was enough to have startled any of the neighbors who were aware of Lizzie's ways. The old grandmother had gone to see her daughter in the village, who was ill; but in such cases it was Lizzie's way to leave the door of the room in which she sat open, and to give a very contemptuous attention to the tinkle of the little bell attached to the shop door which announced a customer. Now, however, she sat in the shop, ready to supply anything that might be wanted. Dick strolled past quietly, and went a little way on beyond: but then he came back. He did not linger at the window, as one of Lizzie's admirers might have done. He passed it twice; then, with a somewhat anxious gaze round him, went in. He asked for matches, with a glance at the open door of the room behind. Lizzie said nothing, but something in her look gave him as well as words could have done an assurance of safety. He had closed the door of the shop behind him. He now said quickly, "Then I was not mistaken - it is you, Lizzie."

There was not the slightest appearance in her of a rustic flirt waiting for a lover, still less of anything more objectionable. Her look was serious, full of resistance and even of defiance, as if the encounter was against her will, though it was necessary that it should be. "Yes, sir," she said, shortly, "you were not mistaken, and it is me."

"And what are you doing here?" "Nothing that is n't right," said Lizzie. "I'm living with my grandmother, as any one will tell you, and working at my trade."

"Well

that is all right," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "I don't suppose that you sought me out just for that, sir, to give me your approbation," the girl said, quickly. "For which you don't care at all," he replied, with a half-laugh.

"No more than you care for what I'm doing, whether it's good or bad."

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Living! Oh, yes, I suppose so, at her age. Is she- - where she was ?" Lizzie looked at him, again investigating his face keenly, and he at her. They were like two antagonists in a duel, each on his guard, each eagerly observant of every point at which he could obtain an advantage. At last, "Where was that, sir?" she said. “I don't know where you heard of her last."

Dick made no answer. It was some moments before he spoke at all. Then, "Is she in England?" he asked.

"I'm not at liberty, sir, to say where she is."

"You know, of course. I can see that in your face. Is she But perhaps you don't intend to answer any question I put to you?"

"I think not, sir," said Lizzie, firmly. "What would be the good? She don't want you, nor you"

"Nor I her. It is true," he said. His face became very grave, almost

stern. "I have little reason to wish to know. Still you must be aware that misery is the end of such a way of life."

"Oh, you need give yourself no trouble about that," cried Lizzie, with something like scorn; "she is a deal better off and more thought upon than ever she would have been if "

"Poor girl!" he said. These words and the tone in which they were spoken stopped the quick little angry speech that was on Lizzie's lips. She wavered for a moment, then recovered herself.

"You are quite right," said Dick, recovering himself, "and I spoke like a fool. For all that you say, misery is the end of such a life; and if I could help it I should not like her to come to want." "Oh!" cried Lizzie, with exasperation, stamping her foot. "Want! You are more like to come to it than she is. I could show you in a moment - I could just let you see Here she paused, and faltered, and grew red, meeting his eyes. He did not ask any further question. He had grown pale as she grew red. Their looks exchanged a rapid communication, in which neither Lizzie's reluctance to speak nor his hesitation in asking was of any avail. He put down the sixpence which he had in his hand upon the counter, and went out into the night in a dumb confusion of mind, as if he had received a blow.

Here! breathing the same air, seeing the same sights, within reach! He went a little further on in the darkness, not knowing where, nor caring, in the bewilderment of the shock which had come upon him so unexpectedly; and suddenly in the dark was aware of a range of lighted windows which seemed to hang high in the air, the windows of the Elms appearing over the high garden wall. He went along towards the house mechanically, and only stopped

when his shoulder rubbed against the bricks, near the spot where in the morning he had seen Lizzie come out. The lights moved about from window to window; the house seemed full of movement and life; and within the wall of the garden there was a sound of conversation and laughter. Did he recognize the voices, or any one among them? He did not say so even to himself, but turned round and hurried back, stumbling through the darkness which hid and blinded him. In the village he met a woman with a lantern, who he did not doubt was Lizzie's grandmother, the village authority; no doubt a gossip, quite disposed to search into other people's mysteries, quite unaware of the secret story which had connected itself with her own. She passed him in a little mist of light in the midst of the dark, raising her head instinctively as he passed with a sense of something unfamiliar, but of course not seeing who he was. Presently he found his way again amid the clumps of lilac, which had done blooming, and guided by the sweetness of the hawthorn against which he had spiked himself on his way out. Mrs. Wilberforce was going upstairs with her candle as he came in. She looked at him disapprovingly, and hoped, with something like irony, that he had enjoyed his walk. "Though you must have had to grope along in the dark, which does not seem much of a pleasure to me."

