orderly, and well kept; and the heaps of dried leaves and brushwood ready to be wheeled away, stood there as he saw them when he last walked that way with Alice. He was poor then, without a career, or almost a hope of one; and yet was it possible, could it be possible, that he was happier than he now felt? Was it that Love sufficed for all, and that the heart so filled had no room for other thoughts than those of her it worshipped? He certainly had loved her greatly. She -she alone made up that world in which he had lived. Her smile, her step, her laugh, her voice -ay, there they were, all before him. What a dream it was! Only a dream after all; for she never cared for him. She had led him on to love her, half in caprice, half in a sort of compassionate interest for a poor boy-boy she called him-to whom a passion for one above him was certain to elevate and exalt him in his own esteem. "Very kind, doubtless," muttered he, "but very cruel too. She might have remembered that this same dream was to have a very rough awaking. I had built nearly every hope upon one, and that one, she well knew, was never to be realised. It might not have been the most gracious way to do it, but I declare it would have been the most merciful, to have treated me as her mother did, who snubbed my pretensions at once. It was all right that I should recognise her superiority over me in a hundred ways; but perhaps she should not have kept it so continually in mind, as a sort of barrier against a warmer feeling for me. I suppose this is the fine-lady view of the matter. This is the theory that young fellows are to be civilised, as they call it, by a passion for a woman who is to amuse herself by their extravagancies, and then ask their gratitude for having deceived them. "I'll be shot if I am grateful," said he, as he threw his cigar into the pond. "I'm astonished-amazed-now that it's all over" (here

his voice shook a little) "that my stupid vanity could have ever led me to think of her, or that I ever mistook that patronising way she had towards me for more than goodnature. But, I take it, there are scores of fellows who have had the selfsame experiences. Here's the seat I made for her," muttered he, as he came in front of a rustic bench. For a moment a savage thought crossed him that he would break it in pieces, and throw the fragments into the lake-a sort of jealous anger lest some day or other she might sit there with "another;" but he restrained himself, and said, "Better not; better let her see that her civilising process has done something, and that though I have lost my game I can bear my defeat becomingly."

He began to wish that she were there at that moment. Not that he might renew his vows of love, or repledge his affection; but to show her how calm and reasonable -ay, reasonable was her favourite word-he could be; how collectedly he could listen to her, and how composedly reply. He strolled up to the entrance door. It was open. The servants were busy in preparing for the arrival of their masters, who were expected within the week. All were delighted to see Master Tony again, and the words somehow rather grated on his ears. was another reminder of that same "boyhood" he bore such a grudge against. "I am going to have a look out of the small drawing-room window, Mrs Hayles," said he to the housekeeper, cutting short her congratulations, and hurrying upstairs.

It

It was true he went up for a view; but not of the coast-line to Fairhead, fine as it was. It was of a full-length portrait of Alice, lifesize, by Grant. She was standing beside her horse-the Arab Tony trained for her. A braid of her hair had fallen, and she was in the act of arranging it, while one hand held up her drooped riding-dress.

A

There was that in the air and attitude that bespoke a certain embarrassment with a sense of humorous enjoyment of the dilemma. sketch from life, in fact, had given the idea of the picture, and the reality of the incident was unquestionable.

Tony blushed a deep crimson as he looked and muttered, "The very smile she had on when she said good-bye. I wonder I never knew her till now."

A favourite myrtle of hers stood in the meadow; he broke off a sprig of it, and placed it in his button-hole, and then slowly passed down the stairs and out into the lawn. With very sombre thoughts and slow steps he retraced his way to the cottage. He went over to himself much of his past life, and saw it, as very young men will of ten in such retrospects, far less favourably as regarded himself than it really was. He ought to have done -heaven knows what. He ought to have been-scores of things which he never was, perhaps never could be. At all events there was one thing he never should have imagined, that Alice Lyle-she was Alice Lyle always to him-in her treatment of him was ever more closely drawn towards him than the others of her family. "It was simply the mingled kindness and caprice of her nature that made the difference; and if I hadn't been a vain fool I'd have seen it. I see it now, though; I can read it in the very smile she has in her picture. To be sure I have learned a good deal since I was here last; I have outgrown a good many illusions. I once imagined this dwarfed and stinted scrub to be a wood. I fancied the Abbey to be like a royal palace; and in Sicily a whole battalion of us have bivouacked in a hall that led to suites of rooms without number. If a mere glimpse of the world could reveal such astounding truths, what might not come of a more lengthened experience?"

