“Did you, propose, then?  Cecil, if you don’t wish me to disbelieve my own senses, tell me at once what you were about in the summer-house.”

“Refusing eight thousand a year,” was the short reply.

A puzzled, not unpleased expression, was dawning.  “I thought you said he did not propose?”

“Well, no; honestly, he didn’t.  We had a little conversation, and the upshot was, he has promised to go to England for six months.”

Mrs. Rolleston was not a proud woman, and the relief was so great, that she folded Cecil in a silent embrace.

“Perhaps, mamma,” continued the girl, demurely, “you won’t think it necessary to mention this to papa.  It wouldn’t be fair to betray Major Fane!”

Mrs. Rolleston was only too convinced, and replied, “that she should consider it Cecil’s secret, and say nothing about it.”  Whereupon the damsel ran merrily off, humming the air, “I told them they needn’t come wooing to me.”  But, arrived in her own room, her evanescent high spirits vanished, and a bitter and clear-sighted mood succeeded.  “Bertie,” she thought, “your evil influence is over us all.  Mamma, till now the truest of step-mothers, is only thinking of ensuring you my fortune.  I disoblige papa, send away a true love, hate Bluebell for her too attractive soft eyes, am harassed by doubts even of you—­is it worth it?  I might yet recall Lucian Fane; he is very calm, and would not expect too much.  What folly!  No, if I am to be miserable, it must be my own way, with the only man who interests me heart and soul.  I suppose, if we marry, I may reckon on one year of happiness, though hardly any one who knew Bertie would expect him to be constant even for that time.  But by then I should have got immense influence, for, though I am not clever and attractive like him, I have far more will, and, in the long run, it is character more than talent that shapes our life.  If Bluebell would only go to England!”

Then she detached from the wall and began to pack up a little possession that always travelled with her.  It was only an old print of a cavalier, and no one but Cecil had observed that a twin soul to Bertie’s looked out of its dreaming eyes.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LYNDON’S LANDING.

All the fairy crowds
Of islands that together lie
As quietly as spots of sky
Among the evening clouds. 
—­Unknown.

Bluebell had begun to feel herself in a false position.  Freddy’s lessons were, of course, a farce; and Cecil now seemed never to care to practise with her.  Miss Prosody, with every hour of the day marked out for herself and pupils, made sarcastic reflections on her want of occupation; but, unhappy though she was, she could not make up her mind to leave the Rollestons, and thus dissever the chief link with Bertie.  Besides, she had heard (a piece of information derived from Fleda) that he was shortly expected to join them at Rice Lake.  Therefore, when Mrs. Rolleston unfolded the project of sending her to England to cultivate the musical predilections of Evelyn Leighton, Bluebell showed such repugnance to the scheme, that Mrs. Rolleston did not press it further; and, though surprised, being personally indifferent, soon dismissed it from her thoughts, with an inward comment that girls never knew their own minds a month together.