David’s serious gaze, always so enigmatic to her. Then the Master of Lochore’s red-brown orbs.—They were something of the colour of his auburn hair. She had come under their range before, and had hated them and him upon a sudden instinct, all the more perhaps for the singular attachment which David was known to have found for him.—The third espial upon her was one of soft, yet piercing blackness: she was pulled-up in her would-be nonchalant advance as by an invisible barrier. David, long and lean in his red and white, had risen and come across to her with great deliberation. He had taken her hand.

“Cousin Ellinor,” he had said, in a voice of most gentle courtesy, “you have been misinformed: Aunt Sophia did not request your presence.”

He had bowed, led her out across the threshold, bowed again, and closed the door. There had been a shout from within, expostulation and laughter. And she, without, had stamped her sandalled foot and waited to hear no more. With tears of bitter mortification streaming down her cheeks she had rushed to her beloved old haunt in the Herb-Garden, carrying with her an odious vision of her cousin’s face as it bent over her; of his grave eyes, so strangely light in contrast with the dark cheek; of the satirical twist of his lips and the mock ceremony of his manner.

But she had taken with her also another vision; and that was then so consoling that, as she marched to and fro among the fragrant bushes that were growing yellow 22and crisp under autumn skies, she was fain to let her mind dwell lingeringly upon it. It was the black broad stare of surprised admiration in young Marvel’s eyes.

22

Many a time, in the subsequent days, did the walls of the forbidden gardens enfold her in their secrecy—but not alone. He of the black eyes had heard of the secret entrance and was by her side many a time—Aye, and many a time, in the years that followed, had Ellinor told herself, in the bitterness of her heart, how far better it would have been for her then to have sucked the poison of the most evil plant that had clung appealingly round her as she brushed by, listening to young Marvel’s wooing.

Those were days of courtship: an epidemic of sentiment seemed to have spread through Bindon. Handsome, ease-loving, bachelor parson Tutterville developed a sudden energy in the courtship which had stagnated for years between him and Aunt Sophia, on whose round cheeks long-forgotten roses bloomed again.

And David too! From 

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