to a glass of Spanish port, and cake perhaps."

The doctor was on his way to a consultation, but he ordered his relative
to go and pay his respects to Mistress Fawcett, and rode on whistling.
The two he had recklessly left to their own devices exchanged
platitudes, and covertly examined each other with quick admiration.

There are dark Scots, and Hamilton was one of them. Although tall and
slight, he was knit with a close and peculiar elegance, which made him
look his best on a horse and in white linen. His face was burnt to the
hue of brick-dust by the first quick assault of the tropic sun, but it
was a thin face, well shaped, in spite of prominent cheek bones, and set
with the features of long breeding; and it was mobile, fiery, impetuous,
and very intelligent: ancestral coarseness had been polished fine long
since.

They left the road and mounted toward the dark avenue of the Fawcett
estate, Rachael wondering if her mother would be irritated at the
informality of the stranger's first call; he should have arrived in
state with Dr. Hamilton at the hour of five. Perhaps it was to postpone
the moment of explanation that she permitted her horse to walk, even
after they had reached the level of the avenue, and finally to crop the
grass while she and Hamilton dismounted and sat down in a heavy grove of
tamarinds on the slope of the hill.

"I'm just twenty-one and have my own way to make," he was telling her.
"There are three before me, so I couldn't afford the army, and as I've a
fancy for foreign lands, I've come out here to be a merchant. I have so
many kinsmen in this part of the world, and they've all succeeded so
well, I thought they'd be able to advise me how best to turn over the