And he strode on, his terrier trotting soberly at his heels.  But he was on the whole glad he had met the lady of the Manor, because now he no longer felt any uneasiness concerning her.  His curiosity was satisfied,—­his instinctive dislike of her had changed to a kindly toleration, and his somewhat morbid interest in her arrival had quite abated.  The ‘Five Sisters’ were saved—­that was a good thing; and as for Miss Vancourt herself,—­well!—­she was evidently a harmless creature who would most likely play tennis and croquet all day and take very little interest in anything except herself.

“She will not interfere with me, nor I with her,” said Walden with a sigh of satisfaction and relief; “And though we live in the same village, we shall be as far apart as the poles,—­which is a great comfort’”

XI

Meanwhile, Maryllia cantered home through the woods in complacent and lively humour.  The first few hours of her return to the home of her forefathers had certainly not been lacking in interest and excitement.  She had heard and granted a village appeal,—­she had stopped an act of vandalism,—­she had saved five of the noblest trees in England,—­she had conquered the hearts of several village yokels,—­she had thrust a tyrant out of office,—­she had been cursed by the said tyrant, a circumstance which was, to say the very least of it, quite new to her experience and almost dramatic,—­and,—­she had ‘made eyes’ at a parson!  Surely this was enough adventure for one morning, especially as it was not yet eight o’clock.  The whole day had yet to come; possibly she might be involved later on in still more thrilling and sensational episodes,—­who could tell!  She carolled a song for pure gaiety of heart, and told the rustling leaves and opening flowers in very charmingly pronounced French that

“Votre coeur a beau se defendre De s’enflammer,—­Le moment vient, il faut se rendre, Il faut aimer!”

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, curveted and pranced daintily at every check imposed on her rein, as became an equine royalty,—­she was conscious of the elastic turf under her hoofs, and glad of the fresh pure air in her nostrils,—­and her mistress shared with her the sense of freedom and buoyancy which an open country and fair landscape must naturally inspire in those to whom life is a daily and abounding vigorous delight, not a mere sickly brooding over the past, or a morbid anticipation of the future.  The woods surrounding Abbot’s Manor were by no means depressing,—­they were not dark silent vistas of solemn pine, leading into deeper and deeper gloom, but cheery and picturesque clumps of elm and beech and oak, at constant intervals with hazel-copse, hawthorn and eglantine,—­true English woods, suggestive of delicate romance and poesy, and made magical by the songs of birds, whose silver-throated melodies are never heard to sweeter advantage than under the leafy boughs of such unspoilt green lanes