try wenches that is very attractive. I danced with every blessed one of them. . . . How cold it is here!"
"Light your pipe," said Derek, "that will help warm you. They'll go very soon." He got a travelling rug and laid it over his brother's knees.
Edmund stayed two weeks with Derek. A part of almost every day was spent with the Jerrolds. The roads were good, the air pleasantly crisp; the four took long rides together. Derek felt that he had shown himself churlish on Christmas Day, so after that he almost invariably dropped behind to ride with Mr. Jerrold while Edmund and Grace cantered ahead.
On New Year's Day, as they rode beside the bluffs, Grace's horse took fright at a white cat that crossed the road dragging the body of a rabbit, and shied almost to the edge of the rocky steep. It was Edmund who reached her first, who caught the bridle, and led the rearing horse to safety. Father and daughter seemed to look on him as a splendid fellow. And so he was! A brother to be proud of. Why then the sullen, burning anger when the voice of Grace floated back next day, calling him Edmund? Was this shameful feeling jealousy? Derek thought not. One must be in love first. . . . He was scarcely in love with Grace. He liked her, admired her; the thought of her pretty hair would come to him at the most unexpected times. Sometimes he met her eyes or her cool, amused, little smile in his dreams. Still, that was scarcely love. He could spend whole days among his horses and cattle and never think of her. And she so near! He concluded that it was just a precious friendship, and that some base strain in himself resented the thought of Edmund's being admitted to the same friendship. As a kind of discipline then, he would stay at home sometimes and let Edmund go to Durras alone.
