For my own part, it is in the autumn that I like Hopton best, when the old cock pheasants call defiance to each other in the spinneys, and the hedgerows rustle with life.
The ladies were kind enough to make known to me their amended opinion of England when I went down to my home, soon after Easter; and indeed I thought the old place looking wonderfully homelike and beautiful, with the young green about its gray walls and the sense of spring in the breeze that blew across the table-land.
I arrived unexpectedly; for some instinct told me that it would be better to give Isabella no notice of my coming into her neighbourhood.
As I rode up the avenue I saw Lucille, herself the incarnation of spring, moving among the flowers.

She turned at the sound of the horse's tread, and changed colour when she recognised me.

A flush--I suppose of anger--spread over her face.
"I have come, Mademoiselle," I said, "with good news for you.

You may soon return home now, and turn your back forever on Hopton." "I am not so ungrateful as you persist in considering me," she said, with vivacity, "and I like Hopton." The gardener came forward to take my horse, and we walked towards the house together.
"I am grateful to you, Monsieur Howard," said Lucille, in a softer voice than I had yet heard her use towards me--and in truth I knew every tone of it--"for all that you have done for mother--for us, I mean.

You have been a friend in need." This sudden change of manner was rather bewildering, and I made no doubt that the victim of it was dumb and stupid enough to arouse any woman's anger.