her fast. "I
see no immediate prospect of my being bored, thanks. Rather fun
running into Stafford again after all these years! I shall love a
chat over old times." He raised his black eyes, and Laura
started. Was it her fancy, or a trick of the sunlight, that
conjured up in them that sparkle of smiling cruelty, gone before
she could fix it? "You say he doesn't care to talk about his
military exploits? He always was a modest youth, I should love
to see him on a recruiting platform. Wait till I get him to
myself, he won't be shy with me. Did you tell him I was coming?"

"I told his sister Isabel, who probably told him. I haven't seen
him since, he hasn't happened to come in; I suppose the hay
harvest has kept him extra busy--Dear me! why, there he is!"

In the field across the stream a young man on horseback had come
into view. Catching sight of Laura he slipped across a low
boundary wall, his brown mare, a thoroughbred, changing her feet
in a ladylike way on the worn stones, and trotted down to the
riverbank, raising his cap.

"Coming in to lunch, Val?" Laura called across the water.

"Thank you very much, I'm afraid I shan't have time."

"But you haven't been in since Sunday!" Laura's accent was
reproachful. "Why are you forsaking us? We need you more than
the farm does!"

Val's pleasant laugh was the avoidance of an answer. "So sorry!
But I can't come in now, Laura: I have to go over to Countisford
to talk to Bishop about the new tractor, and I want to get back
by teatime. Isabel tells me you're bringing Captain Hyde up to
see us." He raised his cap again, smiling directly at Lawrence,
who returned the salute with such gay good humour that Laura was
able to dismiss that first fleeting impression from her mind.
So this was Val Stafford, was it? And a very personable fellow
too! Hyde had not foreseen that ten years would work as great a
change in Val as in himself, or greater.

"I was going to call on you in due form, sir, but my young
sister hasn't left me the chance. You haven't forgotten me, have
you?"

"No, I remember you most distinctly. Delighted to meet you
again."

"Thank you. The pleasure is mutual. Now I must push on or I
shall be late."

"He can use his arm, then," said Lawrence, as Val rode away,
jumping his mare over a fence into the road. "Shaves himself and
all that, I suppose? He rides well."

"A great deal too well! and rides to hounds too, but he ought not
to do it