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could not have been she. What if, after all, he were to be right in that strange fancy which had seemed during the past half-hour to be so utterly refuted that he had quite lost sight of it? But he would not seem to pry; so he waited for more, without finishing what he had begun.

"Ay, she'll be back the morn, gif naethin' hinders her," continued Mrs Comline; "and sae we're just oorsel's the nicht, the gudeman an' me, an' Missy

"Missy?" said Evelyn, absently.

"Ay, Missy that brocht ye in-that fund ye by the roadside. She's she's just a bit strynger young leddy that's stopping wi' us the noo-stopping wi' my dochter. Lizzie is their governess-governess to her wee sisters; but I'm deaving you wi' my havers-I'll run

"No, no; pray don't. Humahsaying?"

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Oo, naethin', sir-naethin'. It's just my tongue, that whiles rins awa' frae me. An' sae if ye want nae mair, I'll leave ye. An' ye'll fin' your ain way doun; an' we'll be blythe to see you when ye're ready for your supper."

Too certain of his good-looks to disturb himself materially about the cut of any apparel that it might suit him for the nonce to don, Evelyn speedily, and with fresh anticipatory sensations, laid aside his own shooting-clothes, and put on the Sunday suit of Mr Comline. Perhaps it was as well, however, that the diminutive looking-glass, from its position. on the wall, did not offer a reflection beneath the head and shoulders, since the sight of his handsome figure, entirely disguised as it was by the loose and shapeless garments, might have upset even his equanimity.

But when a man has all his life long been accustomed to looking well, he is not apt to be troubled with misgivings. He need not be vain-probably he is not vain; while conscious of superiority, he is almost indifferent to it; it is merely that he has never known any but a good tailor, and that such ignorance is bliss indeed.

Evelyn was an only child, whose father had died while he was yet an infant, and whose mother, a feeble-minded woman of fashion, had done her best to pamper and ruin.

How he had escaped such a fate, no one knew.

The whole gauntlet of toadies, tutors, and dependants he had run from his birth upwards, and in spite of all, at twentyone years of age he stood forth to the world a fine, open

hearted, good-humoured young gentleman, with the reputation of never having been known to say an ill-natured word, nor do an ungenerous action.

In due time a commission in the Household Brigade was procured for him, and he had held this about eight years at the time our story commences;-hunting in winter, the London season in spring and summer, sports and pastimes of all sorts in the autumn, filling up his years, and enabling him to pass them agreeably,-whether profitably or not, he did not inquire.

Nearly every August found him in Scotland, either for the salmon-fishing or the grousing; but the particular year which brings him under our notice, lost and helpless on the Galloway coast, and afterwards succoured by a mysterious princess in disguise-he is hoping all this time that she may prove to be nothing less,-it was neither the inducements of the moor nor the loch which had called him northwards.

He was bound on another errand; and it was so far important, that he had set about it at the very beginning of his four months' leave, not having considered what he should do with the remainder of his time.

True, he loitered by the way like a schoolboy, and he saw Carnochan House, which was his ultimate destination, very much in the light of the master's roof where he would be immediately placed under supervision and restraint; but still he meant to get there some day.

Now and then, to be sure, he turned aside a little bit. Ribston's place was here, and Fairlight's place was there; he knew people all up and down the country, and how could he pass them by?

He had shot grouse in Yorkshire, hunted the otter in Cumberland, swept the Tweed, and had a cast over every river and stream that lay to right or to left, ere he entered the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Hang it all! There was no hurry. Singing and dancing as beseemed a jolly young Guardsman whom everybody loved, he was a welcome guest at every house he entered: no woman found him remiss, no man feared him as a rival.

They said he was not serious enough; that he had so many pleasures, he could not confine himself to one; and that consequently his love-making suffered. It might have been that; or it might have been-shades of chivalry, shut your ears!—that he found it too easy to conquer, and needed

all his armour to defend himself. He did not wish to marry, and he had to take care lest he were married without his will. It was all very well for the others, but this favourite of fortune was really at times hard put to it. He was so engaging and so sprightly, so kind-hearted and pleasant and rich and respectable, that he was a perfect Phoenix of a young bachelor; and as to his not being serious, he no more dared trust himself to be serious than to drink hemlock: half an hour's seriousness would have done for him for life. As to making embroilments for the sake of gratifying his own vanity at the expense of others, Evelyn was the last person in the world to have been guilty of such behaviour. had his good points.

He

Thus it came to pass that no man was more popular, and that, indeed, the only wonder was how he ever reached Galloway at all. He was now, if not absolutely within hail of Carnochan, in the next county to it; and finding himself so near to his old friend Brewster, and never having been at Castle Kenrick before—if he had, he probably would not have been so ready to go back again-he considered he could not well pass by.

