goose you are, Mary. Jack thinks you a very nice girl, and a very pretty
girl, I'll be bound; but aren't you clever enough to understand that
when a man is over head and ears in love with one woman, he is apt to
seem just a little indifferent to all the other women in the world? and
there is no doubt Jack is desperately in love with Lesbia.'

'You ought not to let him be in love with her,' protested Mary. 'You
know it can only lead to his unhappiness. You must know what grandmother
is, and how she has made up her mind that Lesbia is to marry some great
person. You ought not to have brought Mr. Hammond here. It is like
letting him into a trap.'

'Do you think it was wrong?' asked her brother, smiling at her
earnestness. 'I should be very sorry if poor Jack should come to grief.
But still, if Lesbia likes him--which I think she does--we ought to be
able to talk over the dowager.'

'Never,' cried Mary. 'Grandmother would never give way. You have no idea
how ambitious she is. Why, once when Lesbia was in a poetical mood, and
said she would marry the man she liked best in the world, if he were a
pauper, her ladyship flew into a terrible passion, and told her she
would renounce her, that she would curse her, if she were to marry
beneath her, or marry without her grandmother's consent.'

'Hard lines for Hammond,' said Maulevrier, rather lightly. 'Then I
suppose we must give up the idea of a match between him and Lesbia.'

'You ought not to have brought him here,' retorted Mary. 'You had better
invent some plan for sending him away. If he stay it will be only to
break his heart.'

'Dear child, men's hearts do not break so easily. I have fancied that
mine was broken more than once in my life, yet it is sound enough, I
assure you.'

'Oh!' sighed Mary, 'but you are not like him; wounds do not go so deep
with you.'

The subject of their conversation came out of the rocky cleft in the
hills as Mary spoke. She saw his hat appearing out of the gorge, and
then the man himself emerged, a tall well-built figure, clad in brown
tweed, coming towards them, with sketch-book and colour-box in his
pocket. He had been making what he called memoranda of the waterfall, a
stone or two here, a cluster of ferns there, or a tree torn up by the
roots, and yet green and living, hanging across the torrent, a rude
natural bridge.

This round by the Langdale Pikes and Dungeon Ghyll was one of their best
days; or, at least, Molly and her brothe