'Not a bit,' said Maud, 'you bow to what is wisest, and kneel to what is prettiest, and kiss what you love best.'

'Well, then,' said Desvœux, kissing his hand sentimentally and blowing it into the air, 'there is a kiss for what I love best, wherever it may be.'

'Dear me,' said Mrs. Vereker, 'what a touching idea! There goes my kiss.'

'And,' cried Maud, laughing and kissing the tips of her pretty fingers, 'there goes mine! What a state the air will be in! But here comes Major Fenton with a plate of plumcake, which is what I love best; so my kiss is for that!'

'Happy plumcake!' said the Major, gallantly, 'to be loved, eaten and kissed by a mouth so fair.'

'Give me a bit too, Fenton,' said Desvœux; 'I must eat some for sympathy, though it is not what I love best.'

Then the quiet valley shadows crept about them, and it grew sad and sombre; and while they sat and talked and laughed, the day was done and all steps were turned towards home.

So Maud and Desvœux found themselves travelling home together in the moonlight and falling behind the crowd of riders, to enjoy, undisturbed, the pleasure of a tête-à-tête. One of the great dangers of the Hills is that the paths admit only of two people riding abreast; the terzo incomodo must ride behind, and might, so far as prudence is concerned, just as well not be there at all. No such inconvenient intruder, however, threatened Desvœux's enjoyment of the present occasion or aided the faltering monitions which Maud's half-silenced conscience whispered to her. Her nerves were overstrung, and the excessive loveliness of the scene seemed only to add to her excitement. Along the winding path which crept up the mountain-side, and through the dark green forest-trees towering sublimely over them and all ablaze in moonlit patches with silver floods of light, their journey took them. Far away, miles below, a hundred tiny sparks showed where the villagers were cooking the evening meal; across the valley, on the opposite side, a great streak of woodland was blazing, scarcely seen by day, but now a ruddy lurid glow in the white light that lit up all the scene around. In the horizon was the great, cold, snowy range, standing out hard and clear in the moonlight—still, majestic, awful. How sweet, how bright, how exhilarating to a heart so prompt for enjoyment, senses so quickly impressible, nerves so alive to every surrounding influence as Maud's! Again and again she burst into exclamations of pleasure as each turn in the road brought them to some new scene of enchantment.

'Let us stop,' she cried, 'I must get off and sit down here and enjoy this in peace.'

'Let us walk a little,' said Desvœux, 'and send our ponies on to await us at the half-way point. Are you too tired?'