, and act like a robin in a greenhouse. But I think
we will send for Dr. Granson--there can be no harm.'

A man was straightway despatched on horseback to Castle Boterel, and the
gentleman known as Dr. Granson came in the course of the afternoon.
He pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided state of disorder;
forwarded some soothing draught, and gave orders that on no account
whatever was she to play chess again.

The next morning Knight, much vexed with himself, waited with a
curiously compounded feeling for her entry to breakfast. The women
servants came in to prayers at irregular intervals, and as each entered,
he could not, to save his life, avoid turning his head with the hope
that she might be Elfride. Mr. Swancourt began reading without waiting
for her. Then somebody glided in noiselessly; Knight softly glanced up:
it was only the little kitchen-maid. Knight thought reading prayers a
bore.

He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed to recognize
that holding converse with Nature's charms was not solitude. On nearing
the house again he perceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path
which ran into the one he was following in the angle of the field. Here
they met. Elfride was at once exultant and abashed: coming into his
presence had upon her the effect of entering a cathedral.

Knight had his note-book in his hand, and had, in fact, been in the very
act of writing therein when they came in view of each other. He left off
in the midst of a sentence, and proceeded to inquire warmly concerning
her state of health. She said she was perfectly well, and indeed had
never looked better. Her health was as inconsequent as her actions. Her
lips were red, WITHOUT the polish that cherries have, and their redness
margined with the white skin in a clearly defined line, which had
nothing of jagged confusion in it. Altogether she stood as the last
person in the world to be knocked over by a game of chess, because too
ephemeral-looking to play one.

'Are you taking notes?' she inquired with