"I suppose," said she, "you're too much a mere man to be able to appreciate her frock? It's the work of a dressmaker who knows her business. And that lilac muslin (that's so fashionable now) really does, in the open air, with the country for background, show to immense advantage. Come—out with it. Tell me all about her. Who is she?"

"That's just what I'm up a tree to think," said John. "I can't imagine. How long has she been there? From what direction did she come?"

"Don't try to hoodwink me any longer," remonstrated the lady, unbelieving.

"I've never in my life set eyes on her before," he solemnly averred.

She scrutinized him sharply.

"Hand on heart?" she doubted.

And he, supporting her scrutiny without flinching, answered, "Hand on heart."

"Well, then," concluded she, with a laugh, "it looks as if I were even more of an old witch than I boasted—and my thumbs pricked to some purpose. Here's the lady of the piece already arrived. There, she's going away. How well she walks! Have after her—have after her quick, and begin your courtship."

The smiling young woman, her lilac dress softly bright in the sun, was moving slowly down the garden path, towards the cloisters; and now she entered them, and disappeared. But John, instead of "having after her," remained at his counsellor's side, and watched.

"She came from that low doorway, beyond there at the right, where the two cypresses are; and she came at the very climax of my vaticination," said her ladyship. "Without a hat, you'll hardly dispute it's probable she's staying in the house."

"No—it certainly would seem so," said John. "I'm all up a tree."

"The garden looks rather dreary and empty, now that she has left, doesn't it?" she asked. "Yet it looked jolly enough before her advent. And see—the lizards (there are four of them, aren't there?) that whisked away from the dial at her approach, have come back. Well, your work's cut out. I suppose it wouldn't be possible for you to give a poor woman a dish of tea?"

"I was on the very point of proposing it," said John. "May I conduct you to my quarters?"

PART SECOND

I

Rather early next morning John was 

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