CHAPTER III.
"O Helen, fair beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair,
Until the day I die!"
Across the lawn the shadows move slowly, and with a vague grace that adds to their charm. The birds are drowsy from the heat, and, sitting half hidden in the green branches, chant their songs in somewhat lazy fashion. All nature has succumbed to the fierce power of Phœbus Apollo.
"The morn is merry June, I trow:
The rose is budding fain."
Each flower in the sunlit garden is holding up its head, and breathing fragrant sighs as the hours slip by, unheeded, yet full of a vague delight.
Miss Peyton, in her white gown, and with some soft rich roses lying on her lap, is leaning back in a low chair in the deep embrasure of the window, making a poor attempt at working.
Her father, with a pencil in his hand, and some huge volumes spread out before him, is making a few desultory notes. Into the library—the coseyest, if not the handsomest, room at Gowran—the hot sun is rushing, dancing lightly over statuettes and pictures, and lingering with pardonable delay upon Clarissa's bowed head.
"Who is this coming up the avenue?" she says, presently, in slow, sleepy tones, that suit the day. "It is—no, it isn't—and yet it is—it must be James Scrope!"
"I dare say. He was to have returned yesterday. He would come here as soon as possible, of course." Rising, he joins her at the window, and watches the coming visitor as he walks his horse leisurely down the drive.
"What a dear little modest speech!" says Miss Peyton, maliciously. "Now, if I had been the author of it, I know some one who would have called me vain! But I will generously let that pass. How brown Jim has grown! Has he not?"