ly _very_ nice, and there were exalted persons who absolutely had
rather a fad for him. It would be exceptionally brilliant.

The brisk walk was taken, and Lady Agatha returned from it blooming. She
was adorable at dinner, and in the evening gathered an actual court
about her. She was all in pink, and a wreath of little pink wild roses
lay close about her head, making her, with her tall young slimness, look
like a Botticelli nymph. Emily saw that Lord Walderhurst looked at her a
great deal. He sat on an extraordinarily comfortable corner seat, and
stared through his monocle.

Lady Maria always gave her Emily plenty to do. She had a nice taste in
floral arrangement, and early in her visit it had fallen into her hands
as a duty to "do" the flowers.

The next morning she was in the gardens early, gathering roses with the
dew on them, and was in the act of cutting some adorable "Mrs. Sharman
Crawfords," when she found it behoved her to let down her carefully
tucked up petticoats, as the Marquis of Walderhurst was walking straight
toward her. An instinct told her that he wanted to talk to her about
Lady Agatha Slade.

"You get up earlier than Lady Agatha," he remarked, after he had wished
her "Good-morning."

"She is oftener invited to the country than I am," she answered. "When I
have a country holiday, I want to spend every moment of it out of doors.
And the mornings are so lovely. They are not like this in Mortimer
Street."

"Do you live in Mortimer Street?"

"Yes."

"Do you like it?"

"I am very comfortable. I am fortunate in having a nice landlady. She
and her daughter are very kind to me."

The morning was indeed heavenly. The masses of flowers were drenched
with dew, and the already hot sun was drawing fragrance from them and
filling the warm air with it. The marquis, with hia monocle fixed,
looked up into the cobalt-blue sky and among the trees, where a
wood-dove or two cooed with musical softness.

"Yes," he observed, with a glance which swept the scene, "it is
different from Mortimer Street, I suppose. Are you fond of the country?"

"Oh, yes," sighed Emily; "oh, yes!"

She was not a specially articulate person. She could not have conveyed
in words all that her "Oh, yes!" really meant of simple love for and joy
in rural sights and sounds and scents. But when she lifted her big kind
hazel eyes to him, the earnestness of her emotion made them pathetic, as
the unspeakableness of her pleasures often did