'What the deuce is the meaning of this?' muttered Allan, as he chanced upon a volume one day. It was a very handsome and expensive edition of some of Byron's poems, which had been given by Hawke Holcroft to Olive as a birthday gift, and on turning over the leaves of which he found innumerable paragraphs and lines pencilled on pages that seemed to fall naturally open, where these marks, all of which referred to love and passion, were most plentiful.
All of these seemed to have been selected with an ulterior view for her perusal and study. Allan knit his brows and tossed the volume to the other side of the table.
'So, so,' thought he, 'Cousin Olive has had a guide for her reading, and the guide is that fellow Holcroft. He has made good use of his time, hang him!'
Olive, who had been watching him under the deep fringes of her eyes, smiled when she saw the action, and, instantly divining the reason of it, resolved not to leave her Byron lying about in future; and now a new mood seized her.
'Tell me, Allan,' she said, suddenly looking up from a piece of music she was studying, 'did you ever think of me at all when you were all these years far away in India?'
'Have you forgotten what I told you on the evening we met on the lawn?' said he, reproachfully, yet surprised by her taking the initiative in a conversation, especially of this kind. 'Often, indeed, did I think of you!'
'How—in what fashion?'
'As my merry little playmate when I was a mere youth—the droll girl to whom I was somehow tied up under Uncle Raymond's will.'
'You phrase it rightly,' said she, biting her coral nether lip. 'Tied up; yes, but I won't be so. Yet you did think of me as a droll little playmate?'
'Yes; how else could I think of you? Not as the lovely girl I find you now, Olive.'