'How do you get on with the measuring?'

Dare sighed whimsically. 'Badly in the morning, when I have been tempted
to indulge overnight, and worse in the afternoon, when I have been
tempted in the morning!'

Somerset looked at the youth, and said, 'I fear I shall have to dispense
with your services, Dare, for I think you have been tempted to-day.'

'On my honour no. My manner is a little against me, Mr. Somerset. But
you need not fear for my ability to do your work. I am a young man
wasted, and am thought of slight account: it is the true men who get
snubbed, while traitors are allowed to thrive!'

'Hang sentiment, Dare, and off with you!' A little ruffled, Somerset had
turned his back upon the interesting speaker, so that he did not observe
the sly twist Dare threw into his right eye as he spoke. The latter went
off in one direction and Somerset in the other, pursuing his pensive way
towards Markton with thoughts not difficult to divine.

From one point in her nature he went to another, till he again recurred
to her romantic interest in the De Stancy family. To wish she was one
of them: how very inconsistent of her. That she really did wish it was
unquestionable.

XV.

It was the day of the garden-party. The weather was too cloudy to be
called perfect, but it was as sultry as the most thinly-clad young lady
could desire. Great trouble had been taken by Paula to bring the lawn
to a fit condition after the neglect of recent years, and Somerset had
suggested the design for the tents. As he approached the precincts of
the castle he discerned a flag of newest fabric floating over the keep,
and soon his fly fell in with the stream of carriages that were passing
over the bridge into the outer ward.

Mrs. Goodman and Paula were receiving the people in the drawing-room.
Somerset came forward in his turn; but as he was immediately followed by
others there was not much opportunity, even had she felt the wish, for
any special mark of feeling in the younger lady's greeting of him.

He went on through a canvas passage, lined on each side with flowering
plants, till he reached the tents; thence, after nodding to one or two
guests slightly known to him, he proceeded to the grounds, with a sense
of being rather lonely. Few visitors had as yet got so far in, and as
he walked up and down a shady alley his mind dwelt upon the new
aspect under which Paula had greeted his eyes that afternoon. Her
black-and-white costume had f