My father had never done it before--that I know of--and he looked"-- her voice broke for a moment--"so strange, so ghost-like.

I thought at first that it was the Heron ghost which, they say, haunts the dale, though I have never seen it." A faint smile curved her lips and shone in her eyes, and Stafford was so fascinated by the sudden gleam of girlishness that he had to bend and pat Bess, who was planting dusty impression on his trousers in her frantic efforts to gain his attention.
"I did nothing; in fact, as I walked away I was fuming because I couldn't help you--couldn't do more." "You did help me," she said, gravely; then she looked across the lake to Sir Stephen's "little place." "I was admiring that new house.

Don't you think it is very beautiful, rising so white and gracefully above the lake ?" "Ye-es," said Stafford, "Rather--conspicuous, though, isn't it ?" She laughed suddenly, and Stafford asked, with surprise: "Why did you laugh ?" "Oh, I was thinking of my father," she said, with a delicious frankness; "he was quite angry about it this morning.

It seems that it is built on our land--or what was ours--and he dislikes the idea of anyone building at Bryndermere." "So should I," said Stafford, laconically.
"And besides," she went on, her eyes fixed on the great white building, so that she did not see his embarrassment, "my father does not like the man who built it.

He thinks that he got the land unfairly; and he--my father--calls him all sorts of hard names." Stafford bit his lips, and his face wore the expression which came into it when he was facing an ugly jump.