smiles, their most entrancing glances, upon the handsome young Englishman in vain.  His loyal heart never swerved in its allegiance to his gray-eyed queen—­the love-light that lighted her dear face, the warm, welcoming kiss of her cherry lips, were worth a hundred Parisian belles with their ducal coats of arms.  “Faithful and true” was the motto on his seal; faithful and true in every word and thought—­true as the needle to the North Star—­was he to the lady of his love.

The weeks went swiftly and pleasantly enough; but his red-letter day was the Saturday afternoon that brought him to his darling.  And she, buried among her dry-as-dust school-books and classic lore—­how she looked forward to the weekly day of grace no words of mine can tell.

But with the first bright days of April came a change.  He was going back to England, he told her, one Saturday afternoon, as they sat, lover-like, side by side, in the prim salon.  She gave a low cry at the words, and looked at him with wild, wide eyes.

“Going to England!  Going to leave me!”

“My dearest, it is for your sake I go, and I will be gone but a little while.  The end of next October our long year of waiting ends, and before the Christmas snow flies, my darling must be all my own.  It is to prepare for our marriage I go.”

She hid her glowing face on his shoulder.

“I would make Kingsland Court a very Paradise, if I could, for my bright little queen.  As I can not make it quite Paradise, I will do what I can.”

“Any place is my Paradise so that you are there, Everard!”

“Landscape gardeners and upholsterers shall wave their magic wands and work their nineteenth century miracles,” he said, presently, reverting to his project.  “My dear girl’s future home shall be a very bower of delights.  And, besides, I want to see my mother.  She feels herself a little slighted, I am afraid, after this winter’s absence.”

“Ah, your mother!” with a little sigh.  “Will she ever like me, do yon think, Everard?  Her letter was so cold, so formal, so chilling!”

For this high-stepping young lady who had ridden at the fox-hunt with reckless daring, who was so regally uplifted and imperious, had grown very humble in her new love.

Harrie had written to my lady an humble, girlish, appealing little letter, and had received the coldest of polite replies with the “bloody hand” and the Kingsland crest emblazoned proudly, and the motto of the house in good old Norman French, “Strike once, and strike well.”

Since then there had been no correspondence.  Miss Hunsden was too proud to sue for her favor, and Sir Everard loved her too sensitively to expose her to a possible rebuff.

My lady was unutterably offended by her son’s desertion of a whole winter.  She was nothing to him now.  This bold, masculine girl with the horrible boy’s name was his all in all now.