should have a particularly good chance."
"You can afford to laugh at me, Harry."
"Far from it, Phil; I haven't such a thought, believe me."
"Seeing how friendly you are with these girls--with her especially--I thought you might know this. Is any other fellow spooney upon Miss Lloyd?"
"A good many may well be; she is lovely."
"Well, does any one stand in her good graces?"
"Can't say, indeed, Caradoc," said I, as my thoughts reverted to that episode at the goat's-house, and others not dissimilar, with some emotions of compunction, as I looked into Phil's honest brown eyes.
He fancied that Winifred avoided him. In that idea he erred. She admired and loved him as a friend--a gentleman who had done her great honour; but she never thought of analysing his emotions farther than to wish him well, and to wish him away from Craigaderyn, after that scene in the conservatory; and remembering it in all its points, she was careful not to trust herself alone with him, lest the subject might be renewed; and yet she found the necessity of approaching it one day, when a sudden recollection struck her, as they were riding home together, and had cantered a little way in advance of their party.
"Now that I think of it, Mr. Caradoc," said she, "you must give me that likeness which you wear. I really cannot permit you to keep it, even in jest."
"Jest!" repeated Phil, sadly and reproachfully; "do you think so meanly of me as to imagine that I would jest with you or with it?"