y due to the discovery that I was in love. I was not ashamed
of myself for being in love with the groom. I had given my heart to the
man. What did the accident of his position matter? Put money into his
pocket and a title before his name--by another accident: in speech,
manners, and attainments, he would be a gentleman worthy of his wealth
and worthy of his rank.

Even the natural dread of what my relations and friends might say, if
they discovered my secret, seemed to be a sensation so unworthy of me
and of him, that I looked round, and called to him to speak to me, and
asked him questions about himself which kept him riding nearly side by
side with me. Ah, how I enjoyed the gentle deference and respect of his
manner as he answered me! He was hardly bold enough to raise his eyes to
mine, when I looked at him. Absorbed in the Paradise of my own making,
I rode on slowly, and was only aware that friends had passed and
had recognized me, by seeing him touch his hat. I looked round and
discovered the women smiling ironically as they rode by. That one
circumstance roused me rudely from my dream. I let Michael fall back
again to his proper place, and quickened my horse's pace; angry with
myself, angry with the world in general, then suddenly changing, and
being fool enough and child enough to feel ready to cry. How long these
varying moods lasted, I don't know. On returning, I slipped off my horse
without waiting for Michael to help me, and ran into the house without
even wishing him "Good-day."

VIII.

AFTER taking off my riding-habit, and cooling my hot face with
eau-de-cologne and water, I went down to the room which we called the
morning-room. The piano there was my favorite instrument and I had the
idea of trying what music would do toward helping me to compose myself.

As I sat down before the piano, I heard the opening of the door of the
breakfast-room (separated from me by a curtained archway), and the voice
of Lady Claudia asking if Michael had returned to the stable. On the
servant's reply in the affirmative, she desired that he might be sent to
her immediately.

No doubt, I ought either to have left the morning-room, or to have let
my aunt know of my presence there. I did neither the one nor the other.
Her first dislike of Michael had, to all appearance, subsided. She had
once or twice actually taken opportunities of speaking to him kindly.
I believed this was due to the caprice of the moment. The tone of her