as so fine and frosty a kind of devil seemed to creep
into me. I have been _so_ good since Saturday, so when Malcolm said, in
his usual prim, priggish voice, "Miss Travers, may I have the pleasure of
taking you for a little exercise," I jumped up without consulting Lady
Katherine, and went and put my things on, and we started.

I had a feeling that they were all thinking I was doing something wrong,
and so, of course, it made me worse. I said every kind of simple thing I
could to Malcolm to make him jump, and looked at him now and then from
under my eyelashes. So when we got to a stile, he did want to help me, and
his eyes were quite wobblish. He has a giggle right up in the treble, and
it comes out at such unexpected moments, when there is nothing to laugh
at. I suppose it is being Scotch--he has just caught the meaning of some
former joke. There would never be any use in saying things to him like to
Lord Robert and Mr. Carruthers, because one would have left the place
before he understood, if even then.

There was an old Sir Thomas Farquharson who came to Branches, and he
grasped the deepest jokes of Mrs. Carruthers--so deep that even I did not
understand them--and he was Scotch. It may be they are like that only when
they have red hair.

When I was seated on top of a stile, Malcolm suddenly announced:

"I hear you are going to London when you go. I hope you will let me come
and see you; but I wish you lived here always."

"I don't," I said, and then I remembered that sounded rather rude, and
they had been kind to me. "At least, you know, I think the country is
dull; don't you--for always?"

"Yes," he replied, primly, "for men, but it is where I should always wish
to see the woman I respected."

"Are towns so wicked?" I asked, in my little-angel voice. "Tell me of
their pitfalls, so that I may avoid them."

"You must not believe everything people say to you, to begin with," he
said, seriously. "For one so young as you, I am afraid you will find your
path beset with temptations."

"Oh, do tell me what!" I implored. "I have always wanted to know what
temptations were. Please tell me. If you come to see me--would you be a
temptation, or is temptation a thing and not a person?" I looked at him
so beseechingly he never for a second saw the twinkle in my eye.

He coughed pompously. "I expect I should be," he said modestly.
"Temptations are--er--er--Oh, I say, you know, I say--I don't know what to
say."

"Oh, wh