r we can't get. May I beg a few?"

"The gardener shall send in as many as you wish for, Lady Rea--anything
in my place is at your service."

Poor Tiny! His eager, earnest words began to wake up such a curious
little tremor in her breast. It was all so new--so strange. Now she
told herself she was foolish, childish, and that she was giving way to
silly, romantic fancies; only Fin was evidently thinking something too,
and gave her all sorts of malicious looks. As for Aunt Matty, she sat
now with her eyes closed, sucking a mental lozenge about patience; and
Fin's championship was in abeyance for the rest of the visit--the
conversation being principally between Lady Rea and their visitor.

"It's very kind of you to say so, I'm sure," said Lady Rea. "We saw
them, you know, when we went over your place, once or twice, for Mrs
Lloyd was good enough to say we might. And a very beautiful place it
is."

"It's a dear old home, Lady Rea, indeed," said Trevor, enthusiastically.

"Though you must have found it very _sad_," said Lady Rea.

"No," said Trevor, frankly; "it would be mockery in me to say so. My
parents died when I was so very young, that I never could feel their
loss: I hardly knew what it was to have any one to love."

"Let him look at her now, if he dare," thought Fin, with her eyes
sparkling.

But Trevor did not dare; he only gazed in Lady Rea's pleasant face, and
she made Aunt Matty shiver--firstly, by laying her hand in a soothing
way upon the young man's arm; secondly, by saying she would put herself
under an obligation to this dreadful seafaring person, by accepting his
offer of flowers; and thirdly, by the following terribly imprudent
speech--

"I'm sure I don't know where dear papa can be gone; but as he's not
here, Mr Trevor, you must let me say that whenever you feel dull and
lonely, you must come up here and have a chat, and some music, or
something of that sort. We shall always be delighted to see you."

"Er-rum! Er-rum!" came from the garden.

"Oh! here's papa!" cried Lady Rea. "I'm glad he's come!"

"Er-rum!" came again, and then steps and voices were heard in the
conservatory--voices which made Trevor rise and look annoyed.

The next moment Sir Hampton ushered two gentlemen into the drawing-room
through the conservatory.

"Lady Rea--Tiny dear," he said, loudly--"er-rum, let me make you known
to my friends--Sir Felix Landells and Captain Vanleigh."

Volume 2, Chapter VII.

AUN