The way is over meadows, down lanes, up sloping hill-sides, through woods, and by rippling water-courses. There are violets in the hedgerows, and daffodils in the meadows, and primroses in the woods. Anemones tremble in secluded thickets, and there are fruit-trees in bloom in the distant orchards, that gleam through the faintly green trees.
Phœbe Tallant and Amy Somerton walked up to the summer-house several times in the spring and summer months; sometimes they rode part of the way on rough ponies, but oftener they walked the whole distance, interrupted only by a stray deer from the adjacent park of Montem Castle or a fox from the Berne covers. Only, did I say, by a deer or a fox? Truly; for was not Mr. Phillips a fox, to sketch so continually amongst those Berne Hills?
The day after Amy Somerton had received her brother’s full report about Mr. Hammerton, she proposed a walk to the summer-house, and Miss Tallant gladly accepted the challenge.
Phœbe was always ready for a long ramble; and the spring sunshine on this day was particularly inviting.
Taking their alpine sticks and donning their jauntiest hats, our two fair maidens, arm in arm, passed over the smooth, green lawn, and soon disappeared behind the shrubs and trees.
Luke Somerton, who had been up into the woods for a brace of rabbits, watched them unobserved as they entered the lane near Barton Hall, and an expression of pride lighted up his manly face as he gazed on the supple and graceful form of his daughter Amy.
Richard Tallant spoke truly when he was joking Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs about Somerton’s beautiful daughter. It would have been as much as any man’s life were worth to have insulted Amy Somerton in the knowledge of her father.
“I tell you, Luke Somerton,” said Mrs. S., when Luke entered the house, “that Mr. Hammerton is bent upon no good with regard to Amy.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Luke, laying down his rabbits, and putting his gun into a case by the fireplace.
“When you see a fox about the fold-yard, what do you think he is seeking?” asked Mrs. Somerton, sneeringly.