she had great tact, and knew as well how to
ingratiate herself where she had an object in
view as how to avoid offence on all occasions.
She was not so much masculine as she was
mannish. She rode to hounds, and talked stable
with not more blunders than are inevitable to a
woman who cultivates that sort of lore on stray
numbers of the Field, and is but part owner of
one third-rate hack ; she sang a good second to
anybody's song, took a hand at whist or at loo,
and could always cap a good story with a better.

Her father had ruined a fair estate on the
turf, and she now lived with a broken-down
brother of similar tastes, on an encumbered
remnant of it, about five-and-twenty miles from
Skelton Place. When the elder Wharton died,
he besought Squire Conyers, his life-long friend,
to be kind to his motherless daughter; and
though Lady Wallace disliked her from the first
as a companion for Minnie, the squire kept his
promise by annually inviting her to join them, in
their sea-side trip to Scarborough, Whitby, or
Filey, as the case might be. There was a
difference of six years between the girls' ages,
but they struck up a friendly alliance by the
rule of contraries, to which both had continued
outwardly staunch down to the present day,
when Miss Wharton was four-and-twenty, and
Minnie Conyers was just eighteen.

This was Miss Wharton's first visit to Skelton
Place, but she was skilfully manœuvring that it
should not be her last, and the chances were ten
to one that she would carry her point. She had
won over Lady Wallace not only to forgive her
eccentricities, but almost to admire them, and
the squire was quite at her feet. He protested
that she had had the narrowest escape in the
world of being a very handsome woman, and
that as it was, when she warmed up after dinner
or by candlelight, she put all merely pretty,
puling faces quite out of countenance – in which
the squire was perfectly just.

Minnie did not present herself in the drawing-
room until some time after her friend, and as
the squire and tea came in simultaneously with
her, Jack Wyvill had nothing to do but to be
himself again as far as he could, and take his
part in the general conversation. He did not
achieve perfect success in either effort, for he
was very ill-at-ease, and Minnie wore a vexed,
puzzled air of bewilderment such as he had
never seen in her before. The good squire was,
happily, obtuse; he congratulated Jack on his
prompt return from town, with one or two sly
allusions which brought the rosy-red into Minnie's
face; he talked about coming events on the turf,
and the four-year-old he was going to enter for
the October Meeting at York; then asked what
the world of London was doing, all in his round-
about, after-dinner way, until ten o'clock struck
by the timepiece over the chimney, and Jack
rose to depart.

It was his custom to leave the house by the
conservatory, whence he could strike across the
garden and the park in a direct line towards his
own home; and it had been Minnie's duty and
privilege of late to go with him, and let him out
at the glass door opening on the terrace. She
looked rather shy of her office to-night, but as
there was kindness and invitation in his overcast
face she did not hold back, and they passed
silently side by side between the banks of
fragrance, neither caring to be the first to
speak, until just at the last Minnie laid an
impetuous hand on his arm, and whispered,
tearfully, " Jack, you are angry with me, and you
don't tell me why."

"I am not angry with you, Minnie, but I don't
like your mannish friend," said he.

"Hush, Jack, she will hear you!" And,
half laughing, half alarmed, she put up a hasty
finger to close his indiscreet lips.

"I don't care if she does," was the reckless
response.

"But you must care for grieving me. She
has a thousand oddities, but she has a thousand
good points as well. If you knew her better,
you would say so. Ask papa, and he will tell
you the same. Aunt Mary is beginning to like
her too, and it is not everybody Aunt Mary
likes." (Aunt Mary was Lady Wallace.) "She
complains that somebody is always trying to
improve her figure, or her manners, or her
morals. But I am under a vow not to meddle
with any of them, and for my sake you must
take her as she is, and be gracious, Jack. She
is quite disposed to like you."

"I'm much obliged to her, but I don't think
I shall fraternise with her. How long does she
remain here?"

Minnie gave him to understand that she was to
remain over the wedding. The arrangement did
not please him, though he had nothing reasonable
to urge against it; it was only natural
Minnie should wish to keep her friend with her,
and his sudden prejudice rested on such frivolous
grounds he was ashamed to mention it. He did
not mention it, but, standing with his darling
beside him in the moonlight, he forgot all about
it for a minute or two, and then went his way
home as gaily as he had come; while Minnie,
lingering amongst the flowers, felt rejoicingly
that the light cloud which had come between
them was gone.

Jack Wyvill was not the man to try back on
an old doubt without strong provocation when
he had once thrust it away from his mind; and
the next morning he put a jeweller's case, which
he had brought from town, into his pocket, and
set off towards Skelton Place again, just at that
hour when, according to previous experience, he
was most certain of finding Minnie disengaged
and alone. He took the same direction as on
the night before, but he had not quitted the
bounds of his own fields when he was met by
his steward, who detained him with prosy
business-conversation, and even walked him round
half a mile out of his way, to a certain
farmstead where improvements and repairs were
going on; so that, instead of entering the wood
by the gate, he had to climb the fence at
another part, and make a short cut through what
was called the Lower Copse. The undergrowth