us wood and common lands of Southern
England--great beeches towering overhead--glades opening to right and
left--ferny paths over green turf-tracks, and avenues of immemorial age,
the highways of a vanished life--old earth-works, overgrown--lanes
deep-sunk in the chalk where the pack-horses once made their
way--gnarled thorns, bent with years, yet still white-mantled in the
spring: a wild, enchanted no-man's country, owned it seemed by rabbits
and birds, solitary, lovely, and barren--yet from its furthest edge, the
high spectator, looking eastward, on a clear night, might see on the
horizon the dim flare of London.

Diana's habitual joy broke out, as she stood gazing at the village
below, the walls and woods of Beechcote, the church, the plough-lands,
and the far-western plain, drawn in pale grays and purples under the
declining sun.

"Isn't it heavenly!--the browns--the blues--the soberness, the delicacy
of it all? Oh, so much better than any tiresome Mediterranean--any
stupid Riviera!--Ah!" She stopped and turned, checked by a sound
behind her.

Captain Roughsedge appeared, carrying his gun, his spaniel beside him.
He greeted the ladies with what seemed to Mrs. Colwood a very evident
start of pleasure, and turned to walk with them.

"You have been shooting?" said Diana.

He admitted it.

"That's what you enjoy?"

He flushed.

"More than anything in the world."

But he looked at his questioner a little askance, as though uncertain
how she might take so gross a confession.

Diana laughed, and hoped he got as much as he desired. Then he was not
like his father--who cared so much for books?

"Oh, books!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, the fact is, I--I don't
often read if I can help it. But of course they make you do a lot of
it--with these beastly examinations. They've about spoiled the army
with them."

"You wouldn't do it for pleasure?"

"What--reading?" He shook his head decidedly. "Not while I could be
doing anything else."

"Not history or poetry?"

He looked at her again nervously. But the girl's face was gay, and he
ventured on the truth.

"Well, no, I can't say I do. My father reads a deal of poetry aloud."

"And it bores you?"

"Well, I don't understand it," he said, slowly and candidly.

"Don't you even read the papers?" asked Diana, wondering.

He started.

"Why, I should think I do!" he cried. "I should rather think I do!
That's another thing altogether--that's not books."