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to tea. He accepted with alacrity. At tea he changed the subject: they talked about her.

He came home yet more interested in her, re-
solved yet more firmly to see more of her. With a natural simplicity he used his skill in woodcraft to compass his end, and availed himself of the covert afforded by the common to watch Colet House. Thanks to this simple device he was able to meet or overtake Mrs. Dangerfield, somewhere in the first half-mile of her afternoon walk.

They grew intimate quickly, thanks chiefly to his simple directness; and he found that his first im-
pression that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, more even than he had wanted, in his enthusiastic youth, to shoot a black rhinoceros, was right. He had been making ar-
rangements for another shooting expedition; but he perceived now very clearly, indeed, that it was his immediate duty to settle down in life, provide the Hall with a mistress, and do his duty by his es-
tate and his neighbors.

He had had no experience of women; but his hunting had developed his instinct and he perceived that he must proceed very warily indeed, that to