He broke off, checking himself with a vexed gesture.

“And—­er—­and—­er—­who else?” said Maryllia, smiling—–­“Now don’t play tricks with me, or I’ll play tricks with you!”

His eyes caught and reflected her smile.

“Well,—­Sir Morton Pippitt spoke of you once in my hearing”—­he said—­“And a friend of his whom he brought to see the church, the Duke of Lumpton.  Also a clergyman in this neighbourhood, a Mr. Leveson—­rector at Badsworth—­he mentioned you, and presumed”—­here John paused a moment,—­“yes, I think I may say presumed—­to know yon personally.”

“Did he really!  I never heard of him!” And she laughed merrily.  “Mr. Walden, if I were to tell you the number of people who profess to know me whom I do not know and never will know, you would be surprised!  I never spoke to Sir Morton Pippitt in my life till the other day, though he pretends he has met me,-but he hasn’t.  He may have seen me perhaps by chance when I was a child in the nursery, but I don’t remember anything about him.  My father never visited any of the people here,—­we lived very much to ourselves.  As for the Duke of Lumpton,—­well!—­nobody knows him that can possibly avoid it—­and I have never even so much as seen him.  Aunt Emily may possibly have spoken of me in these persons’ hearing—­that’s quite likely,—­but they know nothing of me at first hand.”  She paused a moment, “Look at Cicely!” she said—­“How quickly she makes friends!  She and Mr. Adderley are chattering away like two magpies!”

Walden looked in the direction indicated, and saw the couple at some distance off, under the great cedar-tree which was the chief ornament of the lawn,—­Cicely seated in a low basket-chair, and Adderley stretched on the grass at her feet.  Both were talking eagerly, both were gesticulating excitedly, and both looked exactly what they were, two very eccentric specimens of humanity.

“They seem perfectly happy!” he said, smiling—­“Adderley is a curious fellow, but I think he has a good heart.  He puts on a mannerism, because he has seen the members of a certain literary ‘set’ in London put it on—­but he’ll drop that in time,—­when he is a little older and wiser.  He has been in to see me once or twice since he took up his residence here for the summer.  He tries to discuss religion with me—­or rather, I should say. irreligion.  His own special ‘cult’ is the easy paganism of Omar Kayyam.”

“Is he clever?”

“I think he is.  He has a more or less original turn of mind.  He read me some of his verses the other day.”

“Poor you!” laughed Maryllia.

“Well, I was inclined to pity myself when he first began”—­said Walden, laughing also—­“But I must confess I was agreeably surprised.  Some of his fancies are quite charming.”

They had been walking slowly across the lawn, and were now within a few steps of the big cedar-tree.

“I must take you into the rose-garden, Mr. Walden!”—­and she raised her eyes to his with that childlike confiding look which was one of her special charms,—­“The roses are just budding out, and I want you to see them before the summer gets more advanced.  Though I daresay you know every rosebush in the place, don’t you?”