y-table at Copsley,
botanical and geological books comparingly examined, Emma Dunstane
always eager to assist; for the samples wafted her into the heart of the
woods. Poor Sir Lukin tried three days of their society, and was driven
away headlong to Club-life. He sent down Redworth, with whom the walks
of the zealous inquirers were profitable, though Diana, in acknowledging
it to herself, reserved a decided preference for her foregone ethereal
mood, larger, and untroubled by the presence of a man. The suspicion
Emma had sown was not excited to an alarming activity; but she began to
question: could the best of men be simply--a woman's friend?--was not
long service rather less than a proof of friendship? She could be blind
when her heart was on fire for another. Her passion for her liberty,
however, received no ominous warning to look to the defences. He was the
same blunt speaker, and knotted his brows as queerly as ever at Arthur,
in a transparent calculation of how this fellow meant to gain his
livelihood. She wilfully put it to the credit of Arthur's tact that his
elder was amiable, without denying her debt to the good man for leaving
her illness and her appearance unmentioned. He forbore even to scan her
features. Diana's wan contemplativeness, in which the sparkle of meaning
slowly rose to flash, as we see a bubble rising from the deeps of
crystal waters, caught at his heart while he talked his matter-of-fact.
But her instinct of a present safety was true. She and Arthur
discovered--and it set her first meditating whether she did know the man
so very accurately--that he had printed, for private circulation, when
at Harrow School, a little book, a record of his observations in nature.
Lady Dunstane was the casual betrayer. He shrugged at the nonsense of a
boy's publishing; anybody's publishing he held for a doubtful proof
of sanity. His excuse was, that he had not published opinions. Let
us observe, and assist in our small sphere; not come mouthing to the
footlights!

'We retire,' Diana said, for herself and Arthur.

'The wise thing, is to avoid the position that enforces publishing,'
said he, to the discomposure of his raw junior.

In the fields he was genially helpful; commending them to the study
of the South-west wind, if they wanted to forecast the weather and
understand the climate of our country. 'We have no Seasons, or only
a shuffle of them. Old calendars give seven months of the year to the
Southwest, and