ide-glance
up at the Countess's window.

Rose looked straight at Laxley, and abruptly turned on her heel.

In the afternoon, Lady Jocelyn sent a message to Evan that she wished to
see him. Rose was with her mother. Lady Jocelyn had only to say, that
if he thought his friend a suitable tutor for Miss Bonner, they would
be happy to give him the office at Beckley Court. Glad to befriend poor
Jack, Evan gave the needful assurances, and was requested to go and
fetch him forthwith. When he left the room, Rose marched out silently
beside him.

'Will you ride over with me, Rose?' he said, though scarcely anxious
that she should see Mr. Raikes immediately.

The singular sharpness of her refusal astonished him none the less.

'Thank you, no; I would rather not.'

A lover is ever ready to suspect that water has been thrown on the fire
that burns for him in the bosom of his darling. Sudden as the change
was, it was very decided. His sensitive ears were pained by the absence
of his Christian name, which her lips had lavishly made sweet to him. He
stopped in his walk.

'You spoke of riding to Fallow field. Is it possible you don't want me
to bring my friend here? There's time to prevent it.'

Judged by the Countess de Saldar, the behaviour of this well-born
English maid was anything but well-bred. She absolutely shrugged her
shoulders and marched a-head of him into the conservatory, where she
began smelling at flowers and plucking off sere leaves.

In such cases a young man always follows; as her womanly instinct must
have told her, for she expressed no surprise when she heard his voice
two minutes after.

'Rose! what have I done?'

'Nothing at all,' she said, sweeping her eyes over his a moment, and
resting them on the plants.

'I must have uttered something that has displeased you.'

'No.'

Brief negatives are not re-assuring to a lover's uneasy mind.

'I beg you--Be frank with me, Rose!'

A flame of the vanished fire shone in her face, but subsided, and she
shook her head darkly.

'Have you any objection to my friend?'

Her fingers grew petulant with an orange leaf. Eyeing a spot on it, she
said, hesitatingly:

'Any friend of yours I am sure I should like to help. But--but I wish
you wouldn't associate with that--that kind of friend. It gives people
all sorts of suspicions.'

Evan drew a sharp breath.

The voices of Master Alec and Miss Dorothy were heard shouting on the
lawn. Alec gave Dorothy the sli