CHAPTER XVII.

COUSIN GWENNY.

GREAT

contentment and supreme happiness reigned at Willowdean, where long consultations were held by the gentlemen concerning Chesters, who had suddenly taken his departure to London. They had doubts of what to do, for suspicion was not proof, and Cyril had to conceal the espionage practised on himself at Lonewoodlee, and that jealousy had aught to do with the supposed treacherous trick played to his horse. Hence the whole affair seemed inexplicable to his father, his brother, and cousin, till in Cyril's mind there stole a kind of cloudy doubt even of Chesters' guilt.

"Could it be possible," he asked of himself, "that he could conceive and carry out a scheme so singularly infamous against an unsuspecting guest ?"

For the next day or two, Cyril found some difficulty in keeping his appointments with Mary, for his doting mother could scarcely trust her

tall, curly-pated and heavily-moustached captain of Fusileers out of her sight, she had so much to ask and to learn: and nobly were the poor skipper of Angus and the four fishermen of his smack rewarded. Cyril, however, wrote little notes to Mary, making his excuses, and expressing his love for her; and such notes were a great solace to her in her loneliness at home..

How trivial now seemed the adoption of mourning for Uncle William; the suits of black for the family and servants, the note-paper and cards with sable edges and crests, when compared with the gloom of such preparations for the loss of the heir of Willowdean!

Cyril knew that of course he was his father's heir; and that if God and the Russian bullets spared him in the expected war, he might in time become the Baronet of Willowdean; but with all his interest, personal and sentimental, in the old family estate, he felt bored when his father talked to him, as country gentlemen will talk, of the probable appearance of the crops and the face of the country, of the farm and pasture land, of top dressing, subsoil, and tile drainage, especially for the lower meadows and three great fields of the home-farm; the weight of pigs. "By Jove," Cyril would mentally exclaim, "the weight of pigs !"

He could feel an interest when the county pack was on the tapis, or when he heard that

the covers would require looking to; the patent powder to feed the pheasants; the rooting out of weasels and foumarts; of the new stables, and so forth; but never in agriculture, which, in all its branches, he viewed and voted as an unqualified bore. Hunting after a night poacher, who occasionally visited the home-farm in "the glimpses of the moon," was more in Cyril's way than the alternation of green or white crops, and so forth; but his thoughts, if not with the regiment, were ever at Lonewoodlee.

Horace Ramornie felt some interest in Sir John's topics, for though he had not an acre of land, he repined occasionally at the loss of the old patrimonial estates of his family, and felt somewhat too keenly his dependence on his uncle.

Lady Wedderburn was now intent apparently on the arrangements necessary for the reception of the expected ward; but the chief thought of her mind was obvious to all, and she could not avoid recurring to it whenever she and Sir John were alone.

"I know that Cyril cannot quit his regiment with honour just now, when it has got letters of readiness," said she, on one occasion; "but, dear Sir John, I should so like him to sell out, and reside quietly at home. He is not obliged to pursue his career as a soldier, like Horace, who is penniless."

"Quit!" repeated Wedderburn, testily, "I

should think not.

Quit on the eve of a war! I would rather see the lad in his coffin than taunted with showing the white feather.”

"In three days Gwenny will be here, and if she is so handsome as Doctor Chutnay of Madras assures us she is, she must be charming! And if Cyril must go soon, I should wish-wish that he were married, or at least, solemnly contracted to her. You understand me, Wedderburn ?"

"Why such hasty hopes and plans, Kate?"

"Because, as I have already hinted, some one else may marry her, and it would be an act of injustice to Cyril and ourselves to permit all her wealth to pass out of the family. Besides, our neighbour Chesters, every way a bad style of man, may see and admire her, with views of his own."

"If he ever should meet her, which after recent events I think barely probable," said Sir John, somewhat angrily.

"Then there is the Master of Ernescleugh."

"I don't envy your task as chaperon," said Sir John, laughing; "you will be in dread of every young fellow in the county! But suppose

that the girl may have been foolish enough to fall in love with some enterprising subaltern on the overland route home-we hear of such results every day-some fellow in whose pleasant society she has been cast by sea and land for a

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month or more?

married, perhaps !"

She may come here engaged;

The bare suggestion of such a catastrophe filled Lady Wedderburn with unutterable dismay; all the more easily, perhaps, that the same fear had occurred to herself.

The three days glided away. By the evening train Miss Gwendoleyne Wedderburn was expected to arrive from London; and Cyril, who had not seen Mary Lennox for four consecutive days, resolved to take advantage of the incidental bustle at home to ride over to Lonewoodlee for an hour after dinner; but just as Gervase Asloane was removing the cloth, and placing the decanters before Sir John, Lady Wedderburn said

"You are aware, Cyril, that your cousin will be at the railway station in two hours from this time ?"

"Yes.

Does she travel alone?" asked Cyril,

with provoking indifference of manner.

"Alone. No.

would do so ?"

Could you imagine that she

"How then-with whom? Has old Chutnay come all the way from Madras with her?” "She travels with her maid. You will, of course, go over with the carriage to meet her, as your father has complained of a twinge or two of gout."

"Can't Horace or Robert go?" asked the