Edgar saw that he had overshot the mark, and that his best policy now was absence; wherefore, after a few moments’ silence, he remounted his horse, looking penitent, handsome, full of admiration and downcast.

“I hope we shall soon see you at the Hill, Miss Dundas,” he said, holding her hand in his for his farewell a little longer than was quite necessary for good breeding or even cordiality.

“I very seldom go to the Hill,” answered Leam, looking past his head.

“But you will come, and soon?” fervently.

“Perhaps:  I do not know,” answered Leam, still looking past his head, and embarrassed to a most uncomfortable extent.

“Thank you,” he said, as if he had been thanking her for the grace of his life; and with a long look, lifting his hat again, he rode off, just escaping by a few hundred 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.