"Dear me! I forgot. No matter. Oh, mercy! what have I done?"

She had done nothing but what was most likely to obtain her object, for
Lord Hilton had pushed open the door, leaped out, and in a minute or two
returned with his hands full of the peaches and pears she had craved so.
She was blushing scarlet when he came back and dropped the luscious
fruit into her lap, as if they had been acquainted fifty years.

"Oh, you are too kind! I did not mean--I did not expect; but please eat
some yourself. Here is a splendid one. Mrs. Judson, take pears or
peaches, just as you like--delicious!"

The mellow sound of this last word was uttered as her white teeth sank
into the crimson side of a peach, and for the next minute she said
nothing, but gave herself up to a child-like ecstasy of enjoyment, for
the road was dusty, and this luxurious way of quenching her thirst was
far too sweet for words. Besides, her companions were just as pleasantly
employed. She saw the young man wiping a drop of amber juice from his
beard, and wondered where the Abigail found her self-command as she
watched her slowly peeling one of the finest pears with a silver
fruit-knife which she took from her traveling satchel.

"Splendid, aint they?" she said, at length, leaning forward and tossing
a peach-stone out of the window, while she searched the golden and
crimson heap with her disengaged hand for another peach, mellow and
juicy as the last. "I had no idea anything on earth could be so
delightful. We had breakfast so early, and I do believe I was almost
hungry. Oh, how pleasant it must be when one is really famished!"

Here Clara cast another peach-stone through the window, and began to
trifle with a pear, just as Judson cut a dainty slice from the fruit
she had been preparing. Clara laughed, and reached a handful of fruit
over to the gentleman who had made her a gift of the whole. He received
it cheerfully--in fact, it was quite impossible for any man under thirty
to have spent a half hour in that young girl's society without feeling
the heart in his bosom grow softer and warmer.

"What a lovely day it is!" she said, tossing off her hat, and leaning
forward, that the wind might blow on her face, which at the moment had
all the sweet blooming freshness of a child's. "I wonder if the country
is as green and fresh as this, where we are going?"

"Ah, I can answer you. It is far more beautiful. Houghton Castle is
among the hills. The park is like a fore