Her mind had been too much exercised of late to allow her to give thought to anything but one reigning subject. Her case for wild flowers remained unused, as she passed musingly through the tangled wood. When at a little distance from the house, she was arrested once or twice by sounds of rustling amongst the branches. The once carefully-arranged paths were now so ill kept that they were in some parts difficult to penetrate. No stranger ever intruded there. She supposed it to be some woodman gathering brushwood, and passed carelessly on; but, coming suddenly on a cleared space, from which, through an opening in the trees, appeared a fine and extensive view of the country around, she saw whence the sounds had proceeded.
The reader does not need a second description—it was the strange lodger from Stoney Gates. He was apparently surveying the scene with artistic purpose, his implements lying on the turf, and he was arranging a piece of broken timber to form a seat of convenient height and situation.
The meeting was one of mutual and equal surprise. Each surveyed the other steadily, and in silence; but the stranger, soon recovering himself, lifted his cap with courtly propriety, for he needed nothing to tell him he was in company with gentle blood. Marjory returned the salutation, and was passing onward; but a sense of inhospitality detained her; she lingered, and said hesitatingly, 'You are a draughtsman?' He bowed. 'You are going to put down some of our scenery?' Again he assented. 'Would you not like to have the Castle De la Mark in your foreground, with this fine country behind?'
'I have been trying to get that,' he replied; 'but the house is so surrounded I can find no favourable standing-ground.'
'I will lead you to one,' she said; and, making her way with easy rapidity through the thicket, she emerged on a spot favourable in every way to the accomplishment of the design. The graceful dexterity with which she overcame all the obstacles of the labyrinth struck him with admiration. 'She is worthy of an American forest,' he thought.
When they stood face to face upon the spot sought for, a slight exclamation of surprise burst from the stranger, which was answered with a smile of satisfaction from Marjory. There was pride in her heart and triumph in her eye, as she turned exultingly to the scene before them, upon which they both gazed silently. Suddenly she asked, 'Who could put this down?' and looked at him for an answer; but his eyes were fixed, not on the landscape—they were busily and intently studying her face. He withdrew them in some little confusion, and the blood of De la Mark crimsoning her cheek warned him that to win patronage he must woo it discreetly. He thanked her, in most deferential terms, for having given him the opportunity of trying, but agreed that the subject was one to mock art. His voice and bearing were so remote from intrusion or unbecoming forwardness, that Marjory was willing to believe the look that had offended her was one of natural and excusable curiosity. She allowed him, therefore, to make one or two remarks on various points around before she left him.
As she was turning away, the stranger, still uncovered, said, 'I have had the honour of speaking to Miss De la Mark?' She looked assent, and they parted, he to pursue his task, and she to wonder who, among the few persons whose faces were familiar to her, continually floated in her memory while she was in company with the stranger.
In this short interview, in which so little had been said, a great advance had been made by each in the favour of the other. The fire of her eye and the freedom of her step, her genuine dignity and self-respect, untinged by affectation, all betokened a character which had great charms for the stranger, while his sympathy with her, so evident in those slight indications of look and bearing which are to be felt but not described, had won upon her strangely; so that in truth they were both far more intimate from this few minutes in the wilderness than months of drawing-room proprieties would ever have made them. What a sudden check he had given to the current of her thoughts! All that had so deeply interested her fell aside, and, by some inexplicable attraction, he took its place.
Again the crashing of the distant boughs as she wandered homeward struck her ear, and it was with somewhat of disappointment that, after a minute or two of watching and waiting, she saw the faithful Shady struggling through the thicket to reach her.
If his young lady would only condescend to walk in the paths where the trees did not meet right over, trusting she would pardon him for saying so, it would be far less perilous for limbs and their coverings to pursue her. Indeed he made a rueful figure; for although he had guarded his dress, by turning it up or turning it down, as circumstances recommended the precaution, he had met with sundry tears and scratches, as though he had been at war with all the under-wood he had encountered. Marjory smiled at his expostulations and his appearance, but, suddenly remembering his promise, inquired why he had left her father.