hand the old gray ivy-covered ruins, with their stories and memories of bygone times, seemed to add to the vivid fervor of the moment by the force of contrast—­that past so drear and old, the present so full of passionate hope and love; while the shadows of things that had once been real trooped among the ruins and flitted in and out the desert places, chased by laughing girls and merry children, as life chases death, youth drives out age, and the summer rises from the grave of winter.  It was a day, a scene, to remember for life, even by those to whom it brought nothing special:  how much more, then, by those to whom it symbolized the fresh fruition of the summer of the heart, the glad glory of newly-confessed love!

This was Leam’s day.  Edgar devoted himself publicly to her—­so publicly that people gathered into shady corners to discuss what it meant, and to ask each other if the tie already binding the two families was to be supplemented and strengthened by another?  It looked like it, they said, in whispers, for it was to be supposed that Major Harrowby was an honorable man and a gentleman, and would not play with a child like Leam.

Dear Mrs. Birkett was manifestly distressed at what she saw.  Though Adelaide made her mother no more a confidante than if she had been a stranger, yet she knew well enough where her daughter’s wishes pointed; and they pointed to where her own were set.  She too thought that Edgar and Adelaide were made for each other, and that Adelaide at the Hill would be eminently matter in the right place.  She would not have grudged Leam the duke’s son, could she have secured him, but she did grudge her Edgar Harrowby.  It would be such a nice match for Addy, who was getting on now, and whose temper at home was trying; and she had hoped fervently that this year would see the matter settled.  It was hanging fire a little longer than she quite liked:  still, she always hoped and believed until to-day, when Edgar appropriated Leam in this strange manner before them all, seeming to present her to them as his own, so that they should make no further mistake.

But if Mrs. Birkett looked distressed, Adelaide, who naturally suffered more than did her mother, kept her own counsel so bravely that no one could have told how hard she had been hit.  If she betrayed herself in any way, it was in being rather more attentive and demonstrative to her guests than was usual with her; but she behaved with the Spartan pride of the English gentlewoman, and deceived all who were present but herself.

Even Edgar took her by outside seeming, and put his belief in her love for him as a fallacy behind him.  And it said something for a certain goodness of heart, with all his faults and vanity, that he was more relieved than mortified to think that he had been mistaken.  Yet he liked to be loved by women, and the character which he had chiefly affected on the social side of him was that of the Irresistible.  Nevertheless, he was glad that he had been mistaken in Adelaide’s feelings, and relieved to think that she would not be unhappy because he had chosen Leam and not herself.