prettily.

"Frank Lumsden," observed Hugh, in some perplexity; "I don't think I
remember, Fay."

"Not remember what I told you that Sunday evening in the lane--the
evening after we were engaged! How Mr. Lumsden wanted to tell me how
he admired me, but I cried and would not let him; and he went away so
unhappy, poor fellow. As though I could ever have cared for him,"
continued, Fay, with innocent scorn, as she looked up into Hugh's
handsome face. He was regarding her attentively just then.

Yes, she was pretty, he knew that--lovely, no doubt, to her boy
lovers. But to him, with the memory of Margaret's grand ideal beauty
ever before him, Fay's pink and pearly bloom, though it was as purely
tinted as the inner calyx of a rose, faded into mere color prettiness.
And as yet the spell of those wonderful eyes, of which Frank Lumsden
dreamed, had exercised no potent fascination over her husband's heart.

"Hugh," whispered Fay, softly, "you have not kept any secrets from me,
have you? I know I am very young to share all your thoughts, but you
will tell your little wife everything, will you not?"

No secrets from her! Heaven help her, poor child. Would she
know--would she ever know? And with a great throb of pain his heart
answered, "No."

"Why are you so silent, Hugh; you have no secrets surely?"

"Hush, dear, we can not talk any more now; we have passed the church
and the vicarage already--we are nearly home;" and as he spoke they
came in sight of the lodge, where Catharine was waiting with her baby
in her arms.

Fay smiled and nodded, and then they turned in at the gate, and the
darkness seemed to swallow them up.

The avenue leading to Redmond Hall was the glory of the whole
neighborhood.

Wayfarers, toiling along the hot and dusty road that leads from
Singleton to Sandycliffe, always paused to look through the great gate
at the green paradise beyond.

It was like a glade in some forest, so deep was its shadowy gloom, so
unbroken its repose; while the arrowy sun-shafts flickered patterns on
the mossy footpaths, or drew a golden girdle round some time-worn
trunk.

Here stood the grand old oaks, under whose branches many a Redmond
played as a child in the days before the Restoration--long before the
time when Marmaduke, fifth baronet of that name, joined the forces of
Rupert, and fell fighting by the side of his dead sons.

Here too were the aged beeches; some with contorted boles, and
marvelously twisted limb