him and the one he seeks. They stream up from yawning doors, and people the shadowy thoroughfares of thought. Till all at once beyond the will, he hears a wizard music roll, and through the lattice on the soul looks the one dear face, and makes it still. This crowded river, these moving lines of brick and field, the new streets that rise where meadows spread, the labourers hammering on the shore, the unfamiliar sounds that strive to shut her out; I note them all with pain, and then, all sudden-like and still, a plaintive song comes o'er the wave, and once again we meet, face to face, hand in hand. She whispers words of love and hope, and trust and truth. We stand together on the heavenly hill, gazing into the prospect of the world to come.

CHAPTER VI.

IN HER PRESENCE.

THIS is how I first had speech with Ruth Oswald.

It was a warm June day. The windows of our school had been open all through the afternoon, letting in sweet odours and the drowsy hum of bees. Flickering reflections from the river had played upon the old oak ceiling and set all the boys thinking of the fields and the bathing-place in the Daisy Meadows. The door had been open too, and I had felt almost inclined to steal out into the sunshine and hide myself in the reeds by the river. None of the boys got through their lessons creditably on this hot summer day. Even the masters were longing to be out in the meadows. We could hear the cuckoo. A butterfly came sailing into the hall. It was a delightful, lazy, tantalising afternoon. I shall never forget the time, because it is associated with so much that is pleasant in my early days. It was the dawn of all my happiness, and all my misery too, that sunny afternoon in June.

My father had desired me to be home at an early hour that we might walk together in the evening. We did not often take the air in company, and when we did the excursions were always full of pleasure and delight to me at all events, and to my father also I believe. He knew the history of every foot of ground in and about Wulstan. He knew where Puritan and Royalist had fought and bled; where the King had rested on his way to Boscobel; and back to the old days of the monastery when Prior Moore made pilgrimages to London and gave royal feasts. He knew the name of every plant and flower, and gave me lessons in light and shade, in skyey effects, and in atmospheric

changes; making our walk a romance of knights and warriors, a chapter out of the book of nature, and a page of history, throwing such wonderful light upon my dry lessons at school that the dead sticks and musty bones of the text books became things of life and motion and poetry.

When, therefore, the head-master had given us his short but impressive blessing on that memorable afternoon, and my books were packed away, I plunged into the College Green with a light heart and anticipations of a glorious ramble. For the moment even Ruth Oswald was forgotten. I galloped through the quiet streets, and reaching the Old House of Sidbree flung open the rusty gates, bounded over the grass-grown footpath, and was soon clattering through the corridors, making the echoes lively with my elastic footsteps. I did not stay to knock at my father's door, but into the room I plunged with a joyous "Are-you-ready-father?"

Robin of Pantingale's wife was not more astonished when she found her own wed lord instead of Sir Gyles than I was at the sight which greeted me in my father's studio. I fell back more quickly than I had entered; fell back in confusion and wonder. As I retreated I heard a subdued pitying, derisive sort of laugh. This was succeeded by a rather sternly uttered command "Come in, George, and pay your respects to his Reverence the Dean."

That was a matter of no difficulty. I had seen the Dean of Wulstan in my father's studio before and spoken to him. But she was with him. Miss Oswald and Miss Ruth were there. It was

Ruth who first met my gaze. I saw her eyes, and they seemed to throw my whole mind into chaos. Acting upon my father's command, I blundered into the room, hot and confused, but with sufficient presence of mind to make my best and most courteous bow. "George Himbleton," said the Dean, putting his hand on my shoulder in a kindly manner, "I am glad to hear so good an account of you at college."

"I thank your reverence," I replied, covered with blushes. "I fear the masters speak more kindly than I deserve."

"That is well said and modest," the Dean replied.

The ladies were examining my father's sketches during this brief episode.

"Do you intend to follow the profession of your father, George?" asked the Dean.

"Art is to be a pastime and recreation for him; not a profession," my father replied. "George will enter the Church if he has diligence enough to pursue his studies successfully."

"I am sure the Church will have a good servant in George Himbleton," said the Dean; and he patted my head.

Then turning to his daughters, the Dean said, "Is it quite understood, then, Ruth, that you are henceforth Mr. Himbleton's pupil ?"

"Yes, father," said Ruth, "if Mr. Himbleton will have me."

I shall never forget these first words of Ruth Oswald. Her voice was music. It was fresh as the sound of a brook. Every word was melodious. Her eyes spoke also as well as her mouth, and all her face lighted up with kindness. I had hitherto only seen it in perfect repose. Now, influenced by the exercise of her genial temper, brought into action, lighted up in conversation, it was the face of a lovely girl made beautiful in the highest degree by a good and noble nature. The soul of a true and generous woman peeped out through her eyes, the glorious windows of a pure and noble mind.

"Have you, Miss Ruth!" exclaimed my father, in his grandest and most courtly fashion; "the master will be proud of his pupil."

Miss Oswald the elder looked on calmly, and seemed to say with her cold eyes, "And so you ought to be proud of the honour we are conferring upon you."

"There is great promise in the sketches which Smith, the verger, left with me this morning, Miss Ruth. You are my first pupil, and I shall learn from you, in studies of foliage such as these."