The same easy temper permitted him to be perfectly quiescent, under the consciousness that he would be missed and lamented over, on the night in question, by the party assembled at the Castle. He would not have given real honest pain to a child, but he could inflict the entire measure of distress which his absence was likely to occasion in certain fair bosoms, without remorse; and all the probability that he was the subject of speculation and sighs among the fashionable folks nine miles off, did not prevent his stepping down-stairs briskly and inquisitively as soon as he had made his toilet in the spare room at the Muirland Farm.

No alloy entered into the pleasure of the moment when he lifted the latch and beheld the quaint old parlour blazing with light, a plentiful supper spread upon a snowy cloth on the centre table, covered dishes nestling in each corner of the huge fireplace, and his host and hostess busily engaged with the kettle and the teapot.

Savoury whiffs which assailed his nostrils on coming forward, by no means detracted from the charms of the scene in the opinion of a hungry man.

One of the large roomy chairs had been drawn up to the snuggest side of the table for him, and as he took his seat

and reclined at ease on the faded chintz, resting his arms upon its high cushioned sides, no lounge, sofa, nor settee had ever seemed so luxurious.

He had enjoyed his repose for a few moments only, when a door-one of several in different parts of the roomopened somewhere behind him, and the eyes of both the farmer and his wife, who were also seated, being turned towards the quarter whence the sounds proceeded, he experienced a sensation which was altogether novel to him. His heart beat.

Perhaps it had never done so in his life before.

CHAPTER III.

CROSS QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS.

"Ill questions generate worse answers."-FELTHAM.

One thing was certain, his curiosity had not been undeservedly excited.

There was a suppressed stir of preparation, a half rising up and sitting down again, a looking at him, and then over his head, and then at each other, which betokened that both the old man and his wife were experiencing the feeling that a critical moment had arrived.

Their innate good manners carried them through it; but a certain nervous haste and consciousness, an appearance of anxiety, almost of deprecation, was visible: they were not at their ease-homely and chatty, as they had been before.

"Come, Missy, here's your chair ready," said the farmer, rising, and holding his own back, with an air that would have seemed more deferential than was necessary towards so young an inmate of his house, and his daughter's friend, had the face and figure that now met Evelyn's eye not borne out his former impression of his guide,-"an' muckle obleeged to you we are for bringing us sic gude company on sic an ill nicht. But, my young leddy"-with a kindly pat on her shoulder as she passed-"it was nae hoor for the likes o' you to be daunnering aboot the countryside. I was

near aboot setting aff to speer after ye mysel', when it set in sae thick. Ye wad ha' been hame afore an ye could, I'se warrant; but we munna let ye gang yer lane again to sic a distance, Lizzie or no Lizzie. Hoots! Lizzie can look after hersel' wi'oot fashin' her freends. She's no ane o' your dainty gentry folk. But we're a' the same-a' the same," he added, with an apologetic laugh to the stranger. "No ane o' us, Captain" for Evelyn had now told his name and rank- no ane o' us, no even Missy here, but mun mak' a fair idol o' that bit lassie o' oors. She's awa' for the nicht, d'ye see-only for ae nicht, mind—and here's this leddy freend o' hers mun see her to the coach hersel', and come a' the way hame her lane. Na, na, Missy, that munna be. A fair fricht ye gied us, baith the gudewife and me, an' we mun see till't anither time that ye're safe under bield again' e'en."

Evelyn had hastened to rise and look concerned in the bustle which the new arrival had created; and he now, with the fluency of a man of the world, expressed anew his sense of the obligation under which he lay, and at the same time observing, what had before escaped him, the extreme youth as well as beauty of his deliverer, he ventured to add his approval of the prudent edict issued by his host.

All this was very well, but what did not so entirely please the worthy farmer was the open and undisguised admiration conveyed in the look by which the words were accompanied.

There is no mistaking the ardour of manly homage when it is given free scope and a clear coast; and with all respect for the goodwill of his kind entertainers, it certainly did not enter Evelyn's head to find in their presence any sort of check.

He directed his attention, it is true, to all-in so far as he could be permitted to do so without interfering with their own notions of politeness; but he threw into his manner a glow, a warmth, an alacrity of motion, when the service to be rendered was for his fair contemporary, that could have no other interpretation than that he was deeply impressed, and was at no pains to conceal it.

All that was done or said failed, however, to bring forth

response.

Few words and no smiles could be drawn from the severe young face opposite; and so rigidly were the eyes kept for other objects than the guest, and so obstinately to all appear

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