dred yards the danger of being met walking
with Leam by his sisters and Adelaide Birkett. They were all driving
together in the phaeton, and the sisters were making much of their
young friend.

At that moment Edgar preferred to be met alone and not walking with
Leam. He did not stop the carriage--simply nodded to them all with
familiar kindness, as a group of relatives not demanding extra
courtesy, flinging a few words behind him as he rode on smiling. Nor
did the ladies in their turn stop for Leam, whom they met soon after
walking slowly along the road; but Josephine said, as they passed, how
pretty Learn looked to-day, and how much softer her face was than it
used to be; and Maria, even Maria, agreed with kindly Joseph, and
was quite eulogistic on the object of her old disdain. Adelaide sat
silent, and did not join in their encomiums.

It would have been a nice point to ascertain if the Misses Harrowby
would have praised the girl's beauty as they did had they known
that she had grown soft and dewy-eyed by talking of Spain with their
brother Edgar, though she had hardened a little afterward when he told
her that she was the prettiest Andalusian he had ever seen.

During the dinner at the Hill, where Adelaide was one of the family
party, Edgar mentioned casually how that he had met Miss Dundas on the
moor, and had had to speak to her because of Rover's misbehavior.

"Yes? and what do you think of her?" asked Mrs. Harrowby with a sharp
glance.

"I scarcely know: I have hardly seen her as yet," he answered.

"Did she say or do anything very extraordinary to-day?" asked
Adelaide with such an air of contemptuous curiosity as seemed to him
insufferably insolent.

"No, nothing. Is she in the habit of saying or doing extraordinary
things?" he answered back, arching his eyebrows and speaking in a
well-affected tone of sincere inquiry.

"At times she is more like a maniac than a sane person," said
Adelaide, breaking her bread with deliberation. "What can you expect
from such a parentage and education as hers?"

Edgar looked down and smiled satirically. "Poor Pepita's sins lie
heavy on your mind," he answered.

"Yes, I believe in race," was her reply.

"Mother," then said Edgar after a short silence, "why do you not have
Miss Dundas to dine here with Adelaide? It would be more amusing
to her, for it must be dull"--turning to their guest and speaking
amiably, considerately--"I am afraid very dull--to be so often quit