sentiment which she could not but feel it was as if he had just discovered that she was a woman, and fair to look upon, and Dagmar was not sufficiently sure of that fact herself not to find the consciousness of it in others both pleasant and exciting.

'It is a long time since I have heard you sing,' he said presently. 'Come to the piano and sing something for me now.'

'I will gladly,' she said; but I can sing nothing but Jacobite songs just now. I think I have the Jacobites on the brain.'

'I do not particularly care for those songs,' answered Raymond, leaning upon the piano. I know it is high treason to say so, but the whole affair seems to me such a stupendous humbug that even the songs are only humbug sublimated into poetry. Sing that song that you were singing just now upstairs before dinner.'

Upstairs?' said Dagmar, reflectively. Oh, I remember. But I know no more of that, only the last verse, and it runs like this—

'I hae a kebbock upon the shelf

(Lass, gin ye love me, tell me noo);

I canna eat it a' myself

(And I winna come any mair to woo)!'

'Raymond!'-looking at him with great solemn eyes- do you

know what a kebbock is?'

'No! I don't,' he answered, smiling indulgently.

'But I do,' she said, with a mischievous gleam in those clear depths. 'It is a ewe-milk cheese. And it is not large at all! It was odd that he should think he could not eat it all himself?'

Raymond's lips tightened just a little. He turned from the piano and affected to see that his aunt required something at the farther end of the room.

Dagmar looked preternaturally grave, and ran her fingers lightly over the keys. Raymond did not come back to the piano, and she went on singing softly to herself, running through the whole gamut of the Jacobite songs, from the warlike enthusiasm of Bonnie Prince Charlie,' to the heart-broken pathos of Will ye no come back again.' 'I am avenged!' she said presently to Dick, as that lively youth, who had been studying one of Marryat's novels in a corner, came and stood beside her.

'What did you do to him?' he asked, sotto voce. cobbler's-wax on his chair, or salt into his tea?'

I did it. But I gave him a

'Did you put

'Neither, O vulgar boy! I don't exactly know what I did, or how prick in his feelings somehow, and I think Come out on the drive, Dick; the moon

he has not forgotten it yet.

is up, and it is so lovely. I should like to live out-of-doors.'

You do, pretty nearly,' said Dick, as they strolled across the room together towards the French window.

As she unfastened it Dagmar turned her head, and glanced back towards Raymond, who was sitting silent beside her mother. Perhaps he took the look as an invitation, for he rose and followed her, stepping

out after her into the broad white light of the moon, and coming to her side in the most natural manner possible.

He found her very lovely in this fairy light, and unusually conversable also. She was a different being out in the still night from what she had been in the lighted drawing-room. She did not talk about ewe-milk cheese, nor let a little mocking imp look out of her eyes, but let Raymond lead the conversation to books and poetry, and listened, and even responded with a quick intelligent interest that made him wonder that he had so lately thought her a mere child.

He was beginning to think that the carrying out of his new project would be as delightful as the project itself was wise and advisable.

And Dagmar—if she had known that a man so much older and wiser and more experienced than herself was intending to fall in love with her, woo her, and marry her-would she have thought that now the story was really about to begin?

(To be continued.)

A PLUNGE INTO TROUBLED WATERS.

BY MISS C. R. COLERIDGE.

'Matter of course or matter of choice.'

CHAPTER I.

LAURA TERRACE.

A PLEASANT-LOOKING middle-aged woman was setting the tea things in a pretty, well-furnished sitting-room at No. 2, Laura Terrace. She was a fair-haired, fresh-tinted person, with a mixture of refinement and homeliness in her appearance; if she was rustic, it was the modern rusticity of the carefully-trained country National school girl, who, after country service in 'good' places, had made a happy and superior marriage. Mrs. Woodford had never known poverty. She was the daughter of the one shopkeeper and parish clerk of the village of Roseberry, and had married the Rector's gardener; who, after many years of comfortable and respectable service, had, at his master's promotion to a large London living, been passed on to a relation, who lived in a good house on the outskirts of Dulworth, a large town some fifteen miles or so from Roseberry.

The move was only just over and Mrs. Woodford had been settling herself and her family into the smart little town residence with mingled feelings, as she discovered, that, in gaining a drawingroom with a bow window, and one or two extra bedrooms, she had entered on a kitchen with a smoky chimney, an oven which would not bake, one cupboard which would not open, and another that would not shut. It was a very pretty cheerful sitting-room, however, with its gay carpet and muslin curtains, and she felt pleased at the thought of showing it to her husband, who had remained behind his family at Roseberry, helping his old master through the move.

Glancing out as she arranged her curtains, she saw his sturdy figure come up to the door, and ran out to admit him and bring him into the parlour.

'Well, mother, how's all with you? Bless me, this here is genteel enough for Lily herself! Are we to live here in a general way?'

