g of Alick, of whom it was his strongly expressed opinion
that the fellow should be turned out to rough it, and not coddled up and
spoiled at home. But while these remarks were going on, Miss Hill had
been expressing to the curate an entirely different view. "I think he
has a _beautiful_ face," she said with the emphasis some ladies use; "a
little worn, perhaps, with being too much in the world, and I wish he
had a better colour. To me he looks delicate: but what delightful
features, Mr. Whitebands, and what an aristocratic air!"

"He looks tremendously up to everything," the curate said, with a faint
tone of envy in his voice.

"Don't he just?" cried Alick Hudson. "I should think there wasn't a
thing he couldn't do--of things that men _do_ do, don't you know," cried
that carefully trained boy, whose style was confused, though his meaning
was good. But probably there were almost as many opinions about Phil
as there were people in the room. His two backers-up stood in a
corner--half intimidated, half contemptuous of the country people.
"Queer lot for Phil to fall among," said Dick Bolsover. "Que diable
allait-il faire dans cette galere?" said Harry Compton, who had been
about the world. "Oh, bosh with your French, that nobody understands,"
said the best man.

But in the meantime Phil was not there at all to be seen of men. He had
stolen out into the garden, where there was a white vision awaiting him
in the milky moonlight. The autumn haze had come early this season, and
the moon was misty, veiled with white amid a jumble of soft floating
vapours in the sky. Elinor stood among the flowers, which showed some
strange subdued tints of colours in the flooding of the white light,
like a bit of consolidated moonlight in her white dress. She had a white
shawl covering her from head to foot, with a corner thrown over her
hair. What had they to say to each other that last night? Not much;
nothing at all that had any information in it--whispers inaudible almost
to each other. There was something in being together for this stolen
moment, just on the eve of their being together for always, which had a
charm of its own. After to-night, no stealing away, no escape to the
garden, no little conspiracy to attain a meeting--the last of all those
delightful schemings and devices. They started when they heard a sound
from the house, and sped along the paths into the shadow like the
conspirators they were--but never to conspire more after