Well, there was an end of that little project, for to-day at least; and Cousin Monica was too well-bred to urge it beyond a certain point.

’Milly, my dear, will you put on your hat and show me the grounds about the house?  May she, Silas?  I should like to renew my acquaintance.’

’You’ll see them sadly neglected, Monnie.  A poor man’s pleasure grounds must rely on Nature, and trust to her for effects.  Where there is fine timber, however, and abundance of slope, and rock, and hollow, we sometimes gain in picturesqueness what we lose by neglect in luxury.’

Then, as Cousin Monica said she would cross the grounds by a path, and meet her carriage at a point to which we would accompany her, and so make her way home, she took leave of Uncle Silas; a ceremony whereat—­without, I thought, much zeal at either side—­a kiss took place.

‘Now, girls!’ said Cousin Knollys, when we were fairly in motion over the grass, ’what do you say—­will he let you come—­yes or no?  I can’t say, but I think, dear,’—­this to Milly—­’ he ought to let you see a little more of the world than appears among the glens and bushes of Bartram.  Very pretty they are, like yourself; but very wild, and very little seen.  Where is your brother, Milly; is not he older than you?’

‘I don’t know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.’

By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by the river’s brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially to me—­

’He has run away, I’m told—­I wish I could believe it—­and enlisted in a regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing for him.  Did you see him here before his judicious self-banishment?’

‘No.’

’Well, I suppose you have had no loss.  Doctor Bryerly says from all he can learn he is a very bad young man.  And now tell me, dear, is Silas kind to you?’

’Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don’t see a great deal of him—­very little, in fact.’

‘And how do you like your life and the people?’ she asked.

’My life, very well; and the people, pretty well.  There’s an old women we don’t like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths; but I don’t think she is dishonest—­so Mary Quince says—­and that, you know, is a point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says they don’t mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people; and except them we see very little of the servants or other people.  But there has been a mysterious visit; some one came late at night, and remained for some days, though Milly and I never saw them, and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the side-door at two o’clock at night.’

Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested her walk and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm, questioning and listening, and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.