‘Will you let me look?’

Her hands fell, all but dropping the glass; still, she did not start with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only abrupt motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with a grace as spontaneous as that we see in a lawn. that glances back before flight.

‘Oh, Mr. Eldon!  How silently you have come!’

The wild rose of her cheeks made rivalry for an instant with the richer garden blooms, and the subsiding warmth left a pearly translucency as of a lily petal against the light.

She held her hand to him, delicately gloved, warm; the whole of it was hidden within Hubert’s clasp.

‘What were you looking at so attentively?’ he asked.

‘At Agworth station,’ replied Adela, turning her eyes again in that quarter.  ’My brother’s train ought to be in by now, I think.  He comes home every Saturday.’

‘Does he?’

Hubert spoke without thought, his look resting upon the maiden’s red girdle.

‘I am glad that you are well again,’ Adela said with natural kindness.  ‘You have had a long illness.’

‘Yes; it has been a tiresome affair.  Is Mrs. Waltham well?’

‘Quite, thank you.’

‘And your brother?’

’Alfred never had anything the matter with him in his life, I believe,’ she answered, with a laugh.

‘Fortunate fellow!  Will you lend me the glass?’

She held it to him, and at the same moment her straying eye caught a glimpse of white smoke, far off.

‘There comes the train!’ she exclaimed.  ’You will be able to see it between these two hills.’

Hubert looked and returned the glass to her, but she did not make use of it.

‘Does he walk over from Agworth?’ was Hubert’s next question.

‘Yes.  It does him good after a week of Belwick.’

‘There will soon be little difference between Belwick and Wanley,’ rejoined Hubert, drily.

Adela glanced at him; there was sympathy and sorrow in the look.

‘I knew it would grieve you,’ she said.

’And what is your own feeling?  Do you rejoice in the change as a sign of progress?’

’Indeed, no.  I am very, very sorry to have our beautiful valley so spoilt.  It is only—­’

Hubert eyed her with sudden sharpness of scrutiny; the look seemed to check her words.

‘Only what?’ he asked.  ‘You find compensations?’

‘My brother won’t hear of such regrets,’ she continued with a little embarrassment ’He insists on the good that will be done by the change.’

’From such a proprietor as I should have been to a man of Mr. Mutimer’s activity.  To be sure, that is one point of view.’

Adela blushed.

’That is not my meaning, Mr. Eldon, as you know.  I was speaking of the change without regard to who brings it about.  And I was not giving my own opinion; Alfred’s is always on the side of the working people; he seems to forget everybody else in his zeal for their interests.  And then, the works are going to be quite a new kind of undertaking.  You have heard of Mr. Mutimer’s plans. of course?’