alive, and they were
living at Wyngate Priory.

Hugh Redmond! ah, yes, she remembered him now. She had made a cowslip
ball for him once, and he had tossed it right into the middle of the
great elms, where the rooks had their nest; and once she had harnessed
him with daisy chains and driven him up and down the bowling-green,
while her father laughed at them from the terrace--what a merry little
child she used to be--and Hugh Redmond had been a splendid playfellow;
but as she moved beside him down the graveled walk leading to the
cottage her shyness increased, and she could not bring herself to
recall these old memories; indeed, Hugh could not get her to look at
him again.

"There is Aunt Griselda," she said, suddenly, as a tall lady-like
woman with a gentle, subdued-looking face appeared in the porch, and
seemed much surprised at Hugh's apparition. "Auntie, Sir Hugh Redmond
has come to see us," and then without waiting to see the effect of
this introduction on her aunt, Nero's little playfellow slipped away.

Hugh found himself watching for her reappearance with some anxiety, as
he sat in the porch talking to Aunt Griselda.

The elder Miss Mordaunt was somewhat of a recluse in her habits; she
was a nervous, diffident woman, who made weak health an excuse for
shutting herself out from society. Fay had lived with her ever since
her father's death; but during the last year Miss Mordaunt had been
much troubled by qualms of conscience, as to whether she was doing her
duty to her orphaned niece. Fay was almost a woman, she told
herself--a tiny woman certainly, but one must not expect her to grow
bigger; girls seldom grew after sixteen, and Fay was more than
sixteen. Colonel Mordaunt had left very few instructions in his will
about his little daughter. His sister was appointed her personal
guardian until she came of age or married; there was a liberal
allowance for maintenance and education; but Colonel Mordaunt was a
man of simple habits, and Fay had never been accustomed to either
ostentation or luxury; one day she would be a rich woman, and find
herself the possessor of a large, rambling, old house; until then her
father had been perfectly willing that she should live quietly with
his sister in her modest cottage at Daintree. Masters and mistresses
came over to Fay, and taught her in the low bow-windowed room that was
set apart for her use. A chestnut pony was sent from Wyngate Priory;
and Miss Mordaunt's groom accompa