"How tired and weary you look, Tony!" said his mother, as he threw himself into a chair; "have you overwalked yourself?"

"I suppose so," said he, with a half smile. "In my poorer days I thought nothing of going to the Abbey and back twice-I have done it even thrice-in one day but perhaps this weight of gold I carry now is too heavy for me."

"I'd like to see you look more grateful for your good fortune, Tony," said she, gravely.

"I'm not ungrateful, mother; but up to this I have not thought much of the matter. I suspect, however, I was never designed for a life of ease and enjoyment. Do you remember what Dr Stewart said one day, 'You may put a weed in a garden, and dig round it and water it, and it will only grow to be a big weed after all.""

"I hope better from Tony-far better," said she, sharply. "Have you answered M'Carthy's letter? have you arranged where you are to meet the lawyers?"

"I have said in Dublin. They couldn't come here, mother; we have no room for them in this crib."

You must not call it a crib for all that. It sheltered your father once, and he carried a very high head, Tony."

"And for that very reason, dear mother, I'm going to make it our own home henceforth,-without you'd rather go and live in that old manor-house on the Nore; they tell me it is beautiful."

"It was there your father was born, and I long to see it," said she, with emotion. "Who's that coming in at the gate, Tony?" "It is Dolly," said he, rising, and going to the door to meet her.

"My dear Dolly," cried he, as he embraced her, and kissed her on either cheek; this brings me back to old times at once."

66

If it was nothing else, the total change in Tony's appearance abashed her; the bronzed

and bearded man looking many years older than he was, seemed little like the Tony she had seen last; and so she half shrank back from his embrace, and, with a flushed cheek and almost constrained manner, muttered some words of recognition.

"How well you are looking," said he, staring at her, as she took off her bonnet," and the nice glossy hair has all grown again, and I vow it is brighter and silkier than ever." What's all this flattery about bright een and silky locks I'm listening to?" said the old lady, coming out laughing into the hall.

66

"It's Master Tony displaying his foreign graces at my expense, ma'am," said Dolly, with a smile.

"Would you have known him again, Dolly? would you have thought that great hairy creature there was our Tony?"

"I think he is changed-a good deal changed," said Dolly, without looking at him.

"I didn't quite like it at first; but I'm partly getting used to it now; and though the Colonel never wore a beard on his upper lip, Tony's more like him now than ever." The old lady continued to ramble on about the points of resemblance between the father and son, and where certain traits of manner and voice were held in common; and though neither Tony nor Dolly gave much heed to her words, they were equally grateful to her for talking.

"And where's the Doctor, Dolly? are we not to see him at dinner?"

"Not to-day, ma'am; he's gone over to M'Laidlaw's to make some arrangements about this scheme of ours- -the banishment, he calls it." "And is it possible, Dolly, that he can seriously contemplate such a step?" asked Tony, gravely.

"Yes; and very seriously too." 66 And you, Dolly; what do you say to it?

"I say to it what I have often said to a difficulty, what the old Scotch adage says of the stout heart to the stey brae."

"And you might have found more comforting words, lassie how the winds can be tempered to the shorn lamb," said the old lady, almost rebukefully; and Dolly drooped her head in silence.

"I think it's a bad scheme," said Tony, boldly, and as though not hearing his mother's remark. "For a man at the Doctor's age to go to the other end of the globe, to live in a new land, and make new friendships at his time of life, is, I'm sure, a mistake."

"That supposes that we have a choice; but my father thinks we have no choice."

"I cannot see that. I cannot see that what a man has borne for five-and-thirty or forty years-he has been that long at the Burnside, I believe he cannot endure still longer. Imust have a talk with him myself over it." And unconsciously-quite unconsciously-Tony uttered the last words with a highsounding importance, so certain is it that in a man's worldly wealth there is a store of self-confidence that no mere qualities of head or heart can ever supply; and Dolly almost smiled at the assured tone and the confident manner of her former playfellow.

"My father will be glad to see you, Tony-he wants to hear all about your campaigns; he was trying two nights ago to follow you on the map, but it was such a bad one he had to give up the attempt."

"I'll give you mine," cried the old lady, "the map Tony brought over to myself. I'll no just give it, but I'll lend it to you; and there's a cross wherever there was a battle, and a red cross wherever Tony was wounded."

66

Pooh, pooh, mother! don't worry Dolly about these things; she'd rather hear of pleasanter themes than battles and battlefields. And here is one already— Jeanie says, 'dinner.'"