"The air is delightful," said Dick with unnecessary fervor. "I like a stroll in the dark and the lights in the cottages are pretty to see."

"Dear me, I should have thought everybody was in bed; but late hours are creeping in with other things," said the rector's wife as she went upstairs. The rector himself was standing at the door of his study, with an unlighted pipe in his hand. "Come and have a smoke," he said. For a moment it occurred to Cavendish, though rather as a tempta

tion than as a relief, to tell the story which seemed to fill his mind like something palpable, leaving room for nothing else, to his simple-minded, rural friend, an older man than himself and a clergyman, and therefore likely to have received other confidences before now. But something sealed his lips. The atmosphere of the house, the narrow life with its thousand little occupations, in which there was an ideal yet prosaic innocence, an incapacity even to understand those elements of which tragedy is formed, made his own story almost to himself inconceivable. How could he tell it, how reveal anything so alien to every possibility! He might have told the good Wilberforce had he been in debt or in love, or asked his help for any light difficulty in which the parson might have played the part of mediator, whether with an angry father or an irritated creditor. Wilberforce would have made an excellent confidant in such cases, but not in this.

In debt or in love:-in love! Dick Cavendish's character was well known; or so, at least, everybody thought. He was always in love, just as he was always in good spirits, a fellow full of frolic and fun, only too light-hearted to take life with sufficient seriousness; and life must be taken seriously if you are going to make anything of it. This had been said to him a great many times since he came home. There was no harm known of him, as there generally is of a young man who lets a few years drop in the heyday of life. He liked his fun, the servants said, which was their way of putting it; and his parents considered that he did not take life with sufficient seriousness; the two verdicts were the same: but the people most interested in him had almost unanimously agreed in that theory, of which mention has been already made, about the "nice girl." of the plan, and ment out of it.

He was himself aware had got much amuseWhether it came to

anything or not, it at least promised him a great deal of pleasure. Scores of nice girls had been invited to meet him, and all his relatives and friends had laid themselves out thus to make a reformed character of Dick. He liked them all, he declared; they were delightful company, and he did not mind how many he was presented to; for what can be nicer than a nice girl? and to see how many of them there were in the world was exhilarating to a man fresh out of the backwoods. As he had never once approached the limits of the serious, or had occasion to ask himself what might be the end of any of the pleasant triflings into which his own temperament, seconding the plots of his friends, carried him lightly, all had gone quite well and easily, as Dick loved the things about him to go. But suddenly, just when an unexpected break had taken place in the pleasant surface of affairs, and dark remembrances, never forgotten, had got uppermost in his mind—on this night of all others, when those two words, "in love," floated into his consciousness, there rose up with them a sudden apparition, the figure, light, yet not shadowy, of Chatty Warrender, holding the bowl of roses with both hands, and with that look of innocent surprise and pleasure in her face. Who can account for such appearances? She walked into his imagination at the mere passage of these words through his head, stepping across the threshold of his fancy with almost as strong a sensation of reality as if she had pushed open his door and come into the room in which he was to all appearance quite tranquilly taking off his boots and changing his coat to join the rector in the study below. He had seen a great many girls more beautiful, more clever, more striking in every way, than Chatty. He had not been aware, even, that he had himself distinguished her; yet there she was, with her look, which was not addressed to him, yet perhaps was more or less on account

of him, — that look of unexpected pleasure. Was it on his account? No; only because in the midst of the dullness some one was asked to dinner. Bah! he said to himself, and tossed the boot he had taken off upon the floor,-in that noisy way which young men have before they learn in marriage how to behave themselves, was the silent comment of Mrs. Wilberforce, who heard him, as she made her preparations for bed, next door.

