almost inclined to repent his frankness with Jack Venables; and as he had already nearly burned his fingers, he was apprehensive of further indiscretions. Yet he did give the young laird of Roodholm to understand that Grace might possibly take it into her head to marry, and that for himself he had every confidence that his daughter would choose wisely. He hinted, moreover, that he had said much the same thing to Venables, which was quite enough to send Leslie to a scrutiny of his own feelings. And now that the scrutiny was forced upon the young man, he was surprised at the dulness of his own perceptions. But once entered on so fascinating a course of study, he made astonishing progress; and self-communings, illustrated by more assiduous perusals of his cousin's pretty face, taught him a thousand things he had scarcely suspected. Strong and sluggish natures like his sometimes, nevertheless, answer promptly to the spur; and when a spark is set to a slumbering passion, it burns like the subterraneous volcanic fires in Java or Japan, where the peaceful landscapes smile over the fragile crust that may explode at any moment in a violent conflagration.
As for Grace, she had rather felt towards Leslie as her father felt. He was a man she would have turned to in any trouble. She believed in his honour as she did in his Christianity. She was sometimes almost startled by the eloquent expression he gave to those deeper emotions that were silently at work within her. She felt that the active sympathy of one so stanch and so earnest might be everything in certain circumstances. Nevertheless, like her father, she rather admired than loved him, cousins as they were, and thrown continually into the most familiar intercourse. But hitherto she had seen life almost entirely on its sunny side, and so she found herself more at home in the society of the more voluble Mr Venables.
And hitherto, and so far, the stars in their courses had been unquestionably fighting for Jack. But now, as it chanced, Mr Leslie was to have his innings at a moment when it seemed to come to him as an interposition of Providence.
Moray appeared one morning at the breakfast-table with care upon his brow.
"I have got a batch of bothersome business letters to answer, and I think that nowadays I hate business as much as I once used to enjoy it. And this is such a beautiful day, that it seems all the more pity to waste it. Needs must, however, when – you know the rest – and there is no help for it. Suppose you and Grace arrange to do something, Leslie. I shall be all the more resigned if I know you are enjoying yourselves."
Leslie brightened up. Good-hearted as he was, and fond of his uncle, he scarcely sympathised with him in his present trial. And although generally truthfulness itself, he was guilty of a compliment de circonstance.
"I am sure we are very sorry, sir; but you know the motto of the Russells, 'What must be, must be.' Perhaps if you can knock off your work, you may join us later in the day." Then turning to his cousin, "What do you say, Grace? Shall we take the waggonette and the chestnuts, and drive over to Tomnahurich?"
Now the lively Grace, with all her regard for him, rather shrank from a day's tête-à-tête with her somewhat solemn cousin. If she
