He kept Leam for a long time after this, laying ground-lines for the future; forgetting Adelaide and the suitability which had hitherto been such an important factor in his calculations; forgetting his horror of Pepita, whose daughter Leam was, and his contempt for weak, fusionless Mr. Dundas, who was her father; forgetting the conventional demands of his class, intolerant of foreign blood; forgetting all but the words which said that Alick was her best friend here, and doubted his (Edgar’s) ever being so good to her as that other had been.  It was on his heart now to convince her that he could be as good to her as Alick, and, if she would allow him, a great deal better.  At last he slackened, and pulled up at the group of which the Fairbairn girls and Adelaide Birkett were the most conspicuous members.

“What a long skate you have had!” said Susy Fairbairn ruefully, for all that she was a good-tempered girl and not disposed to measure her neighbor’s wheat by her own bushel.  But this was a special matter; for Edgar Harrowby was the pride of the place, and they took count of his doings as of their local prince, and envied the lucky queen of the hour bitterly or sadly according to the mood and the person.

“It was the first time I had tried,” said Leam, all aglow with the unwonted exercise and unusual excitement.

“I suppose you began by saying you could not and would not, and then did more than any one else?” said Adelaide in an acrid voice, veiling a very displeased face with a very unpleasant smile; but the veil was too transparent and showed the displeasure with palpable plainness.

Leam looked at her in a half-surprised way.  Jealousy was a passion of which she was wholly ignorant, and she did not understand the key-note.  She knew nothing of the unspoken affair between Edgar and the rector’s daughter, and could not read between the lines.  Why was Adelaide cross because she had been a long time upon the ice?  Did it hurt her?  They had not been near her—­not interfered with her in any way:  why should she be vexed that they, Major Harrowby and herself, had been enjoying themselves?  So she thought, gazing at Adelaide with the serious, searching look which always irritated that young lady, and at this moment almost unbearably.

“I wonder they did not teach you at school that it was rude to stare as you do, Leam,” she cried with impolitic haste and bitterness.  “What are you looking at?  Am I changing into a monster, or what?”

“I am looking at you because you are so cross about nothing,” answered Leam gravely.  “What does it matter to any one if I have been on the ice long or no?  Why should you be angry?” “Angry!” said Adelaide with supreme disdain.  “I am not sufficiently interested in what you do, Leam, to be angry or cross, as you call it.  I confess I do not like affectation:  that is all.”

“Neither do I like affectation,” returned Leam.  “People should say what they feel.”