There are some things which women find out by instinct, just as the needle turns towards the magnet. Shut a girl up in a tower till she is eighteen years old, and on the day of her release introduce her to the first man her eyes have ever looked upon, and she will know at a glance whether he admires her.
After luncheon the four young people started for Rydal Mount; with Fräulein as chaperon and watch-dog. The girls were both good walkers. Lady Lesbia even, though she looked like a hot-house flower, had been trained to active habits, could walk and ride, and play tennis, and climb a hill as became a mountain-bred damsel. Molly, feeling that her conversational powers were not appreciated by her brother's friend, took half a dozen dogs for company, and with three fox-terriers, a little Yorkshire dog, a colley and an otter-hound, was at no loss for society on the road, more especially as Maulevrier gave her most of his company, and entertained her with an account of his Black Forest adventures, and all the fine things he had said to the fair-haired, blue-eyed Baden girls, who had sold him photographs or wild strawberries, or had awakened the echoes of the hills with the music of their rustic flutes.
Fräulein was perfectly aware that her mission upon this particular afternoon was not to let Lady Lesbia out of her sight for an instant, to hear every word the young lady said, and every word Mr. Hammond addressed to her. She had received no specific instructions from Lady Maulevrier. They were not necessary, for the Fräulein knew her ladyship's intentions with regard to her elder granddaughter,--knew them, at least, so far as that Lesbia was intended to make a brilliant marriage; and she knew, therefore, that the presence of this handsome and altogether attractive young man was to the last degree obnoxious to the dowager. She was obliged to be civil to him for her nephew's sake, and she was too wise to let Lesbia imagine him dangerous: but the fact that he was dangerous was obvious, and it was Fräulein's duty to protect her employer's interests.
Everybody knew Lord Maulevrier, so there was no difficulty about getting admission to Wordsworth's garden and Wordsworth's house, and after Mr. Hammond and his companions had explored these, they went back to the shores of the little lake, and climbed that rocky eminence upon which the poet used to sit, above the placid waters of silvery Rydal. It is a lovely spot, and that narrow lake, so poor a thing were magnitude the gauge of beauty, had a soft and pensive loveliness in the clear afternoon light.