“Now, Miss Wenna,” said the young man—­“By the way, you see how I remember to address you respectfully ever since you got sulky with me about it the other day?”

“I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially about that,” she remarked with much composure.  “I suppose you are not aware that you have dropped the ‘Miss’ several times this morning already?”

“Did I, really?  Well, then, I’m awfully sorry; but then you are so good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she always calls you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if you were a little school-girl, instead of being the chief support and pillar of all the public affairs of Eglosilyan.  And now, Miss Wenna, I sha’n’t go down the road with you, because my damp boots and garments would gather the dust; but perhaps you wouldn’t mind stopping two seconds here, and I’m going to go a cracker and ask you a question:  What should a fellow in my position try to do?  You see, I haven’t had the least training for any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of capacity—­”

“But why should you wish to have a profession?” she said simply.  “You have more money than is good for you already.”

“Then you don’t think it ignominious,” he said, with his face lighting up considerably, “to fish in summer and shoot in autumn and hunt in winter, and make that the only business of one’s life?”

“I should if it were the only business, but it needn’t be, and you don’t make it so.  My father speaks very highly of the way you look after your property; and he knows what attending to an estate is.  And then you have so many opportunities of being kind and useful to the people about you that you might do more good that way than by working night and day at a profession.  Then you owe much to yourself, because if every one began with himself, and educated himself, and became satisfied and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct and wretchedness to call for interference.  I don’t see why you should be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and doing them as well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear people say.  I don’t think a man is bound to have ambition and try to become famous:  you might be of much greater use in the world, even in such a little place as Eglosilyan, than if you were in Parliament.  I did say to Mrs. Trelyon that I should like to see you in Parliament, because one has a natural pride in any person one admires and likes very much, and one wishes—­”

He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her eyes—­not a sudden appearance of shy embarrassment, but of absolute fear—­and he was almost as startled by her blunder as she herself was.  He hastily came to her rescue.  He thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her patience and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and hide the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her and let her go.