“Oh, yes, Bessie! Will you bring me a yard of ribbon to match this on my hat?”
“Yes, miss,” said Bessie, brightening up. “To match exactly?”
“Oh, near will do” said Olivia. “Stay!” And, taking off her hat, she clipped a piece of ribbon off a bow. “There, as near as you can get it. I hope you will have a pleasant drive, and remember I am coming with you some day—soon.”
“Oh, do, miss!” Bessie exclaimed, or rather jerked out, for the pony, having completely exhausted its patience, declined to wait any longer over such trivialities, and dashed off; and Olivia stood watching Bessie’s frantic efforts to reduce the gallop to a trot, until the pony and its pretty, innocent-faced mistress were lost in a bend of the road.
Then, all unconsciously, though she was thinking of Mr. Sparrow’s account of the new owner of The Dell, Olivia wandered in that direction, and it was almost with a start that she found herself within a few yards of the gate, through which, according to Mr. Sparrow, no female would be allowed to pass.
The Dell was one of those picturesque cottages which all of us have, at some time or other in our lives, had a hankering after. It stood in a hollow, shaded by some beautiful trees, and in a garden which was literally ablaze with crocuses and hyacinths, and the spring flowers which Wordsworth—and Lord Beaconsfield—so dearly loved. The roof was of thatch, the windows diamond-paned, and the whole place as choice a specimen of a country cottage as ever shone on painter’s canvas.
Olivia glanced at it for a moment, then turned aside to follow a lane opposite the gate, when a voice called in accents of delighted greeting:
“Miss Vanley! Olivia!” and a young fellow sprang over a stile and ran toward her.
He was young, not more than twenty, with bright blue eyes, and hair—too short to allow it to curl—of a bright golden yellow. When he smiled—as he was doing now—his whole face, eyes, lips, and even his slight yellow mustache, seemed to smile, and his voice rang out soft and musical almost as a girl’s. This was Viscount Granville, the Earl of Carfield’s son and heir, though Bertie and the Cherub were his usual appellations, bestowed on him by a vast circle of friends and admirers of both sexes, who did their level best to spoil one of the sweetest natures which Heaven had ever bestowed upon a lad.
Olivia went to meet him with a smile which Mr. Bartley Bradstone would have given a thousand pounds to have called up.