A slight fall of snow had defined the outline of church and houses, and the leafless trees were sparkling with ten thousand diamonds on their branches.
The keen, crisp wind had dried the footways, and there was nothing on the smooth-paved roads to make walking anything but delightful.
"I want to take you to my mother now," Leslie said. "Will you come?"
"Will she be kind to me?" Griselda asked. "Do you think she will be kind to me?"
"Kind! Pride in you is more likely to be her feeling, I should venture to say."
"But," Griselda said, casting anxious looks behind, "I am really afraid of Sir Maxwell Danby. He will go to the North Parade with all haste, or find Lady Betty in the Pump Room, and speak evil of me."
"Let him dare to do so!" Leslie said. "I will challenge him, if he dares to take your name on his lips!"
"Oh no, no!" Griselda said; "no! Promise you will not quarrel with him? He is a man who would be a dangerous foe."
"He is my foe already," Leslie said. "As to danger, sweet one, I do not recognise danger where honour is concerned. Do not talk more about this now, nor mar these first sweet hours of happiness. Say it is not a dream, those blessed words you spoke in the church, Griselda?"
She gave him a look which was more eloquent than any words, and then said, in a low voice: