he would walk two and twenty miles, between breakfast and dinner, to see anybody on earth but Miss Blair. Mr. Mortimer, I am convinced you can tell me who is Miss Blair ?"

She did not fail to notice his embarrassment, and the lame way in which he tried to evade her question.

"A friend of your aunt's, I fancy. A very old friend of Mrs. Dennison; that is why she is here so much."

"But you have known her a long time. She said so herself, the night before last."

He escaped into generalities. "Oh! everywhere abroad. She's been knocking about over the whole of abroad, and so have I.”

"Was she in society? I don't mean in China or the Sandwich Islands, or any of those out-of-the-way places, but in Paris and Vienna and Cannes ?"

"Oh! yes; I believe so. But I am not a very good judge; I have never thought much about her. I dare say you have formed your own opinion, and it's far more likely to be right than mine.”

"I dare say I have," replied Annie, looking thoughtfully at her sketch. "My opinion is that she's a man-eater! There! What shall I send you in for luncheon ?"

CHAPTER VII.

SEEKING REST.

ELEVEN miles, heel and toe, through every variety of scenery, by breezy common, woodland path, devious bridle-road, and bottomless bylane, ought to give anybody an appetite; yet it was remarked, even by the servants who waited, that when Mr. Lexley came to luncheon at the Priors he ate less than the most delicate lady who sat at table. The truth is, Lexley was hit; hard hit as a man is once in a lifetime; he gets over it, and perhaps, when the wound is healed, it has done him no great harm, though we may be sure it has taught him not to "jest at scars"; but, in the meantime, he becomes an object of pity, or of envy, according to the creed we hold. Who would not wish his faculties to be so sharpened that the mere sigh of a breeze thrills like music to his heart-the very scent of a flower rises like intoxication to his brain? But at the same time, who would wish his happiness to be so dependent on the caprices of another, that a word, a look, a gesture, perhaps unintentional, have power to inflict on him nights of wakefulness and days of woe? It is good to take life as it comes, shrinking in no way from its responsibilities, accepting its pleasures, setting our teeth against its pains; but there is a cup at which the wise man is content to wet his lips and so put it down,

knowing better than to drain it, for surely plus aloes quam mellis habet. Liquid fire and bitter poison are in its dregs.

The first night he had ever seen her, the night he heard her play, Algernon Lexley told himself that here was the woman who for him could make earth a paradise. The next two days only convinced him that without her life must henceforth be a blank, and that to win her no sacrifice would be too costly, no price too high. When he had been twenty-four hours in his parsonage a reaction set in. How should a mere country curate, he thought, aspire to such a paragon as this? Everybody in like plight has felt with Helena—

And surely it is better so. Youth is the period of illusion and of effort. There is plenty of time in after life to find out that the "particular star" is a farthing rushlight, and that le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.

Algernon Lexley struggled hard for a day and a night; read Greek, dug in his garden; visited every old woman in the parish; and walked after dinner in the dark so far and so fast that he went to bed and slept sound for sheer weariness. Next morning he felt in better spirits, but more in love than ever. That day and many days after, scarcely at decorous intervals, he found himself dropping in to luncheon at the Priors-to get the character of a village schoolmistress, to ask Aunt Emily the price of her church harmonium, to consult works of divinity in Uncle John's library, more than once without any excuse at all. Each time he went full of hope; each time he returned despondent and self-abased, smarting under the fear that he had been ridiculous, stung by misgivings as to his dress, his manners, his personal appearance; tortured by a thousand unreal doubts and causeless anxieties, while he extracted with perverse ingenuity matter for sorrow, resentment, despair, from the common greetings of politeness, the established usages of society. Altogether he was in a most uncomfortable state, attributed by himself to the charms of Miss Blair, though perhaps the student of human nature would have considered her merely as a vehicle for the imparting of a disease to which the young man's system was predisposed. Had she stayed away a little longer he would probably have taken to worship Miss Dennison; but there is a fatality in these things, and he became a fool about Laura Blair. Look at him now, and say if it is not a pity. A spare athletic figure coming up the avenue with swift strides, that decrease visibly in speed and scope as they approach the house. Eleven miles from door to door, and it is scarcely two hours and a half since he left his own; yet, until he came in sight of those windows his breath had never quickened, nor had a drop of moisture risen

on his brow. Without being handsome, it is a prepossessing face, white and anxious though it has turned in the last minute. The dark eyes show fire, energy, and an immensity of faith. There is ideality in the brow; firmness in the jaw, with its full black whiskers; and in the thin, clean-shaved, flexible lips a sad capability of suffering, that can be kept down and hidden beneath a smile.

He does not look like a man deficient in courage, yet he wavers, as cowards do, and comes on with a rush at the last moment to ring the door-bell.

"Is Miss-Mrs. Dennison at home?" says he, in a shaking voice, while he envies the cool self-respect of the footman who confronts him. "Luncheon is just gone in," replies that functionary, who dined comfortably an hour ago. "Will you please to step this way, sir?"

This way means straight into the dining-room, and he is fast losing his head. The old Squire, in scarlet coat and hunting cap, seems to reel and waver on the canvas as if he was alive and inebriated.

Mrs. Dennison receives him coldly. That is her way, and discourages him only a little; he shakes hands with her, nevertheless, with Annie, with the rector's daughters, with their brother from Marlborough College, whom he never met before; lastly, with Miss Blair, whom he has seen, though he dared not look at her, ever since he came into the room.

