"And you live here?" said Ella Rivers, moving round the room with some curiosity; "and you smoke very good cigars. I recognize the perfume."
"I hope it is not very disagreeable?"
"Disagreeable? Oh, no! I love it. But how it snows! There is no chance of my getting back till it abates."
"Certainly not," returned Wilton, cheerfully, and adopting her easy, friendly tone. "So, pray sit down near the fire, and permit me to enjoy the fruit of my treasure-trove—I mean, a little talk with you."
"Yes—it is very nice to talk over a good fire," she said, returning slowly from the window and seating herself in a large chair; "but I wish it would clear."
"I suppose young Fergusson will be very anxious about you?" remarked Wilton, taking advantage of her steady gaze at the fire to study the graceful outline of her head, and ear, and neck, the pale, delicate oval of her face. There was a wonderfully-patrician look about this mysterious girl; how small and white were the hands she had carelessly clasped upon her knee! and, simple as were her manners, too, they were infinitely more refined than the superb Miss Saville's; and, at all events, he would have her all to himself for the next two hours.
"Anxious about me?" she said, after a moment's silence; "not very. He will be anxious about his parcel (which, after all, I did not get), and vexed at my absence. But Donald is a strange boy. I know him."
"He must be an ungrateful young dog," said Wilton, carefully averting his eyes as she turned to him. "You are so good to him."
"It is not what you would call grateful, though he is very fond of me—that is, I have become a necessity to him; then he knows I am fond of him, and I believe no one else is, not even his father. Poor, poor fellow! Ah, how I feel for him!"