ence of Sterne's? If it
violate our contract I must plead extenuating circumstances. Strerne
is admonishing a young friend as to his manners in society: "You are in
love," he says. "_Tant mieux_. But do not imagine that the fact bestows
on you a license to behave like a bear toward all the rest of the world.
_Affection may surely conduct thee through an avenue of women to her
who possesses thy heart without tearing the flounces of any of their
petticoats_"--not even those of little cousins of seventeen! I say
this, you will observe, in the capacity you have assigned me. In another
capacity I venture to think I could justify myself still better.'

'My guardian and director,' cried Rose, 'must not begin his functions by
misleading and sophistical quotations from the classics!'

He did not answer for a moment. They were at the gate of Burwood, under
a thick screen of wild-cherry trees. The gate was half open, and his
hand was on it.

'And my pupil,' he said, bending to her, 'must not begin by challenging
the prisoner whose hands she has bound, or he will not answer for the
consequences!'

His words were threatening, but his voice, his fine expressive face,
were infinitely sweet. By a kind of fascination she never afterward
understood, Rose for answer startled him and herself. She bent her head;
she laid her lips on the hand which held the gate, and then she was
through it in an instant. He followed her in vain. He never overtook her
till at the drawing-room door she paused with amazing dignity.

'Mamma,' she said, throwing it open, 'here is Mr. Flaxman. He is come
from Norway, and is on his way to Ullswater. I will go and speak to
Margaret about tea.'

CHAPTER XLVIII.

After the little incident recorded at the end of the preceding chapter,
Hugh Flaxman may be forgiven if, as he walked home along the valley
that night toward the farmhouse where he had established himself, he
entertained a very comfortable scepticism as to the permanence of that
curious contract into which Rose had just forced him. However, he was
quite mistaken. Rose's maiden dignity avenged itself abundantly on Hugh
Flaxman for the injuries it had received at the hands of Langham.
The restraints, the anomalies, the hair-splittings of the situation
delighted her ingenuous youth. 'I am free--he is free. We will be
friends for six months. Possibly we may not suit one another at all. If
we do--_then_----'

In the thrill of that _then_ lay, of cou