t,
had stood coldly outside the group which was making much of the Squire's
sister. Was it so the strange little visitor revenged herself?

At any rate Rose was left feeling as if someone had pricked her. While
Catherine and Elsmere escorted Mrs. Darcy to the gate she turned to go
in, her head thrown back staglike, her cheek still burning. Why should
it be always open to the old to annoy the young with impunity?

Langham watched her mount the first step or two; his eye travelled up
the slim figure so instinct with pride and will--and something in him
suddenly gave way. It was like a man who feels his grip relaxing on some
attacking thing he has been heading by the throat.

He followed her hastily.

'Must you go in? And none of us have paid our respects yet to those
phloxes in the back garden?'

Oh woman--flighty woman! An instant before, the girl, sore and bruised
in every fibre, she only half knew why, was thirsting that this man
might somehow offer her his neck that she might trample on it. He offers
it and the angry instinct wavers, as a man wavers in a wrestling match
when his opponent unexpectedly gives ground. She paused, she turned her
white throat. His eyes upturned met hers.

'The phloxes did you say?' she asked, coolly redescending the steps.
'Then round here, please.'

She led the way, he followed, conscious of an utter relaxation of nerve
and will which for the moment had something intoxicating in it.

'There are your phloxes,' she said, stopping before a splendid line of
plants in full blossom. Her self-respect was whole again; her spirits
rose at a bound. 'I don't know why you admire them so much. They have no
scent and they are only pretty in the lump'--and she broke off a spike
of blossom, studied it a little disdainfully, and threw it away.

He stood beside her, the southern glow and life of which it was
intermittently capable once more lighting up the strange face.

'Give me leave to enjoy everything countrified more than usual,' he
said. 'After this morning it will be so long before I see the true
country again.'

He looked, smiling, round on the blue and white brilliance of the sky,
clear again after a night of rain; on the sloping garden, on the village
beyond, on the hedge of sweet peas close beside them, with its blooms.

on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white.

'Oh! Oxford is countrified enough,' she said, indiff