p and in a good temper just for the
present; but--"

Stafford laughed, the strong and healthy man's laugh of good-natured
tolerance for the fancies of the woman he loves.

"My dear Ida, I assure you Miss Falconer is quite an ordinary young
woman with nothing mysterious or uncanny about her. And if she has seen
us, I am rather glad. I--well, I want to take you by the hand and
exclaim aloud to the whole world: 'Behold the treasure I have found!
Look upon her--but shade your eyes lest her beauty dazzle you--and
worship at her feet.' Only a day or two more and I'll tell my father
and have him on our side."

She made a gesture of consent.

"It shall be as you will," she murmured again. "But go now, dearest; I
shall have to ride fast to reach home in time to give my father his
tea."

Maude Falconer cantered easily until she had turned the corner of the
hill and was out of sight of Stafford and Ida, then she pulled up the
high-bred horse who fretted under her steel-like hands and tossed the
foam from his champing lips, pulled up and looked straight before her,
while the colour came and went on her smooth cheek; a sombre fire
gleamed in the usually coldly calm eyes, and her bosom heaved under the
perfect moulding of the riding-habit. She sat and looked before her for
a moment or two as if she were battling with an emotion which
threatened to master her and to find expression in some violent
outburst; but she conquered, and presently rode on to the Villa; and
half an hour later Stafford, coming up the steps, found her lying back
in her favourite chair with a cup of tea in her hand.

"You are just in time," she said, looking up at him, and he looked back
at her rather vacantly; for Ida had been in his arms too recently, for
his mind, his whole being, to be sufficiently clear of her to permit
him to take any interest in anything else "for tea," she said. "Here it
comes. Shall I pour it out for you? Have you been riding far?"

"Not very far," he said. "You have been riding, too. Is it a wonder we
did not meet."

"Yes," she assented, languidly. "I met no one, saw no one, while I was
out. Here comes your shadow," she added, as Tiny, having heard his
beloved master's voice, came helter-skelter, head over heels, and leapt
on Stafford's lap. "How fond he is of you."

Stafford nodded.

"Yes; I'm jolly glad no one answered the advertisement for its owner."

She bent over and stroked the terrier, who always seemed uneasy unde