think herself injured by being asked to love him.  She was a good girl, and would have consented to marry no man without feeling sure of his affections; but Fred Neville was bold and frank as well as handsome, and had plenty to say for himself.  It might be that he was vicious, or ill-tempered, or selfish, and it would be necessary that she should know much of him before she would give herself into his keeping; but as far as the first sight went, and the first hearing, Sophie Mellerby’s impressions were all in Fred’s favour.  It is no doubt a fact that with the very best of girls a man is placed in a very good light by being heir to a peerage and a large property.

“Do you hunt, Miss Mellerby?” he asked.  She shook her head and looked grave, and then laughed.  Among her people hunting was not thought to be a desirable accomplishment for young ladies.  “Almost all girls do hunt now,” said Fred.

“Do you think it is a nice amusement for young ladies?” asked the aunt in a severe tone.

“I don’t see why not;—­that is if they know how to ride.”

“I know how to ride,” said Sophie Mellerby.

“Riding is all very well,” said Lady Scroope.  “I quite approve of it for girls.  When I was young, everybody did not ride as they do now.  Nevertheless it is very well, and is thought to be healthy.  But as for hunting, Sophie, I’m sure your mamma would be very much distressed if you were to think of such a thing.”

“But, dear Lady Scroope, I haven’t thought of it, and I am not going to think of it;—­and if I thought of it ever so much, I shouldn’t do it.  Poor mamma would be frightened into fits,—­only that nobody at Mellerby could possibly be made to believe it, unless they saw me doing it.”

“Then there can be no reason why you shouldn’t make the attempt,” said Fred. Upon which Lady Scroope pretended to look grave, and told him that he was very wicked.  But let an old lady be ever so strict towards her own sex, she likes a little wickedness in a young man,—­if only he does not carry it to the extent of marrying the wrong sort of young woman.

Sophia Mellerby was a tall, graceful, well-formed girl, showing her high blood in every line of her face.  On her mother’s side she had come from the Ancrums, whose family, as everybody knows, is one of the oldest in England; and, as the Earl had said, the Mellerbys had been Mellerbys from the time of King John, and had been living on the same spot for at least four centuries.  They were and always had been Mellerbys of Mellerby,—­the very name of the parish being the same as that of the family.  If Sophia Mellerby did not shew breeding, what girl could shew it?  She was fair, with a somewhat thin oval face, with dark eyes, and an almost perfect Grecian nose.  Her mouth was small, and her chin delicately formed.  And yet it can hardly be said that she was beautiful.  Or, if beautiful, she was so in women’s eyes rather than in those of men.  She lacked colour and perhaps animation