are round me, and he kisses me in just the same honest. fashion as of old, making my shyness vanish, and setting me wondering how I could ever have felt it.

"Well! Mable, he exclaims," and at the sound of the cheerful voice which is so essentially part and parcel of Jack, my heart begins beating as it has never beaten since we said good-bye and so you did not know me! well I hope you have not quite forgotten your old play fellow. "Forgotten you Jack, I do not think you would ask that if you could have felt the fidget I have been in for the last two hours."

And so arm in arm we stroll up the old avenue. But we both seem strangely quiet, and somehow all the merry banter I had at my tongue's tip an hour ago has vanished like the wind.

At last we come in sight of the house, and mother in the porch ready to welcome her boy; for Jack is to mother as an adopted son and calls her always "Aunt Helen."

"Here's

your plague come back, Aunt Helen" heexclaims, "like the proverbial bad penny." "A

penny that is dearer," mother replies, "than any golden coin we may possess, Jack, but stand aside, sir, and let me see how you are looking."

There he stands, the very picture of a young Englishman; his bright face aglow with good nature and health, the honest blue eyes looking clear and straight from beneath the arched eyebrows, brimming with love and admiration, on the woman who is loved alike by rich, poor, and almost worshipped by the man who has known. and loved her since babyhood. After mother has feasted her eyes sufficiently and is quite sure that her pet is looking as well as he can, we have a stroll round, and every face and every animal seems to try and look his best as Jack approaches.

Then I go back with Jack to the Firs where Mr. Temple and I are content to sit and listen quietly to all Jack may have to tell us.

Then once more we walk home under the stars, and again we both seem strangely quiet until we reach the avenue gate, where Jack takes both my hands in his and tells me it is indeed good to be with me once more, and that he has

seen no one he thinks half as pretty, although he has looked about well; for I know, he continues, how conceited you are. Oh! Jack, I exclaim, I shall be offended if you begin to---but he stops the remainder of my speech by pressing his "Good-night" kiss on—I am afraid I must confess-my very willing lips.

CHAPTER II.

So the days pass by, too quickly for me, in boating excursions to the old Deepdale Castle, a picturesque ruin overlooking one of England's most lovely rivers, and surrounded by hills and valleys of every description; here a lovely little dell, there a steep and dangerous crag covered with ling and violet heather, while in the distance a lofty hill towers, marked with the winding sheep track, the silence broken by the bell of their leader tinkling far away.

Matches at lawn tennis at home; gatherings at the vicarage presided over by gentle little Mr. Webb, looking a perfect little doll beside our gigantic Rector, who possesses a heart as large in proportion as his goodly frame; then we had one dance-quite an event in our remote part of the world-at the Hall, where lived in grandeur and state Lord Elston and his mother. His lordship, although an aristocrat by birth, was neither a gentleman in manners or feelings; always dictatorial and overbearing, he took all

the good things of this world as his right and desert; pompous and exacting, his servants obeyed him as master, but loved him not nor respected him as friend. His mother, a cold, hard and calculating woman of the world, encouraged him in his overbearing spirit, but loved him as much as she could in her cold and selfish way.

It was a county gathering, this ball, one being given twice a year to which we were always asked, but to which I had hitherto not gone, as according to social ideas, I was supposed not to be "out."

So, fair reader, perhaps you can imagine the excitement prevalent among us on this glorious evening in mid July, the evening of my first ball. After undergoing an hour of Celeste's well directed attentions, I stand before my glass to see a girl dressed in virgin white, without one ornament, excepting a single string of pearls of exceeding value round my bare white throat! a dusky crimson rose is fastened to my band, whilst another nestles among the short curls of my fair bright hair.

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'You just look splendid, Miss," is Celeste's outspoken compliment; but mother, in her own