"At last, Miss Rivers! I thought you must have abjured this brae since Moncrief and myself became temporary proprietors. I began to fear I should never meet you out of doors again."
"I have not been out for a long time alone," she replied; "but to-day some great man from London, a doctor, was to see poor Donald, and I was free for awhile, so I rambled away far up that hill-side. It was delightful—so still, so grave, so soft."
"You have been up the hill," cried Wilton, infinitely annoyed to think he had been lounging and writing in the house when he might have had a long walk with his companion. "I wish I had been with you. I imagine it must double one's enjoyment of scenery to look at it with a thorough artist like yourself."
Miss Rivers did not reply at once, but, after a moment's pause, asked, "Are you going out now to shoot?"
"Well, yes—at least it is my first appearance to-day."
"Would it be very inconvenient to you to walk back to Brosedale, or part of the way, with me?" She spoke with a slight, graceful hesitation.
"Inconvenient! No, certainly not," returned Wilton, trying to keep his eyes and voice from expressing too plainly the joy her request gave him. "It is a charity to employ me. You know I have lost my chum, Major Moncrief, and I feel somewhat adrift. But I thought young Fergusson was better. Miss Saville said so."
Miss Rivers shook her head. "They know nothing about it. He will never be better; but it is not because he is worse that this great doctor comes. He pays periodical visits. Donald always suffers; and I think he frets because his step-sisters and that cousin of yours come and sketch and talk in our room so often; it does him no good."