The stars are coming out one by one,—slowly, tranquilly, as though haste has got no part with them. The heavens are clothed in azure. A single star, that sits apart from all the rest, is twinkling and gleaming in its blue nest, now throwing out a pale emerald ray, now a blood-red fire, and anon a touch of opal, faint and shadowy, yet more lovely in its vagueness than all the rest, until verily it resembles "a diamond in the sky."
Geoffrey coming to the farm somewhat early in the evening, Mona takes him round to the yard, where two dogs, hitherto unseen by Geoffrey, lie chained. They are two splendid bloodhounds, that, as she approaches, rise to their feet, and, lifting their massive heads, throw out into the night-air a deep hollow bay that bespeaks welcome.
"What lovely creatures!" says Geoffrey, who has a passion for animals: they seem to acknowledge him as a friend. As Mona looses them from their den, they go to him, and, sniffing round him, at last open their great jaws into a satisfied yawn, and, raising themselves, rest their paws upon his breast and rub their faces contentedly against his.
"Now you are their friend forever," says Mona, in a pleased tone. "Once they do that, they mean to tell you they have adopted you. And they like very few people: so it is a compliment."
"I feel it keenly," says Rodney, caressing the handsome creatures as they crouch at his feet. "Where did you get them?"
"From Mr. Moore." A mischievous light comes into her face as she says this, and she laughs aloud. "But, I assure you, not as a love-token. He gave them to me when they were quite babies, and I reared them myself. Are they not lovely? I call them? 'Spice' and 'Allspice,' because one has a quicker temper than the other."
"The names are original, at all events," says Geoffrey,—"which is a great charm. One gets so tired of 'Rags and Tatters,' 'Beer and Skittles,' 'Cakes and Ale,' and so forth, where pairs are in question, whether they be dogs or ponies."
"Shall we set out now?" says Mona; and she calls "Mickey, Mickey," at the top of her strong young lungs.
The man who manages the farm generally—and is a plague and a blessing at the same time to his master—appears round a corner, and declares, respectfully, that he will be ready in a "jiffy" to accompany Miss Mona, if she will just give him time to "clane himself up a bit."
And in truth the "claning" occupies a very short period,—or else Mona and Geoffrey heed not the parting moments. For sometimes