"Oh, no, I'm not," said Hester coolly. "You've been talking to her of all sorts of grave, stupid things--and she wants amusing--waking up. I know the look of her. Don't you?" She slipped her arm inside Mary's. "You know, if you'd only do your hair a little differently--fluff it out more--you'd be so pretty! Let me do it for you. And you shouldn't wear that hat--no, you really shouldn't. It's a brute! I could trim you another in half an hour. Shall I? You know--I really like you. _He_ sha'n't make us quarrel!"

She looked with a young malice at Meynell. But her brow had smoothed, and it was evident that her temper was passing away.

"I don't agree with you at all about my hat," said Mary with spirit. "I trimmed it myself, and I'm extremely proud of it."

Hester laughed out--a laugh that rang through the trees.

"How foolish you are!--isn't she, Rector? No!--I suppose that's just what you like. I wonder what you _have_ been talking to her about? I shall make her tell me. Where are you going to?"

She paused, as Mary and the Rector, at a point where two paths converged, turned away from the path which led back to Upcote Minor. Mary explained again that Mr. Meynell and she were on the way to the Forked Pond cottage, where the Rector wished to call upon her mother.

Hester looked at her gravely.

"All right!--but your mother won't want to see me. No!--really it's no good your saying she will. I saw her in the village yesterday. I'm not her sort. Let me go home by myself."

Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she went very unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream all the way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once or twice she stole a furtive look toward him.

* * * * *

The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settled themselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging to the Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushy pond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautiful place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the sunlight from the shadow of the woods.

By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as they came in sight.