brought her back to the fragrant spot, the delights of which had so long been forgotten.

20

Her memories were nearly all of solitary childhood. Sir David, the young master of Bindon, the orphan cousin to whom Simon Rickart was in those days humourously supposed to play the part of guardian, entered but little into them, and then only as a grave Eton boy, disdainful of her torn frocks, of her soiled hands, her shrill joyousness. He and his sister Maud kept fastidiously aloof.... Maud of the black ringlets and the fine frocks, who from the first had made her little cousin realise the gulf that must exist between the child of the poor guardian and the daughter of the House.

But later came a change.

She was Miss Ellinor—a tall maiden, suddenly alive to the desirableness of ordered locks and pretty gowns; and young Sir David began to assume importance within her horizon. How these fleeting memories, evoked by the essence of Master Simon’s distilling, were sailing in the silence of the room round Ellinor’s head!

It was during his University years. The young master brought into his house every vacation an extraordinary stir of eager life. There came batches of favoured companions, varying according to the mood of the moment:—youthful philosophers who had got so far beyond the most advanced thought of the age as to have lost all footing; or exquisite young dandies, with lisps and miraculously fitting kerseymere pantaloons and ruffles of lace before which Miss Sophia opened wide mouth and eyes; or again, serious, aristocratic striplings of earnest political views.

During these invasions Aunt Sophia suddenly developed a spirit of prudence quite unknown to her usual practice, and Miss Ellinor, much to her disappointment, was kept studiously in the background. Upon this head cousin David entered suddenly into the narrow circle of her emotions. Chafing against the unwonted 21restraint, Ellinor one day defied orders, and boldly presented herself at the breakfast-table while her cousin and two young men of dazzling beauty, all in hunting pink and buckskins, were partaking of chops and coffee under the chaste ægis of Miss Sophia Rickart’s ringlets.

21

How well Ellinor could recall the startling effect of her entrance. She had walked in with that boldness which girlish timidity can assume under the spur of a strong will. Miss Sophia had gaped. Three pairs of eyes were fixed upon the intruder. 

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