g amongst stones; and again a
few steps, and a pool shone like molten silver. Above all, the air was
soft, humid, and balmy; and love seemed breathed in the gentle wind that
barely stirred the leaves. They had no need to talk, for it was very
sweet; and they could foresee no black clouds to come sweeping across
their horizon.

Tolcarne gates at last, new and crest-crowned--good-bye--and then out
cigars, and a matter-of-fact walk back, the young men both too dreamy to
speak. And after a brief "Good night, Dick, old fellow"--"Good night,
Franky, old boy," each sought his room--Trevor thinking the while of
Lady Rea's words, and how that he had hardly seen Polly lately, while he
had been too happy in his love to so much as think of Mrs Lloyd and her
baffled plans. For her part, she seemed to have avoided him ever since
she had heard of the engagement that he had made.

"Ah, well," he said, smiling, as he gazed from the open window at the
moonlit shimmering sea, "all these things come right in the end. What
need have I to trouble, with life so pleasurably spread out before me?
Heigho! I don't deserve such good luck; but I think I can bear it like
a good man and true. I wonder, though, whether Frank really cares for
little Fin!"

Ten minutes after, Trevor was dreaming happily of his love, without a
sign of cloud or storm in his sunlit fancies; but they were gathering
fast the while.

Volume 2, Chapter XVII.

A LITTLE CONFESSION.

But Mrs Lloyd, though quiet for a time, and letting matters rest till
the termination of Vanleigh and Sir Felix Landells's visit, was anything
but dormant.

The fact was, that Vanleigh had been in the way upon more than one
occasion. When Polly had been sent for a walk in the hope of enchanting
the "young master," Vanleigh had met her, and been so attentive that the
girl had come back at last, sobbing and almost defiant, telling her aunt
that sooner than be so treated she would run away back to the mountains
in Wales.

This put a stop to it for the time, and Aunt Lloyd waited, hearing
rumours that the two London visitors were engaged to the young ladies of
Tolcarne, and rubbing her hands thereon, for these were threatened
rivals out of the way.

Her encounters with Trevor had been few and far between; but all seemed
satisfactory, and, to use her own words, she "bided her time."

When the news came to her ears, endorsed by the sudden departure of the
visitors, and further confirm