"Where did you find your sprig

of myrtle at this time?" asked Dolly, as Tony led her in to dinner.

"I got it at the Abbey. I strolled up there to-day," said he, in a halfconfusion. "Will you have it?" "No," said she, curtly.

"Neither will I then," cried he, tearing it out of his button-hole and throwing it away.

What a long journey in life can be taken in the few steps from the drawing-room to the dinner-table!

As Dr Stewart had many friends to consult and many visits to make some of them, as he imagined, farewell ones-Dolly was persuaded, but not without difficulty, to take up her residence at the cottage till he should be able to return home. And a very pleasant week it was. To the old lady it was almost perfect happiness. She had her dear Tony back with her after all his dangers and escapes, safe and sound, and in such spirits as she had never seen him before. Not a cloud, not a shadow, now ever darkened his bright face; all was good-humour, and thoughtful kindness for herself and for Dolly.

And poor Dolly, too, with some anxious cares at her heart-a load that would have crushed manybore up so well that she looked as cheery as the others, and entered into all the plans that Tony formed about his future house, and his gardens, and his stables, as though many a hundred leagues of ocean were not soon to roll between her and the spots she traced so eagerly on the paper. One evening they sat even later than usual. Tony had induced Dolly, who was very clever with her pencil, to make bim a sketch for a little ornamental cottage-one of those uninhabitable little homesteads, which are immensely suggestive of all the comforts they would utterly fail to realise; and he leaned over her as she drew, and his arm was on the back of her chair, and his face so close at times that it almost touched the braids of the silky hair beside him.

"You must make a porch there,

make him without colour; for one ought to have a little carmine for the corner of his eye, and a slight tinge to accent the tip of his nose. Shall I add all your emblems,' as they call them, and put in the fishing-rods against the wall, and the landing-net, and the guns and pouches?"

She went on sketching with inconceivable rapidity, the drawing keeping pace almost with her words.

But Tony no longer took the interest he had done before in the picture, but seemed lost in some deep and difficult reflection.

"Shall we have a bridge-a mere plank will do-over the river here, Tony and then this zigzag pathway will be a short way up to the cottage."

He never heard her words, but arose and left the room. He passed out into the little garden in front of the house, and leaning on the gate looked out into the dark still night. Poor Tony! impenetrable as that darkness was, it was not more difficult to peer through than the thick mist that gathered around his thoughts.

"Is that Tony?" cried his mother from the doorway.

"Yes," said he, moodily, for he wanted to be left to his own thoughts.

"Come here, Tony, and see what a fine manly letter your friend Mr M'Gruder writes in answer mine."

to

Tony was at her side in an instant, and almost tore the letter in his eagerness to read it. It was very brief, but well deserved all she had said of it. With a delicacy which perhaps might scarcely have been looked for in a man so educated and brought up, he seemed to appreciate the existence of a secret he had no right to question; and bitterly as the resolve cost him, he declared that he had no longer a claim on Dolly's affection. "I scarcely understand him, mother; do you?" asked Tony.

"It's not very hard to under

stand, Tony," said she, gravely. "Mr M'Gruder sees that Dolly Stewart could not have given him her love and affection as a man's wife ought to give, and he would be ashamed to take her without it."

"But why couldn't she? Sam seems to have a sort of suspicion as to the reason, and I cannot guess it."

"If he does suspect, he has the nice feeling of a man of honour, and sees that it is not for one placed as he is to question it."

"If any man were to say to me, 'Read that letter, and tell me what does it infer,' I'd say the writer thought that the girl he wanted to marry liked some one else."

"Well, there's one point placed beyond an inference, Tony; the engagement is ended, and she is free."

it."

"I suppose she is very happy at

"Poor Dolly has little heart for happiness just now. It was a little before dinner a note came from the Doctor to say that all the friends he had consulted advised him to go out, and were ready and willing to assist him in every way to make the journey. As January is the stormy month in these seas, they all recommended his sailing as soon as he possibly could; and the poor man says very feelingly, 'To-morrow, mayhap, will be my farewell sermon to those who have sat under me eight-and-forty years."

"Why did you not make some proposal like what I spoke of, mother?" asked he, almost peevishly.

"I tried to do it, Tony, but he wouldn't hear of it. He has a pride of his own that is very dangerous to wound, and he stopped me at once, saying, 'I hope I mistake your meaning; but lest I should not, say no more of this for the sake of our old friendship.""

"I call such pride downright want of feeling. It is neither more