ened step. The man who was approaching, catching
sight of the slim girlish figure in the broad hat and pink and white
cotton dress, hurried up. The color rushed to Rose's cheek. In another
minute she and Hugh Flaxman were face to face.

She could not hide her astonishment.

'Why are you not in Scotland?' she said after she had given him her
hand. 'Lady Helen told me last week she expected you in Ross-shire.'

Directly the word left her mouth she felt she had given him an opening.
And why had Nature plagued her with this trick of blushing?

'Because I am here!' he said smiling, his keen dancing eyes looking down
upon her. He was bronzed as she had never seen him. And never had he
seemed to bring with him such an atmosphere of cool pleasant strength.
'I have slain so much since the first of July that I can slay no more.
I am not like other men. The Nimrod in me is easily gorged, and goes to
sleep after a while. So this is Burwood?'

He had caught her just on the little sweep, leading to gate, and now his
eye swept quickly over the modest old house, with its trim garden, its
overgrown porch and open casement windows. She dared not ask him again
why he was there. In the properest manner she invited him 'to come in
and see Mamma.'

'I hope Mrs. Leyburn is better than she was in town? I shall be
delighted to see her. But must you go in so soon? I left my carriage
half a mile below, and have been reveling in the sun and air. I am loath
to go indoors yet awhile. Are you busy? Would it trouble you to put me
in the way to the head of the valley? Then if you will allow me, I will
present myself later.'

Rose thought his request as little in the ordinary line of things as his
appearance. But she turned and walked beside him pointing out the
crags at the head, the great sweep of High Fell, and the pass over to
Ullswater with as much _sang-froid_ as she was mistress of.

He, on his side, informed her that on his way to Scotland he had
bethought himself that he had never seen the Lakes, that he had
stopped at Whinborough, was bent on walking over the High Fell pass
to Ullswater, and making his way thence to Ambleside, Grasmere, and
Keswick.

'But you are much too late to-day to get to Ullswater?' cried Rose
incautiously.

'Certainly. You see my hotel,' and he pointed, smiling, to a white
farmhouse standing just at the bend of the valley, where the road turned
toward Whinborough. 'I persuaded the good woman there to give me