ver went with Miss Bidwell--and
we will have tea at the inn down by the river and come home by moonlight.
We shall be quite safe, for Reginald and Lionel will be with us, and they
will take care of us."

The part of the grounds in which this so far one-sided conversation was
taking place was at some considerable distance from the house, in fact it
was right on the confines of the wood and as far from the house as
possible. Beyond the wood flat, green fields stretched on all sides
undiversified by as much as a copse or a hill. Even a bare, ploughed
field would have been a welcome relief to the landscape, while a yellow
cornfield would have imparted a positively gay appearance to it; but year
in year out those green fields wore always the same aspect.

But dull though the view might be, it was at least a wide one, and there
were the sheep and the cows that grazed in them to look at. Occasionally,
too, a stray passer-by, under the erroneous impression that in crossing
them he was taking a short cut, would venture into them, only to turn
back discomfited when confronted with padlocked gates and hedges threaded
with barbed wire, to say nothing of notice boards warning trespassers to
beware.

For the man who owned Greystones and those densely wooded grounds also
owned the fields that surrounded them, and his hatred of intruders was
well known in the immediate neighbourhood. It was a brave child who crept
through his hedges or climbed over his gates to pick primroses or
blackberries, and the urchin that was unlucky enough to encounter old Mr.
Anstruther while so engaged never ventured to trespass on his property
again.

"Margaret Anstruther! Margaret Anstruther! are you going to sit under
that tree all the afternoon? If you are too lazy to play tennis or to
come for a ride, will you come with me to Lady Barchester's garden party?
She has invited two hundred guests, and you must wear that lovely white
muslin dress with the little frills all up the skirt, and the big white
hat with the pink roses, and do not forget to take the pink chiffon
parasol that was sent you from Paris last week. We have been asked to
remain to dinner there, you may remember, for there will be a dance
afterwards. And the moon will be shining, and will it not be very
pleasant to sit out in the garden between the dances! Will you come,
Margaret Anstruther?"

That proposal was surely one that ought to have been tempting enough to
have called forth an a