But Bruce was not at all disposed to have matters settled in this offhand fashion. In his own mind, and talking it over with Kathleen, he had arranged his course of procedure in the future, as they had come up the shady lane, swinging Tom's rod and fishing-basket between them. Mr. Derwent should stand there and listen to his terms, not he to Mr. Derwent's.

He laid his hand on Kathleen's arm. "There is no reason why Kathleen should not hear every word, Mr. Derwent; we know exactly what you are going to say," he said, looking very white, it is true, but with no sign of wavering in his voice. "We know you are going to talk about Kathleen's legacy, and say how ridiculous it would be for her now to marry a man in my station in life. Very well. I am not going to force myself upon her, I'll tell you that; but I also tell you I'm not going to give her up because a few thousand pounds have fallen to her; I wouldn't have given her up for poverty, and I won't give her up for riches. But this I will do-let her have her own choice on the matter without attempting to influence her in any shape or form. And because she is too young now to be allowed to make such a choice, I will wait for it till her twenty-first birthday-about a year and ten months from now. On that day, whatever her decision may be, I shall take it as final-a 'yes' or a'no' for ever."

Bruce's words had come one after the other clearly, but hurriedly. He drew a long breath as he finished speaking. Then under her father's eye he took her in his arms and kissed her.

"Good-bye, Kathleen; without fail you'll see me on your twenty-first birthday," he said in not quite such a steady voice as before. And Kathleen's "good-bye" seemed to come in oddly muffled tones, while a mist before her eyes made her think the twilight had come upon them all of a sudden.

"Oh yes, I'll shake hands, Mr. Derwent," Bruce said, as the old clergyman somewhat doubtfully held out his hand; "I can see things, in a fashion, from your point of view, but you must forgive me if I can see them better from my own."

Then, as though afraid to trust himself with another look at Kathleen, he turned sharply round, and walked hurriedly away.

Mr. Derwent and Kathleen went back to

the house by different paths. Mr. Derwent got in first, retreated to his study, and locked himself in, horribly afraid lest Kathleen should pursue him, and make a scene. Kathleen lingered a few minutes in the failing light, trying to get back her calmness before she faced Tom and the tea-tray. There under the big beech-tree was her basket of peas, off which an audacious jackdaw was making an easy and pleasant supper. Could it only have been this morning, the girl asked herself, that she sat there with nimble fingers and a merry heart, telling herself such pleasant tales of what the years had in store for her? Why, she seemed to have lived since then a decade at least. Well, the fates had with the first post that morning just turned her life upside down for her-that was all: had given her twenty thousand pounds with one hand, and had robbed her of her lover with the other.

CHAPTER III.

MRS. DERWENT slept off her nervous headache, and came down to breakfast the next morning in the smartest cap and gown her wardrobe had at command.

"My dear, you look twenty years younger," said her admiring husband, as he took his place behind the eggs and bacon.

Mrs. Derwent smiled pleasantly at him across the tucked-up sleeves of the little maid who was bringing in the teapot.

"You needn't bring my work-basket after breakfast," she said, addressing the Phyllis a little pompously. "Those stockings are really past mending, and may as well be given to the almshouse people."

Tom came in, bringing the letters which the postman had just handed to him over the garden-gate. He was scowling tremendously-Tom could look black if he choseat the uppermost one, addressed to him in official writing, and announcing itself in printed letters to be "on Her Majesty's service." Not a doubt it must be the longtalked-of nomination to an inferior billet in the General Post Office.

Kathleen, occupied in cutting brown bread on a trencher,seemed to feel his black looks, for she did not so much as lift her eyes as she said:

Why trouble about it now, Tom? Put it in the waste-paper basket. Father, why can't Tom go to college like other young men, instead of beginning to work at something he detests?

Kathleen had had a sleepless night, and

the thoughts that had kept her awake had not been pleasant ones. A year and ten months seems an altogether interminable period to a girl of nineteen under any circumstance, but when the said year and ten months is to comprehend in its lagging weeks an utter suspension of pleasant intercourse with one who has grown to be part of the girl's very life, it of necessity doubles and trebles itself. Kathleen, however, did not see in her own heavy heart any excuse for an endeavour to make other people's hearts heavy. Without being one step on the road towards canonisation as a saint, she was yet one of those "gay, good girls" whose whole delight is to make people and things around them sunshiny, not expecting so much as a "thank you" in acknowledgment.

Mr. Derwent looked up from his plate, surprised, but not displeased; Mrs. Derwent looked up from hers, neither surprised nor displeased. Tom, it may be remarked in passing, was her favourite child.

"It is exactly what I expected you would say, Kathleen," she said in a tone that suggested a combination of honey and treacle.

All Tom's frowns vanished in an instant, like ghosts at the dawn.

