a soft manner, a winning voice, and, what gave him an almost superstitious interest to women, that fey look attributed to the Stewarts.  He had read and studied hard by fits and starts, for whatever possessed his mind he always pursued with ardour, and to Cecil was fond of inveighing against his useless, unsatisfying life.  In spite of her infatuation, though, she judged him more truly than most people, and perceived that his fitful remorse was chiefly occasioned by pressure of money matters, and seldom lasted over pecuniary relief.

In the most secret flights of her imagination, she pictured herself in some new country with Bertie.  An adventurous, reckless nature such as his, she thought, turned every gift to evil in the commonplace life where his idiosyncrasy had no play; but detached from his idle mess-room habits, and launched into a new career, when to live at all involved exertion of mind and body, would metamorphosize her hero into all she could wish.

Such was the ideal, in her conventual bringing up, of the rich and well placed Cecil; while Bluebell, to whom luxury was unknown, longed for wealth to take her into a sphere where taste was not starved by economy, nor all her horizon bounded by weekly bills.  But in both cases their air castles were to be occupied with Du Meresq.

The girl and the dog sped along on their desolate walk—­it was too cold to linger.  Bluebell carefully followed the route she had taken with Bertie, that memory might be added by association.

“Ah, Trove,” said she to the dog, who bounced up against her, “I am as much a waif and stray as you are—­disowned by my grandfather, who might have made us rich, and taken up by people one day and forgotten the next; but you have drifted into harbour now, my dog, and who knows—­”

A smothered growl interrupted this monologue, and then a sharp bark.  Bluebell looked round to see what was exciting him; she heard a distant tinkle of bells, and listened keenly; laughing voices were apparently approaching.  From an impulse that she could not have explained, Bluebell darted into an empty woodshed, dragging Trove in after her, and holding him firmly by the muzzle to stifle his growling.  Through an aperture in the boards she could observe, unseen herself.

The sounds grew louder, and a score of sleighs defiled past her hiding-place.  Bluebell scanned each carefully.  There were the usual members of the Sleigh Club.  She recognized the Tremaines, and several others of her little world.  Jack in his tandem; but, faithful Lubin! no “cloud-capped” Muffin sat by his side; his companion was of the sterner sex, or, as he would have described him, “a dog.”  But where were the Rollestons?  No representative of “The Maples” was present, not even Du Meresq.  They had flashed past within a minute; but, like a fresh breeze over still water, the little incident had awakened and roused up Bluebell from her lethargy.