'I don't see what else we're to do, if we're to be comfortable, the kitchen isn't what we're used to at all. But there, now you've come, I dare say you'll see your way to setting it right. How's the dear old place, and master, and the young ladies?'

'Oh, they went off pretty comfortable. Miss Alice she did cry terrible to say good-bye to Neptune, and he wouldn't eat a morsel of

supper.

But Mr. Vicars' young ladies make a deal of him, and no doubt they'll make him comfortable.'

'Well, he seems a pleasant sort of gentleman. Not of course to compare with old master; but he spoke kind, and the new man looks respectable. He's to attend upon a pony as well as the garden, you know.'

'Dear old place! I wish we mayn't have done wrong in leaving it,' said Mrs. Woodford, wiping her eyes.

'Why, Susan, you know we talked it all through, how we'd outgrown the old cottage, and Mr. Vicars wasn't inclined to enlarge it. And master himself said I was worth more than he gave me, as I've got, and shall find it handy.'

'Yes; but when I think of our comfortable Sunday, and the church, and all

'Isn't the church here to your mind?' said Woodford.

'I don't know which church it is,' said Mrs. Woodford, tearfully, as she filled the tea-pot.

'Well, 'tis easy to enquire. Didn't you go to church on Sunday then?'

'I asked the baker at the corner, where I've been buying my bread for as to baking in this oven, 'tis out of the question-and he said I should find the Congregational most popular; that was where he looked in of an evening. So I said we were Church of England, and ever had been, and which was the parish church? and he said the parish church was the one with a spire up on the hill; but he believed we were in St. Michael's district. So I asked for St. Michael's Church, and there 'twas nothing but wood, at the end of a new road, and bad singing and hardly any one there but children, that behaved so as it was a shame to see them. And the clergyman, such a young gentleman, too.'

Woodford was not a man of many words, he nodded his head reflectively, and asked

And what have we got for neighbours in this Terrace ?'

'The houses are not all occupied; but there's a talking sort of woman next door to us by the name of Mason, with children that haven't manners such as I like to see in mine, and she told me there's a lady further on with a little girl, that has seen better days and keeps herself very quiet. And there are some Irish which are Roman Catholics and have nine children, such as ought not to be in a neighbourhood like this. And a very decent-looking family here on the other side, and shocked I was to hear that the father brought up his children to no religion at all, having none himself.'

There are such people, and many of them,' said Woodford, gravely. Then Mrs. Mason, she says, that at No. 10, there's a very pious couple, that have a room and hold a Gospel Mission instead of going to church, and she goes there to get a good word sometimes, though

she was brought up to the Church herself. And the old gentleman a the end is a Jew!'

'Well, there do seem a variety,' said Woodford. out where to send the children to school?'

Have you found

'Well, most of the children hereabouts seem to go to a great school two streets off; but I can't make out whether it's a Board or a National-except the Irish, who go to a convent. And as for Sunday, I don't know if I shall see my way to sending them at all, things are so different.'

'Well, Susie! we've hardly had time to look round, we shall feel our feet by-and-by. It stands to reason that all the neighbours can't be Jews-and-and so on,' continued the good man with a disinclination to call his neighbours the names that naturally followed. 'But we all know there's differences, even in Roseberry, and a woman of your education will know how to manage.'

Mrs. Woodford was a woman of some education. She had been the favourite scholar of Miss Goodall, the Rector of Roseberry's sister, when both had been young and eager. She had read history and had been taught a great deal about the Church to which she belonged, so that she was an intelligent member of it. She had always been supplied with well-chosen books, and had, in fact, been educated to a full appreciation of the privileges which she had enjoyed. She was clever, too, and knew something by hearsay of the questions of the day, and had her opinions on them. Her religion, too, was a very real thing, by which she guided her life and taught her children to guide theirs, and the duties of which she never neglected.

But like many another of deeper and wider training, poor Mrs. Woodford had never known how much the Church' to her meant the actual grey tower and peal of bells, the well-known painted East window and solemn chancel, where she had knelt for nearly every Communion of her life, and most of all perhaps the dear well-known clergyman, always in his place, whom she loved and respected both for himself and for his office. She was home-sick and neighbour-sick to begin with, and felt as if her soul as well as her heart were torn up by the roots. However, being a cheerful as well as a sensible woman, she did not wish to welcome her husband by tears over what could not be helped; and was proceeding to call his attention to the less hopeless defects of the oven, when a rapid step came up the little garden, and a girl of eighteen or so ran into the house, crying out

'Well, uncle-well, aunt, so here you are! And here am I, ready to come to you.'

Why, Lily, I wondered never to see you on Sunday,' said Mrs. Woodford, kissing her.

Oh, I'd been engaged ever so long to go and spend Sunday with Miss Brown, our first hand, and I thought you'd be all in a muddle. And we've been that busy with two weddings and a funeral that to