"Come out in the orchard after breakfast, Kathleen," he cried cheerily. "I'll swing you all the morning in the old apple

tree!

a somewhat vicious look as he tossed it across the table to her, for the adhesive seal, with the names of Messrs. Long and Lovett upon it, stirred again the smouldering embers of his discontent of yesterday.

Kathleen put her letter beside her plate unopened, and sat down in silence to her breakfast. She, too, could not refrain from giving the harmless envelope a passing vicious look, though the "viciousness" of her look assuredly sprang from a different source from Tom's. There it lay, the ugly blue paper thing, with the round, businesslike writing, and aggressive-looking seal. How unlike the missives which, as a rule, were to be found lying beside her breakfast-plate, addressed to her in Bruce's small, sharp-pointed writing! Ah, when would she again have one of his dear, darling old letters to make her eat her breakfast in one mouthful, so that she might run out into the garden and read it in peace, with none but the thrushes and blackbirds to take note of her smiles and her blushes ?

She could not eat her bread-and-butter, but kept drinking the hot coffee with gulps, as though with it she would swallow down her sorrows.

Tom looked at the unopened letter.

"How can you keep your fingers off it? Here's a girl devoid of inquisitiveness for once in a way!" he cried sarcastically.

The mother looked at the letter.

"Business letters should always receive immediate attention," she said sententiously.

And the father looked at the letter.

"The post goes out at eleven, Kathleen; better open it at once, it may want an answer," he suggested mildly.

So Kathleen broke the seal, and for one moment let her eyes wander carelessly, indifferently, down the closely-written page.

Only for one moment, however; the next, with a cry that in itself was as good as a peal of wedding-bells, she had let it fall to the ground, had overthrown her chair, and shaken all the eggs on the table out of their cups in her eager haste to get out of the room.

Tom, father, mother, all rose tumultuously to their feet.

"What is it-what is it? Are you mad, Kathleen?" cried Mrs. Derwent in her astonishment, altogether forgetting her own weak nerves.

"Mad! oh no," cried Kathleen, half up the stairs on her way to her room; "only

happy! I'm not an heiress, after all, and I'm going to write and tell Bruce this very minute."

Tom, father, and mother, all looked blankly in each other's faces.

Tom was the first to get his senses together. He picked up the lawyer's letter from the floor, and then read aloud in the bland, legal language, which seemed to insinuate apologies for the disagreeable truth it had to convey, how that the executors nominated by the late Miss O'Brien in her will, had declined to take upon themselves the responsibility of administering to the deceased lady's estate, for the simple reason that no estate remained to administer to. At the period when the will had been drawn up, Kathleen's legacy, no doubt, with other moneys, was invested in Three per Cent. Consols. Since then Miss O'Brien had not received one penny from her landed property in Ireland, and had consequently been compelled, in order to keep up her house and staff of servants, little by little to draw upon her capital, till of the large sum at one time invested only a few hundreds remained an amount, indeed, barely sufficient to cover the expenses of her costly funeral, and discharge outstanding debts in the neighbourhood. The lawyers concluded their letter with polite expressions of regret for the untoward ness of the circumstances.

Tom dropped the letter with a groan as he finished reading it. "Those fellows ought to have thought twice before they wrote in such a hurry to offer their professional services," he growled, and then went down on his knees, rummaging in the waste-paper basket for the letter containing his nomination to the Post Office billet, which he had so carelessly jerked into it.

Mrs. Derwent burst into a flood of hysterical tears. "It was wicked! wicked! They ought to be prosecuted," she sobbed.

Then she put her hand to her forehead, adding plaintively, "I'll go up to bed, I think; I can't keep my head up." But there was real tragedy in her tone when, as she left the room and met the Phyllis coming in, she turned and said to her: "Don't give away those stockings I spoke to you about this morning. They'll stand a little more mending and wearing."

And Mr. Derwent went slowly into his study, to re-write his letter to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners asking for a grant for the much-needed repairs.

"It's a bitter disappointment, of course," he said to himself with a sigh, as he got out his pens and paper; "but still it is nice to see the old bright look in Kathleen's face."

As for Kathleen herself, it was only her tears of joy, falling thick and fast and half blinding her, which made her take more than sixty seconds over her brief letter to her lover.

ful? I'm not an heiress, after all. Come "DEAR, DEAR BRUCE,-Isn't it delightover at once-this very minute.-Your KATHLEEN."

own

This was all she wrote. But it was evidently enough, for it brought Bruce to the parsonage the very next day; and, before he went back to Carlisle, the day was fixed for their wedding.

"I wish I could fancy it was nothing more than a bad dream," said the girl, as she said good-bye to her lover over the garden gate; "but, somehow, I can't. When I think over it all, I feel exactly as I did when I ate that Seville orange, and had a bitter taste in my mouth for days afterwards."

Poor child! This was her first taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, of which most of us have to eat a little more than we relish through life.