woman's instinct, she sat down, lest she should sink into Arthur's
arms.

"_Julie!_" cried Lord Grenville.

The sharp cry rang through the air like a crack of thunder. Till then
he could not speak; now, all the words which the dumb lover could not
utter gathered themselves in that heartrending appeal.

"Well, what is wrong with her?" asked the General, who had hurried up
at that cry, and now suddenly confronted the two.

"Nothing serious," said Julie, with that wonderful self-possession
which a woman's quick-wittedness usually brings to her aid when it is
most called for. "The chill, damp air under the walnut tree made me
feel quite faint just now, and that must have alarmed this doctor of
mine. Does he not look on me as a very nearly finished work of art? He
was startled, I suppose, by the idea of seeing it destroyed." With
ostentatious coolness she took Lord Grenville's arm, smiled at her
husband, took a last look at the landscape, and went down the pathway,
drawing her traveling companion with her.

"This certainly is the grandest view that we have seen," she said; "I
shall never forget it. Just look, Victor, what distance, what an
expanse of country, and what variety in it! I have fallen in love with
this landscape."

Her laughter was almost hysterical, but to her husband it sounded
natural. She sprang gaily down into the hollow pathway and vanished.