's cap. The words had been spoken in a civil tone,
that tempted me on.

"Thank you!" I said. "The riding-hall!--who rides in it?"

"We do," he said, and then smiled,--"The cadets."

It was a frank smile and a pleasant face and utterly the look of a
gentleman. So, though I saw that he was very much amused, either at
himself or me, I went on--

"And those other buildings?"

"Those are the stables."

I wondered at the neat beautiful order of the place. Then, the omnibus
slowly mounting the hill, the riding-hall and stables were lost to
sight. Another building, of more pretension, appeared on our left
hand, on the brow of the ascent; our road turned the corner round this
building, and beneath a grove of young trees the gothic buttresses and
windows of grey stone peeped out. Carefully dressed green turf, with
gravelled walks leading from different directions to the doors, looked
as if this was a place of business. Somebody pulled the string here
and the omnibus stopped.

"This is the library," my neighbour in grey remarked; and with that
rising and lifting his cap, he jumped out. I watched him rapidly
walking into the library; he was tall, very erect, with a fine free
carriage and firm step. But then the omnibus was moving on and I
turned to the other side. And the beauty took away my breath. There
was the green plain girded with trees and houses, beset with hills,
the tops of which I could see in the distance, with the evening light
upon them. The omnibus went straight over the plain; green and smooth
and fresh, it lay on the one side and on the other side of us,
excepting one broad strip on the right. I wondered what had taken off
the grass there; but then we passed within a hedge enclosure and drew
up at the hotel steps.

"Have you met an acquaintance already, Daisy?" Dr. Sandford asked as
he handed me out.

"An acquaintance?" said I. "No, but I shall find him soon, I suppose."
For I was thinking of Preston. But I forgot Preston the next minute.
Mrs. Sandford had seized my hand and drew me up the piazza steps and
through the hall, out to the piazza at the north side of the house. I
was in fairyland surely! I had thought so before, but I knew it now.
Those grand hills, in the evening colours, standing over against each
other on the east and on the west, and the full magnificent river
lying between them, bright and stately, were like nothing I had ever
seen or imagined. My memory goes back now to point after poi