ruefully.

Lydia looked at him thoughtfully. Here was a man whom she had
mistaken for the finest image of manly strength and beauty in the
world; and he was so devoid of artistic culture that he held a
statue to be a distasteful lump of stone.

"I believe I was trespassing then," she said; "but I did so
unintentionally. I had gone astray; for I am comparatively a
stranger here, and cannot find my way about the park yet."

"It didn't matter a bit," said Cashel, impetuously. "Come as often
as you want. Mellish fancies that if any one gets a glimpse of me he
won't get any odds. You see he would like people to think--" Cashel
checked himself, and added, in some confusion, "Mellish is mad;
that's about where it is."

Alice glanced significantly at Lydia. She had already suggested that
madness was the real reason of the seclusion of the tenants at the
Warren. Cashel saw the glance, and intercepted it by turning to her
and saying, with an attempt at conversational ease,

"How do you young ladies amuse yourselves in the country? Do you
play billiards ever?"

"No," said Alice, indignantly. The question, she thought, implied
that she was capable of spending her evenings on the first floor of
a public-house. To her surprise, Lydia remarked,

"I play--a little. I do not care sufficiently for the game to make