The misty autumn twilight lay like a veil of silver blue over the peaceful English landscape; a cool breeze swept up from the sea over the golden downs and distant hills, and as Sir Everard rode along through the village, the cloud left his face, and a tender, dreamy look came in its place.
"She will be present, of course," he thought. "I wonder if I shall find her as I left her last? She is not the kind that play fast and loose, my stately, uplifted Lady Louise. How queenly she looked at the reception last night in those velvet robes and the Carteret diamonds!--'queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls.' She is my elder by three round years at least, but she is stately as a princess, and at twenty-five preserves the ripe bloom of eighteen. She is all that is gracious when we meet, and my mother has set her heart upon the match. I have half a mind to propose this very night."
She was an earl's daughter, this stately Lady Louise, but so very impoverished an earl that the young Devonshire baronet, with his ancient name and his long rent-roll, was a most desirably brilliant match.
She was down on a visit to her brother, Lord Carteret, and had made a dead set at Sir Everard Kingsland from the hour she had met him first. He was on his way to Lord Carteret's now. There was a dinner-party, and he was an honored guest; and Lady Louise was brilliant, in the family diamonds and old point lace, once more.
She was in the drawing-room when he entered--her stately head regally uplifted in the midst of a group of less magnificent demoiselles--a statuesque blonde, with abundant ringlets of flaxen lightness, eyes of turquoise blue, and a determined mouth and chin.
Sir Everard paid his respects to his host and hostess, and sought her side at once.
"Almost late," she said, with a brilliant, welcoming smile, giving him her dainty little hand; "and George Grosvenor has been looking this way, and pulling his mustache and blushing redder than the carnations in his button-hole. He wants to take me in to dinner, poor fellow, and he hasn't the courage to do it."
"With your kind permission, Lady Louise, I will save him the trouble," answered Sir Everard Kingsland. "Grosvenor is not singular in his wish, but I never gave him credit for so much good taste before."
"Mr. Grosvenor is more at home in the hunting-field than the drawing-room, I fancy. Apropos, Sir Everard, I ride to the meet to-morrow. Of course you will be present on your 'bonny bay' to display your prowess?"