Dick was not so jolly as usual, in the hour of smoke and converse which ensued. It was the rector's favorite hour, the moment for expansion, for confidences, for assurances on his part, to his young friends, that life in the company of a nice woman, and with your children growing up round you, was in reality a far better thing than your clubs and theatres, although a momentary regret might occasionally cross the mind, and a strong desire for just so many reasonable neighbors as might form a whistparty. Dick was in the habit of making fun of the rector's self-congratulations and regrets, but on this evening he scarcely made a single joke. Three or four times he relapsed into that silence, meditative or otherwise, which is permitted and even enjoyable in the midst of smoke, when two men are confidential without saying anything, and are the best of company without exchanging one idea. But in the midst of one of those pauses, he suddenly sat bolt upright in his chair, and said, "I am afraid I must leave you to-morrow," taking away the rector's breath.

"Leave us to-morrow! Why in the name of wonder should you leave us to?" Mr. Wilberforce cried.

morrow

laugh. "The fact is, that's not all, Wilberforce. I have had letters."

"Letters! Has there been a delivery? Bless my soul," said the rector, "this is something quite new."

"Look here," said Dick. “I've been out, and I passed by the the postoffice, and there I got news- Come, don't look at me in that doubtful way. I have got news, and there is an end of it which makes me think I had better clear out of this."

"If you want to make a mystery, Cavendish," replied the rector, slowly knocking the ashes out of his pipe.

"I don't want to make any mystery," cried Dick; then he added, “If I did, it would be, of course, because I could not help it. Sometimes a man is mixed up in a mystery which he can't throw any light upon for for other people's sake."

"Ah!" said Mr. Wilberforce. He refilled the pipe deliberately, and with a very grave face. Then, with a sudden flash of illumination, "I make no doubt," he cried, "it's something about those tenants of your uncle's. He is urging you to go to the Elms."

"Well, since you have guessed, that is about it," said Cavendish. "I can't carry out my commission, and as I'd rather not explain to him

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Why should n't you explain to him? I have quite been calculating that you would explain to him, and get him to take action, and free us of a set of people so much-so entirely," cried the indignant rector, "out of our way!"

"Well, you see," said Dick, "it's not such an easy thing to get people out of a house. I know enough about law to know that; and the old fellow would be in a terrible way if he knew. I don't want to worry him, don't you see; so the best thing I can do is to say I left very soon, and had not the time to call."

"Well, for one thing, I am rather glad to hear you say so," said the rector; "for I thought at first, by the way you

introduced the subject, that your uncle himself, who has always borne such an excellent character, was somehow mixed up"

Cavendish replied by a peal of laughter so violent as almost to look hysterical. He laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks." Poor old uncle," he cried,

"poor old fellow! After a long and blameless life to be suspected, and that by a clergyman!"

"Cavendish," said the rector severely, "you are too bad; you make fun of things the most sacred. It is entirely your fault if I ever associated in my mind for a moment. However," he added, "there is one thing certain you can't go away till you have dined at the Warren, according to Mrs. Warrender's invitation. In her circumstances one must be doubly particular: and as she made an effort for Theo's sake, and yours as his friend".

"Oh, she made an effort! I did not think of that."

"If you are in such a hurry, Emily

can find out in the morning whether tomorrow will suit them, and one day longer will not matter, surely. I can't conceive why you should feel such an extreme delicacy about it."

"Oh, that's my way," said Dick lightly. "I am extremely delicate about everything, though you don't seem to have found it out."

"I wish you could be a little serious about something," said the rector, with a sigh. "Things are not all made to get a laugh out of, though you seem to think so, Dick."

"It is as good a use as another," said Dick. But as he went upstairs shortly after, the candle which he carried in his hand lighted up, in the midst of the darkness of the peaceful, sleeping house, a face which revealed anything rather than an inclination to get laughter out of everything. Nevertheless, he had pledged himself to stay for the dinner at the Warren which was to cost Mrs. Warrender an effort. It might cost him more than an effort, he said to himself. M. O. W. Oliphant.