special: how much more, then, by those to whom
it symbolized the fresh fruition of the summer of the heart, the glad
glory of newly-confessed love!

This was Leam's day. Edgar devoted himself publicly to her--so
publicly that people gathered into shady corners to discuss what
it meant, and to ask each other if the tie already binding the two
families was to be supplemented and strengthened by another? It looked
like it, they said, in whispers, for it was to be supposed that Major
Harrowby was an honorable man and a gentleman, and would not play with
a child like Leam.

Dear Mrs. Birkett was manifestly distressed at what she saw. Though
Adelaide made her mother no more a confidante than if she had been
a stranger, yet she knew well enough where her daughter's wishes
pointed; and they pointed to where her own were set. She too thought
that Edgar and Adelaide were made for each other, and that Adelaide at
the Hill would be eminently matter in the right place. She would not
have grudged Leam the duke's son, could she have secured him, but she
did grudge her Edgar Harrowby. It would be such a nice match for Addy,
who was getting on now, and whose temper at home was trying; and she
had hoped fervently that this year would see the matter settled. It
was hanging fire a little longer than she quite liked: still, she
always hoped and believed until to-day, when Edgar appropriated Leam
in this strange manner before them all, seeming to present her to them
as his own, so that they should make no further mistake.

But if Mrs. Birkett looked distressed, Adelaide, who naturally
suffered more than did her mother, kept her own counsel so bravely
that no one could have told how hard she had been hit. If she
betrayed herself in any way, it was in being rather more attentive and
demonstrative to her guests than was usual with her; but she behaved
with the Spartan pride of the English gentlewoman, and deceived all
who were present but herself.

Even Edgar took her by outside seeming, and put his belief in her love
for him as a fallacy behind him. And it said something for a certain
goodness of heart, with all his faults and vanity, that he was more
relieved than mortified to think that he had been mistaken. Yet he
liked to be loved by women, and the character which he had chiefly
affected on the social side of him was that of the Irresistible.
Nevertheless, he was glad that he had been mistaken in Adelaide's
feelings, and relieved to t