“What did you tell her?” inquired Elsie.

“Oh!  I said if she had ever seen either a rapid or a toboggan; she would hardly think of associating the two.”

“Some day I wish you and Lady Margaret would make an excursion to Canada, and take me with you.  It would be so exciting——­”

“Come, Elsie,” interrupted her mother, “come, we must go.  Mademoiselle Laurentia will be lonely.”

The ladies rose to go, Elsie saying in an undertone to The McAllister: 

“Now, don’t spend an hour over those stupid politics.  I want you to hear mademoiselle sing.”

“Politics!” he replied, with a disdainful shrug of his shoulders.  “I take no interest whatever in them.  Do not fear, Miss Elsie.”

“I should like to know what you do take an interest in,” remarked the young lady mischievously, as she hurried out of the room.

On entering the drawing-room they failed to find Mademoiselle Laurentia, so Lady Severn proposed that they should go into the garden.

“Elsie, run up to my room and fetch some shawls; the evening is quite chilly.”

It was a lovely night in the end of April; the moon was full, and glimmering with sheeny whiteness over the distant hills.  The garden at Mount Severn was an old-fashioned one, laid out in the early Elizabethan style in stately terraces and winding paths.

On each terrace were planted beds of luxuriant scarlet geraniums and early spring flowers.  Every once in a while one came across a huge copper beech, and gloomy close-clipped hedges of yew divided the garden proper from the adjacent park.

Somewhere in the distance could be heard the trickling of a tiny rivulet, which supplied the fountain in the middle of the garden.  There were many roughly-hewn, picturesque-looking rustic chairs scattered about, and near one of these Lady Margaret paused.

“May we sit here?” she said, turning to her hostess.  “I really think this is the most delightful garden I ever saw in my life.  They talk about Devonshire; I never saw anything half so lovely there.”

“Yes, certainly it is pretty,” assented its proprietress.  “But where is Mademoiselle Laurentia?”

“In her favorite nook beside the old copper beech.  See, you can catch a glimpse of her if you look round that tree.”

Yes, there was Mademoiselle Laurentia, and a very insignificant little person she appeared at first sight.  Her hands were clasped, and she was apparently deep in thought.  She was clad in a gown of some soft shimmery white material, which fell in graceful folds about her, and in the clear beams of the moon looked like a robe of woven silver.  Round her throat was a row of pearls, and in her dark brown hair were two or three diamond pins.

As Elsie Severn returned and came towards her, she lifted her head, and her face could be distinctly seen.  A very sweet face it was, too, albeit not that of a woman in the first freshness of her youth.