bright were the dreams of Thomas!) he saw her looking longingly after
him, just as the dog looks; and then, not being really a cruel man, he
would call over his shoulder, "Put on your hat, little woman; you can
come." Then he conceived her wandering with him through the Den and
Caddam Wood, clinging to his arm and looking up adoringly at him.
"What a loving little soul it is!" he said, and pinched her ear,
whereat she glowed with pleasure. "But I forgot," he would add,
bantering her; "you don't admire me. Heigh-ho! Grizel wants to admire
me, but she can't!" He got some satisfaction out of these flights of
fancy, but it had a scurvy way of deserting him in the hour of
greatest need; where was it, for instance, when the real Grizel
appeared and fixed that inquiring eye on him?

He went to the Spittal several times, Elspeth with him when she cared
to go; for Lady Rintoul and all the others had to learn and remember
that, unless they made much of Elspeth, there could be no T. Sandys
for them. He glared at anyone, male or female, who, on being
introduced to Elspeth, did not remain, obviously impressed, by her
side. "Give pleasure to Elspeth or away I go," was written all over
him. And it had to be the right kind of pleasure, too. The ladies must
feel that she was more innocent than they, and talk accordingly. He
would walk the flower-garden with none of them until he knew for
certain that the man walking it with little Elspeth was a person to be
trusted. Once he was convinced of this, however, he was very much at
their service, and so little to be trusted himself that perhaps they
should have had careful brothers also. He told them, one at a time,
that they were strangely unlike all the other women he had known, and
held their hands a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and
then went away, leaving them and him a prey to conflicting and
puzzling emotions.