Mr. Blyth’s visitors, now that their common center of attraction had disappeared, either dispersed again in the painting-room, or approached the door to take their departure. Zack, turning round sharply after Madonna had left the studio, encountered his queer companion, who had not stirred an inch while other people were all moving about him.

“In the name of wonder, what has come to you now? Are you ill? Have you hurt yourself with that picture?” asked Zack, startled by the incomprehensible change which he beheld in his friend’s face and manner.

“Come out,” said Mat. Young Thorpe looked at him in amazement; even the sound of his voice had altered!

“What’s wrong?” asked Zack. No answer. They went quickly along the passage and down to the garden gate, in silence. As soon as they had got into one of the lonely bye-roads of the new suburb, Mat stopped short; and, turning full on his companion, said: “Who is she?” The sudden eagerness with which he spoke, so strangely at variance with his usual deliberation of tone and manner, made those three common words almost startling to hear.

“She? Who do you mean?” inquired young Thorpe.

“I mean that young woman they were all staring at.”

For a moment, Zack contemplated the anxiety visible in his friend’s face, with an expression of blank astonishment; then burst into one of his loudest, heartiest, and longest fits of laughter. “Oh, by Jove, I wouldn’t have missed this for fifty pounds. Here’s old Rough and Tough smitten with the tender passion, like all the rest of us! Blush, you brazen old beggar, blush! You’ve fallen in love with Madonna at first sight!”

“Damn your laughing! Tell me who she is.”

“Tell you who she is? That’s exactly what I can’t do.”

“Why not? What do you mean? Does she belong to painter-man?”

“Oh, fie, Mat! You mustn’t talk of a young lady belonging to anybody, as if she was a piece of furniture, or money in the Three per Cents, or something of that sort. Confound it man, don’t shake me in that way! You’ll pull my arm off. Let me have my laugh, and I’ll tell you every thing.”

“Tell it then; and be quick about it.”

“Well, first of all, she is not Blyth’s daughter—though some scandal-mongering people have said she is—”

“Nor yet his wife?”

“Nor yet his wife. What a question! He adopted her, as they call it, years ago, when she was a child. But who she is, or where he picked her up, or what is her name, Blyth never has told anybody, and never will. She’s the dearest, kindest, prettiest little soul that ever lived; and that’s all I know about her. It’s a short story, old boy; but surprisingly romantic—isn’t it?”

Mat did not immediately answer. He paid the most breathless attention to the few words of information which Zack had given him—repeated them over again to himself—reflected for a moment—then said—

“Why won’t the painter-man tell any body who she is?”

“How should I know? It’s a whim of his. And, I’ll tell you what, here’s a piece of serious advice for you:—If you want to go there again, and make her acquaintance, don’t you ask Blyth who she is, or let him fancy you want to know. He’s touchy on that point—I can’t say why; but he is. Every man has a raw place about him somewhere: that’s Blyth’s raw place, and if you hit him on it, you won’t get inside of his house again in a hurry, I can tell you.”

Still, Mat’s attention fastened greedily on every word—still, his eyes fixed eagerly on his informant’s face—still, he repeated to himself what Zack was telling him.

“By the bye, I suppose you saw the poor dear little soul is deaf and dumb,” young Thorpe continued. “She’s been so from a child. Some accident; a fall, I believe. But it don’t affect her spirits a bit. She’s as happy as the day is long—that’s one comfort.”

“Deaf and dumb! So like her, it was a’most as awful as seeing the dead come to life again. She had Mary’s turn with her head; Mary’s—poor creature! poor creature!” He whispered those words to himself, under his breath, his face turned aside, his eyes wandering over the ground at his feet, with a faint, troubled, vacantly anxious expression.

“Come! come! don’t be getting into the dolefuls already,” cried Zack, administering an exhilarating thump on the back to his friend. “Cheer up! We’re all in love with her; you’re rowing in the same boat with Bullivant, and Gimble, and me, and lots more; and you’ll get used to it in time, like the rest of us. I’ll act the generous rival with you, brother Mat! You shall have all the benefit of my advice gratis; and shall lay siege to our little beauty in regular form. I don’t think your own experience among the wild Indians will help you much, over here. How do you mean to make love to her? Did you ever make love to a Squaw?”

“She isn’t his wife; and she isn’t his daughter; he won’t say where he picked her up, or who she is.” Repeating these words to himself in a quick, quiet whisper, Mat did not appear to be listening to a single word that young Thorpe said. His mind was running now on one of the answers that he had wrested from Joanna Grice, at Dibbledean—the answer which had informed him that Mary’s child had been born alive!

“Wake up, Mat! You shall have your fair chance with the lady, along with the rest of us; and I’ll undertake to qualify you on the spot for civilized courtship,” continued Zack, pitilessly carrying on his joke. “In the first place, always remember that you mustn’t go beyond admiration at a respectful distance, to begin with. At the second interview, you may make amorous faces at close quarters—what you call looking unutterable things, you know. At the third, you may get bold, and try her with a little present. Lots of people have done that, before you. Gimble tried it, and Bullivant wanted to; but Blyth wouldn’t let him; and I mean to give her—oh, by the bye, I have another important caution for you.” Here he indulged himself in a fresh burst of laughter, excited by the remembrance of his interview with Mrs. Peckover, in Mr. Blyth’s hall. “Remember that the whole round of presents is open for you to choose from, except one; and that one is a Hair Bracelet.”

Zack’s laughter came to an abrupt termination. Mat had raised his head suddenly, and was now staring him full in the face again, with a bright, searching look—an expression in which suspicious amazement and doubting curiosity were very strangely mingled together.

“You’re not angry with me for cracking a few respectable old jokes?” said Zack. “Have I said anything?—Stop! yes, I have, though I didn’t mean it. You looked up at me in that savage manner, when I warned you not to give her a Hair Bracelet. Surely you don’t think me brute enough to make fun of your not having any hair on your own head to give anybody? Surely you have a better opinion of me than that? I give you my word of honor, I never thought of you, or your head, or that infernal scalping business, when I said what I did. It was true—it happened to me.”

“How did it happen?” said. Mat, with eager, angry curiosity.

“Only in this way. I wanted to give her a Hair Bracelet myself—my hair and Blyth’s, and so on. And an addle-headed old woman who seems to know Madonna (that’s a name we give her) as well as Blyth himself, and keeps what she knows just as close, got me into a corner, and talked nonsense about the whole thing, as old women will.”

“What did she say?” asked Mat, more eager, more angry, and more curious than ever.

“She talk............