occupied. They
must penetrate the cloistered charms of exquisite Borrodaile, and of
course see Lodore, which ought to be at its best now, as there have been
heavy rains. Jove! How the Cumberland names ring on the ear, like the
"horns of elfland"! Helvelyn; Rydal; Ennerdale; Derwent Water;
Glaramara! Aren't they all as crystal as the depths of mountain tarns,
or that amethystine colour of the sky behind the clear profiles of high
peaks?

I'm sorry we're too late for the Grasmere Sports; but the fact is we
have lingered by the way longer than I planned for this trip; and now,
as things are turning out I'm inclined to cut the end of the tour short.
Graylees is practically ready for occupation, and I feel as if I ought
to be there.

No! That isn't good enough for you, old chap. It's true, as far as it
goes; but you have begun to read between the lines by this time, I know,
and I may as well speak out. I should be an ostrich if I weren't sure
that you've been saying to yourself: "Why doesn't this fellow refer to
the girl he has spent so much pen and paper on? Why does he go out of
his way to avoid mentioning her name?"

Well, she hasn't eloped, or done anything culpable. But there is no use
concealing from you, as I have told you so much, that she has hurt me to
the quick. Not that she has been unkind, or rude, or disagreeable. Quite
the contrary. And that's the worst of it, for I prayed to heaven that
there might be nothing of her mother in this young soul. At first, as
you know, I could hardly believe the girl to be all she seemed, but soon
she won me to thinking her perfection--a lily, grown by some miracle of
Nature in a soil where weeds had flourished hitherto. I would have given
my right hand rather than have to admit a flaw in her--that is, the one
fatal flaw: slyness hidden under apparent frankness, which means an
inherited tendency to deceit.

This may sound as if I had found the poor child out in a lie. But there
has been no spoken lie. She has only done the sort of thing I might have
expected Ellaline de Nesville's daughter to do.

I told you about the ring I bought her at Winchester, and gave her on
her birthday; how prettily she received it; how she seemed to treasure
it more because of the thought and the association than the intrinsic
value of the ruby and the brilliants.

At Chester, the night before we left, I thought I'd try to pick up some
little souvenir of the town for her, as she was delighted wi