This was evidently in reply to that proud look from Miss Oswald the elder.

"I told Ruth you did not take pupils," said the Dean, with the grace of the true gentleman, "but I felt sure you would feel an interest in helping her."

"I assure you, Mr. Dean, I regard your confidence as an honour," replied my father.

"Be seated, my dears," said the Dean, addressing the ladies.

They were lightly dressed, the Miss Oswalds, in black silk dresses, with short waists, slightly open at the neck. They wore hats of white straw with black ribbons. Mary Oswald's light hair was bound tightly to her head. The expression of her face was rather that of communing with herself than engaging in conversation. She had gray eyes and a calm, passive face. It was a cold kind of beauty, Mary's statuesque, formal, self-asserting. Ruth, on the contrary, was warm and genial, though calm and self-possessed and somewhat grave in repose; but in the presence of company she was bright and kindly; indeed, the vivacity of her manner and discourse was now and then a little out of harmony with the languishing tenderness

of her soft hazel eyes. Dark brown hair fell upon her shoulders in a bundle of loose curls. She wore a red rose in her bosom, which heightened the healthy glow of her clear olive complexion.

"I wonder you have not moved to London, Mr. Himbleton,” said the Dean; "you are buried here in this dull old town."

"I lost my wife in London, sir," said my father, "and never could endure the place afterwards. I brought her down, and laid her in the churchyard where we were married. It was her dying wish, and I came here, to live near the spot."

A tear stole into Ruth Oswald's eyes as my father spoke.

"True, true," said the Dean, "I have heard the story before; I sympathise with your feeling, Mr. Himbleton."

"What is the subject of this picture, Mr. Himbleton ?" asked Mary Oswald, calmly, yet firmly, changing the subject, which she saw was becoming too personal for her own comfort, for she disliked what she called scenes and sensibilities.

"It illustrates a verse in an old ballad which I adapted from some verses the Dean discovered in the Cathedral Library."

"It is admirable in colour," said Miss Oswald, "but I do not like the lady's face. She is evidently in fear of my lord with the sword.” "Just so, Miss Oswald," said my father.

"Let me give you a better subject, sir," said Miss Oswald, sitting as calm as a statue, moving hardly a muscle of her face, as if she were talking to herself.

My father bowed a gracious and dignified assent, and the Dean fidgetted with the tassel of his gold-headed cane.

"When Poetus was condemned to die, his courage showed signs of eclipse. Like most men, he began to sink under his misfortune. To reassure and give him fortitude, his wife, Arrira, stabbed herself with a dagger, and presenting the weapon to her condemned lord, said'Pœtus, it gives no pain.""

"Pate non dolet !" said the Dean, mildly giving the exclamation in Latin. "Yes, Mary, that was what you would call heroic, but none the less a great crime."

"It would make a fine picture of the tragic kind, such as this which Mr. Himbleton is painting," said Miss Oswald, sternly.

"I never met with the story," said my father, "but it reminds me of an equally heroic and criminal act on the part of one of King Otho's soldiers. Perhaps you remember that in Plutarch ?"

"No," said the Dean.

My father looked at Miss Oswald for encouragement to go on; but she sat without giving a sign either of assent or dissent.

"It was a revolt against the King. Romans were fighting Romans. The rebels had obtained a marked advantage. The King wished to capitulate; he could not bear to think of a further sacrifice of the lives of his subjects. His own troops were attached to his person beyond all belief. They kissed his hands; they fell at his feet, and entreated him not to forsake them, but to employ their hearts and hands to the last moment of their lives. They all joined in this request; and one man, drawing his sword, thus addressed him: Know, Cæsar, what your soldiers are ready to do for you;' and straightway fell upon his sword and died at his master's feet." Ruth Oswald turned so pale at these recitals that I slipped from the room and brought jug of cold water, and was back with it

before her agitation was noticed.

My re-entrance, however, attracted attention, and then the Dean, looking from me to his daughter, said, "We are making Ruth ill; she cannot listen to this kind of story."

I had presented the water, and it had been accepted before my father could offer his apologies, and I thought afterwards that there was an especially tender look in those dear eyes as she thanked me "for taking so much trouble."

"Self-denial," said Mary Oswald, hardly deigning to notice her sister's discomfort, "is true nobility; self-sacrifice is the highest virtue." It struck me at the moment that Miss Oswald had an opportunity of exercising her consideration for others on the spot, and I ventured to say so to my father when we were walking through the fields outside Wulstan on this red-letter day of my history.

How deliciously that summer evening closed in! I look back, and the calm of that happy time seems somewhat akin to this Valley of Poppies. The air is filled with the smell of wild roses and honeysuckle and the snowy elder tree. There are fields of green wheat, fresh and bright and promising as hope. Long lines of blue smoke sail upwards from suburban chimneys. At quiet bends in the river the water-lily slumbers on the waters, and flowery rushes fringe the pools. The merle and the woodlark make the quiet solitude musical with their eloquent notes. All things seem in happy accord, as if they sang a quiet harmonious madrigal. My heart throbbed in unison with nature's own pulsations; but a human voice mingled with the merle's song and the woodlark's. I set a human face in a framework of flowers and grasses, and all things that were beautiful. And her name was Ruth Oswald !

(To be continued.)