Louis le Debonnaire! Don't you, remember your calling him so when he
was a baby?'

'Oh yes, it has exactly recalled to me the sort of gracious look that
he used to have--half sly, half sweet-and so very pretty!'

'It suits him as well now. He is the kind of being who must have a
pet name;' and Mrs. Frost, hoping he might be already arrived, could
hardly slacken her eager step so as to keep pace with her niece's
feeble movements. She was disappointed; the carriage had returned
without Lord Fitzjocelyn. His hat and luggage were come, but he
himself was missing. Mrs. Frost was very uneasy, but his father
silenced conjectures by saying, that it was his usual way, and he
would make his appearance before the evening. He would not send to
meet another train, saying, that the penalty of irregularity must be
borne, and the horses should not suffer for such freaks; and he would
fain have been utterly indifferent, but he was evidently listening to
every sound, and betrayed his anxiety by the decision with which he
checked all expression of his aunt's fears.

There was no arrival all that evening, no explanation in the morning;
and Betty Gervas, whom Mary went to visit in the course of the day,
began to wonder whether the young Lord could be gone for a soldier--
the usual fate of all missing village lads.

Mary was on her way home, through the park, along a path skirting the
top of a wooded ravine, a dashing rivulet making a pleasant murmur
among the rocks below, and glancing here and there through the
brushwood that clothed the precipitous banks, when, with a sudden
rustling and crackling, a man leaped upon the path with a stone in