the
educated cast of countenance he would have had a peasant look, in the
brown, homely undress garb, which to most youths of his age would have
been becoming.

With him was a girl, tall, slim, and lightly made, though of nicely
rounded figure. In height she looked like seventeen, but her dress was
more childish than usual at that age; and the contour of her smooth
cheeks and short rounded chin, her long neck, her happy blue eyes, fully
opened like those of a child, her fair rosy skin and fresh simple air,
might almost have belonged to seven years old: and there was all the
earnestness, innocence, and careless ease of childhood in her movements
and gestures, as she sprang forward to meet Miss Charlecote, exclaiming,
'Robin said I might come.'

'And very right of him. You are both come to tea?' she added, in
affirmative interrogation, as she shook hands with the young man.

'No, thank you,' he answered; 'at least I only brought Phoebe, having
rescued her from Miss Fennimore's clutches. I must be at dinner. But I
will come again for her.' And he yawned wearily.

'I will drive her back; you are tired.'

'No!' he said. 'At least the walk is one of the few tolerable things
there is. I'll come as soon as I can escape, Phoebe. Past seven--I must
go!'

'Can't you stay? I could find some food for you.'

'No, thank you,' he still said; 'I do not know whether Mervyn will come
home, and there must not be too many empty chairs. Good-bye!' and he
walked off with long strides, but with stooping shoulders, and an air of
dejection almost amounting to discontent.

'Poor Robin!' said Honora, 'I wish he could have stayed.'

'He would have liked it very much,' said Phoebe, casting wistful glances
toward him.

'What a pity he did not give notice of his intentions at home!'

'He never will. He particularly dislikes--'

'What?' as Phoebe paused and coloured.

'Saying anything to anybody,' she answered with a little smile. 'He
cannot endure remarks.'

'I am a very sober old body for a visit to me to be the occasion of
remarks!' said Honor, laughing more merrily than perhaps Robert himself
could have done; but Phoebe answered with grave, straightforward
sincerity, 'Yes, but he did not know if Lucy might not be come home.'

Honora sighed, but playfully said, 'In which case he would have stayed?'

'No,' said the still grave girl, 'he would have been still less likely to
do so.'

'Ah! the remarks would have been mo