Why did not Evan bravely march away?  Why, he asked himself, had he come on this cricket-field to be made thus miserable?  What right had such as he to look on Rose?  Consider, however, the young man’s excuses.  He could not possibly imagine that a damsel who rode one day to a match, would return on the following day to see it finished:  or absolutely know that unseen damsel to be Rose Jocelyn.  And if he waited, it was only to hear her sweet voice once again, and go for ever.  As far as he could fathom his hopes, they were that Rose would not see him:  but the hopes of youth are deep.

Just then a toddling small rustic stopped in front of Evan, and set up a howl for his ‘fayther.’  Evan lifted him high to look over people’s heads, and discover his wandering parent.  The urchin, when he had settled to his novel position, surveyed the field, and shouting, ’Fayther, fayther! here I bes on top of a gentleman!’ made lusty signs, which attracted not his father alone.  Rose sang out, ‘Who can lend me a penny?’ Instantly the curate and the squire had a race in their pockets.  The curate was first, but Rose favoured the squire, took his money with a nod and a smile, and rode at the little lad, to whom she was saying:  ’Here, bonny boy, this will buy you—­’

She stopped and coloured.

‘Evan!’

The child descended rapidly to the ground.

A bow and a few murmured words replied to her.

’Isn’t this just like you, my dear Evan?  Shouldn’t I know that whenever I met you, you would be doing something kind?  How did you come here?  You were on your way to Beckley!’

‘To London,’ said Evan.

‘To London! and not coming over to see me—­us?’

Here the little fellow’s father intervened to claim his offspring, and thank the lady and the gentleman:  and, with his penny firmly grasped, he who had brought the lady and the gentleman together, was borne off a wealthy human creature.

Before much further could be said between them, the Countess de Saldar drove up.

‘My dearest Rose!’ and ‘My dear Countess!’ and ‘Not Louisa, then?’ and, ‘I am very glad to see you!’ without attempting the endearing ’Louisa’—­passed.

The Countess de Saldar then admitted the presence of her brother.

‘Think!’ said Rose.  ‘He talks of going on straight from here to London.’

‘That pretty pout will alone suffice to make him deviate, then,’ said the Countess, with her sweetest open slyness.  ’I am now on the point of accepting your most kind invitation.  Our foreign habits allow us to visit thus early!  He will come with me.’

Evan tried to look firm, and speak as he was trying to look.  Rose fell to entreaty, and from entreaty rose to command; and in both was utterly fascinating to the poor youth.  Luxuriously—­while he hesitated and dwelt on this and that faint objection—­his spirit drank the delicious changes of her face.  To have her face before him but one day seemed so rich a boon to deny himself, that he was beginning to wonder at his constancy in refusal; and now that she spoke to him so pressingly, devoting her guileless eyes to him alone, he forgot a certain envious feeling that had possessed him while she was rattling among the other males—­a doubt whether she ever cast a thought on Mr. Evan Harrington.