any woman that ever lived,'
answered Rebecca Thatcher. 'You don't mean what you say, Mr.
Egerton. You know that the name you bear is counted better than
money in these parts.'

He laughed, and changed the conversation.

'I heard you young ladies talking a great deal of the Pensildon fete
last night,' he said.

'Did you really?' asked Milly; 'you did not appear to be much
interested in our conversation.'

'Did I seem distrait? It is a way I have sometimes, Miss Darrell;
but I can assure you I can hear two or three conversations at once.
I think I heard all that you and the Miss Collingwoods were saying.'

'You are going to Lady Pensildon's on the 31st, I suppose?' Milly
said.

'I think not. I think of going abroad for the autumn. I have been
rather a long time at Cumber, you know, and I'm afraid the roving
mood is coming upon me again. I shall be sorry to go, too, for I had
intended to torment you continually about your art studies. You have
really a genius for landscape, you know, Miss Darrell; you only want
to be goaded into industry now and then by some severe critic like
myself. Is your cousin, Mr. Stormont, an artist, by the way?'

'Not at all.'

'That's a pity. He seems a clever young man. I suppose he will be a
good deal with you, now that Mr. and Mrs. Darrell have returned?'

'He cannot stay very long at a time. He has the chief position in
papa's counting-house.'

'Indeed! He looked a little as if the cares of business weighed upon
his spirit.'

He glanced rather curiously at Milly while he was speaking of Mr.
Stormont. Was he really going away, I wondered, or was that threat
of departure only a lover-like ruse?

The rain came presently with all the violence usual to a thunder-
shower. We were prisoners in Mrs. Thatcher's cottage for more than
an hour; a happy hour, I think, to Milly, in spite of the closeness
of the atmosphere and the medical odour of the herbs. Angus Egerton
stood beside her chair all the time, looking down at her bright face
and talking to her; while Mrs. Thatcher mumbled a long catalogue of
her ailments and troubles into my somewhat inattentive ear.

Once while those two were talking about his intended departure I
heard Mr. Egerton say,

'If I thought any one cared about my staying--if I could believe that
any one would miss me ever so little--I should be in no hurry to
leave Yorkshire.'

Of course Milly told him that there were many people who would miss
him--Mr. Colli