raid."

But Nell understood, and her heart was brimming over with love for him.

"You have been accepted this morning into the--family, as it were," he
said. "And now I feel as if it were impossible that I should lose you
again. Styles will go down to the inn to-night and talk about our visit,
and give a detailed account of the 'new ladyship,' and everybody on the
estate will know of my good fortune. It is almost as if"--he paused, and
the color rose to his face--"as if we were married, Nell. I feel that
nothing can separate us now."

She said not a word, but she pressed a little closer to him, and he bent
and kissed her.

"You don't mind my taking you to the Styles', dearest?" he asked.

"No, oh, no!" she replied. "I would rather have gone there than to any
of the big houses--I mean the county people, Drake. I like to think I am
not the sort of person they dreaded. What was it? 'A fine London lady.'
Perhaps it would be better for you if I were; but for them--well,
perhaps for them it will be better that I am only one of themselves,
able to understand and sympathize with them. Drake, you will not forget
that I am only a nobody, that I am only Nell of Shorne Mills."

He smiled to himself, for he knew that this girl whom he had won was, by
virtue of her beauty and refinement, qualified to fill the highest place
in that vague sphere which went by the name of "society."

"Don't you worry, dearest," he said. "You have won the heart of the
Styles family; and that is no mean conquest. That farm on the right is
the Woodlands, and that just in front is the Broadlands. You will learn
all the names in time, and I want you to know them; I want you to feel
that you have a part and lot in them. Nell, do you think you will ever
be as fond of this place as you are of Shorne Mills?"

"Yes," she said; "because--it is yours, Drake."

He looked down at her gratefully.

"But you shan't lose Shorne Mills," he said resolutely. "I mean to buy
some land there, and build a house, just on the brow of the hill--you
know, Nell; that meadow above The Cottage?--and we'll go there every
summer, and we'll sail the _Annie Laurie_."

So they talked, with intervals of silence filled with his caresses,
until they reached the lodge. And as they came up to it, they heard the
strains of a violin.

Nell awoke with a start.

"Oh, I had almost forgotten!" she said remorsefully.

"Listen!" Drake whispered.

Nell, in the act of pushing the dust c