irmity had gradually
produced. At Brockhurst there were no haphazard exits and entrances.
These were either hopelessly official and public, or guarded to an
equally hopeless point of secrecy. A contingent of tall, civil
men-servants was always on duty. Richard was invariably in his place at
table when the rest of the company came down. The ladies took their
after-dinner coffee in the drawing-room, and joined the gentlemen in
the Chapel-Room, library, or gallery, as the case might be. If they
rode, Richard was at the door ready mounted, along with the grooms and
led-horses. If they drove, he was already seated in the carriage.

"And how, how in the name of common sense," Madame de Vallorbes
exclaimed, stamping her foot, and thereby throwing the now thoroughly
nervous pea-fowl into renewed agitation, "are you to establish any
relation worth mentioning with a man who is perpetually being carried
in procession like a Hindu idol? My good birds, one's never alone with
him--whether by design and arrangement, I know not. But, so far, never,
never, picture that! And yet, don't tell me, matchless mixture of pride
and innocence though he is, he wouldn't like it!"

However, she checked her irritation by contemplation of yesterday. Ah!
that had been very prettily done assuredly. For riding in the forenoon
along the road skirting the palings of the inner park, while they
walked their horses over the soft, brown bed of fallen fir-needles,--she,
her father, and Dick,--the conversation dealt with certain first
editions and their bindings, certain treasures, unique in historic
worth, locked in the glass tables and fine Florentine and _pietra dura_
cabinets of the Long Gallery. Mr. Ormiston was a connoisseur and talked
well. And Helen had sufficient acquaintance with such matters both to
appreciate, and to add telling words to the talk.

"Ah! but I cannot go without seeing those delectable things, Richard,"
she said. "Would it be giving you altogether too much trouble to have
them out for me?"

"Why, of course not. You shall see them whenever you like," he
answered. "Julius knows all about them. He'll be only too delighted to
act showman."

Just here the road narrowed a little, and Mr. Ormiston let his horse
drop a few lengths behind, so that she, Helen, and her cousin rode
forward side by side. The tones of the low sky, of the ranks of firs
and stretches of heather formed a rich, though sombre, harmony of
colour. Scents, pungent an