There go Harry and Maria taking their evening walk on the common, away from the village which is waking up from its after-dinner siesta, and where the people are beginning to stir and the music to play. With the music Maria knows Madame de Bernstein will waken: with the candles she must be back to the tea-table and the cards. Never mind. Here is a minute. It may be my love is dead, but here is a minute to kneel over the grave and pray by it. He certainly was not thinking about her: he was startled and did not even know her. He was laughing and talking with Jack Morris and my Lord March. He is twenty years younger than she. Never mind. To-day is to-day in which we are all equal. This moment is ours. Come, let us walk a little way over the heath, Harry. She will go, though she feels a deadly assurance that he will tell her all is over between them, and that he loves the dark-haired girl at Oakhurst.

CHAPTER XXVII

Plenus Opus Aleae

"Let me hear about those children, child, whom I saw running about at the house where they took you in, poor dear boy, after your dreadful fall?" says Maria, as they paced the common. "Oh, that fall, Harry! I thought I should have died when I saw it! You needn't squeeze one's arm so. You know you don't care for me?"

"The people are the very best, kindest, dearest people I have ever met in the world," cries Mr. Warrington. "Mrs. Lambert was a friend of my mother when she was in Europe for her education. Colonel Lambert is a most accomplished gentleman, and has seen service everywhere. He was in Scotland with his Royal Highness, in Flanders, at Minorca. No natural parents could be kinder than they were to me. How can I show my gratitude to them? I want to make them a present: I must make them a present," says Harry, clapping his hand into his pocket, which was filled with the crisp spoils of Morris and March.

"We can go to the toy-shop, my dear, and buy a couple of dolls for the children," says Lady Maria. "You would offend the parents by offering anything like payment for their kindness."

"Dolls for Hester and Theo! Why, do you think a woman is not woman till she is forty, Maria?" (The arm under Harry's here gave a wince perhaps,-- ever so slight a wince.) "I can tell you Miss Hester by no means considers herself a child, and Miss Theo is older than her sister. They know ever so many languages. They have read books--oh! piles and piles of books! They play on the harpsichord and sing together admirable; and Theo composes, and sings songs of her own."

"Indeed! I scarcely saw them. I thought they were children. They looked quite childish. I had no idea they had all these perfections, and were such wonders of the world."

"That's just the way with you women! At home, if me or George praised a woman, Mrs. Esmond. and Mountain, too, would be sure to find fault with her!" cries Harry.