Did she, or did she not, return the pressure of his clasp ever such a little? He fancies she did, and immediately his eye brightens, his courage rises, his colour returns. He becomes, on the instant, a bolder, a bigger, and a handsomer man. She continues to eat her chicken, pale, unmoved, beautiful, like the goddess of night. Will she ever eat chickens roasted in his kitchen, carved at his table? If he could but summon up courage he would ask her this afternoon.

The malady is intermittent. He was in the hot fit now; the cold would follow in due course. There fell a silence while the butler offered him sherry. He must say something, so "he hoped Mr. Dennison was well. He had come over to see him about their road rate."

"And walked all the way?" asked Annie, who knew he did, but whom some imp of mischief prompted to assume the aggressive.

"All the way, Miss Dennison," he replied. "It's not very farscarcely eleven miles, and through a beautiful country. I like the walk so much."

Annie felt

Miss Blair happened to look up, and their eyes met. provoked. She admitted it afterwards, and inclined to be spiteful with both.

"Uncle John ought to be very much flattered," said she. "Dear old thing! I wonder if anybody else would walk eleven miles to see him, or if he is really the great attraction here?"

Lexley turned scarlet. Miss Blair pitied him from her heart. She knew he was enduring martyrdom for her sake, and would have borne her share willingly if she could. Poor fellow! how gentle he was, how inexacting, and how true! Would that other man, amusing himself in London, walk eleven miles and back, only to say, 'How d'ye do?' Not he! What a pity they were so unlike! In the meantime she advanced gallantly in support. "Dear Miss Dennison, you are forgetting another attraction in the next room. While we are saying pleasant things to each other, Mr. Mortimer is perishing with hunger. I thought you had established yourself as his nurse, for good and all.”

Miss Blair had a quiet, incisive way of speaking that caused every syllable to ring clear and distinct, like the high notes of a pianoforte.

Annie coloured and bit her lip. "Somebody must take care of him," said she, "and of course it's lonely for him now. Every one seemed attentive enough while Mr. Maxwell remained."

The return was fairly intended. Miss Blair had indeed shown greater commiseration for the sufferer, had frequented the blue drawing-room more assiduously, so long as it was enlivened by the presence of his friend.

“Well, he's coming back to-day," she replied, with provoking calmness, as if it were a law of nature that she should know and regulate his movements.

Annie had lost her temper, and forgotten her manners. "Who told you so ?" said she.

dare say he has!"

Lexley felt very uncomfortable.

"Has he been writing to you? I

Could his idol then be carrying

on a correspondence with another? and that other such a rival as his old schoolfellow, whom, however, he had never before considered dangerous as a ladies' man. In a second flashed on his brain the programme of his future, dating from that very afternoon. An authorized interview-for diffidence would henceforth be swamped in despairwith the mistress of his destiny-an avowal of life-long adoration, in spite of her confession that she was promised elsewhere-an eternal farewell-a letter to the Bishop, resigning his preferment, and a few short years of hardship, labour, and adventure amongst the Feejee Islanders (to whose chiefs, by the way, Mr. Mortimer could give him plenty of introductions), or other the most inconvertible of the heathen, to conclude with an early death and a missionary's unknown grave. These cheerful anticipations were interrupted by the harsh voice of Aunt Emily, who, watching her opportunity, was not sorry for an occasion of snubbing her niece.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Annie. If Mr. Maxwell had altered his plans he would have written to me, certainly not

to Miss Blair, and I should hope not to you. Young ladies say such odd things in these days. I never can make out whether they are lamentably bold, or only lamentably silly."

Hope for the best, aunt," replied Miss Dennison, whose illhumour never lasted above a minute. "I'd rather be bold than silly. In the meantime, I shall take Mr. Mortimer his chicken. Thanks, Miss Blair, he likes it smothered in bread sauce."

And as the getting up of a single partridge causes the whole covey to rise, a general move was the result of Annie's disappearance on her benevolent errand.

At this juncture did Aunt Emily win the young clergyman's eternal gratitude and goodwill. "If you want to see the harmonium," said she, "it's in the Sunday-school. The school-room's locked, and the shoemaker has the keys. You'll never find his house if you don't know it, but Laura talked of going into the village this afternoon, and I dare say she will be good enough to show you the way. If you have anything to say to Mr. Dennison you'd better come back to tea." So in less than ten minutes he was pacing a garden walk between the laurels, side by side with Laura Blair.

He was no fool, though foolishly in love. As he took in with a side glance the enchanting figure of his companion he could not but admit that from the saucy feather in her little perched-up hat, to the tips of her neat walking boots, she was very different from his ideal of a clergyman's wife. Right or wrong, it only made him more determined to win her. No other woman surely was steeped in such an atmosphere of beauty-no other woman's gloves fitted so well; and he had never yet seen lockets and bracelets so becoming to the wearer. For him she seemed, as the Frenchman said, plus femme que les autres. That made the whole secret. His only difficulty was how to begin.

They walked on in silence. She, too, revolved many things in her mind. It is not to be supposed that she was blind to such devotion as even a school girl must have detected; and, like all women who have been accustomed to it, admiration was gratifying for its own sake. Of course, the homage of Mr. Wright pleases best, but in that gentleman's absence, the adoration of Monsieur un Tel is sufficiently acceptable, on the principle that one must wear mosaic if unable to obtain real gold. She had seen a great deal of the article, both false and true; quite enough to value it when genuine and to crave for it even when artificial and adapted only for temporary use. Besides, with all her courage, all her confidence, she was in this respect a very woman—it tired her to stand alone. She longed for a helper, an adviser-somebody to lean on, consult, contradict, and, in certain abnormal instances, to obey.

She walked on, I say, in silence, as a winner can afford to do. The