or rather "scalpiest," days. After executing an intricate pas seul which baffles description, he sank into a chair, and faintly gasped, "I have it."

"Yes, you have," I replied, "and a bad attack, too! I knew Perrier, Jouet, and Co. wouldn't stand being sat upon by all that whisky!"

With a sudden assumption of excessive gravity my volatile companion retorted, "Austin Landley, let me counsel you, in the immortal words of the Lyra Germanica,' 'to stow that bosh,' and to confine your feeble witticisms to the incidents of your own vicious career! Listen to me, for my lips breathe wisdom, and words of understanding are in my mouth! What I have is an idea. Hush, he exclaimed, lifting his hand with warning solemnity, don't give way to the jealous pangs of useless envy! My idea is this. Let us go down to my little place in Pembrokeshire, and make ourselves the guests of the parson of the parish. He's got a decent little crib in the village adjoining my property, and has several times urged me. to visit him. It seems he was an old lover of my dear mater's, and consequently feels some amount of interest in 'the amiable and gentle youth' who survives her. By the way, there used to be a very pretty little daughter at the parsonage. She and I were great pals in our pinafore and knickerbocker days. Shared each other's joys and sorrows; combined our individual revenues for the purchase of candy in the village shop, and sealed such practical affection with our sticky little lips. By Jove! she must be seventeen now, and the handsomest creature in the whole country side, I'll warrant you! Well, old solemnvisage," he cried, slapping me on the shoulder, "is it a bargain? Shall we go? Say the word, and I'll concoct a dutiful epistle to his holiness at once!"

Of course I consented, for there was no supernatural voice near me to warn me of the life-long misery into which I was calmly walking. The letter, a model of respectful propriety, though the joint production of two such hair-brained young scamps, was duly written and posted that evening. Three days after came the reply, couched in terms of the warmest cordiality, assuring us of a genuine Christmas welcome, and urging us to lose no time in setting off to our distant destination.

CHAPTER II.

On the 16th December we started on our long railway journey, well supplied with newspapers, Christmas annuals, cigars, and tobacco. At length we found ourselves at Pembroke

railway station, thoroughly tired out, and feeling very much as though we had overshot the "uttermost parts of the earth." Nor did our drive in the vicar's homely phaton, through the one dull street of the ancient town, tend to remove this first impression.

In due time we reached the parsonage-house, and a pleasant. spot it looked under the pale rays of the early moon. Standing back some distance from the high-road, it nestled in a bower of shrubs, overtopped by some fine chestnuts of venerable aspect. In the summer-time it must have been a charming retreat. The house itself, of modest, yet comfortable, dimensions, was situated on rising ground, and was amply protected from the north and east winds. In front was a small lawn, edged with flower-beds, and locked in from the road by a well-planted shrubbery. Away in the distance, beyond a pastoral valley, hacked by breezy downs, danced and sparkled the restless, beautiful, treacherous sea. The little church, a simple building of unpretending Norman architecture, lay about quarter of a mile to the right of the house, and nearer the Roman road which ran through the valley.

Our reception at the vicarage was certainly more than sufficient atonement for the long and wearisome journey we'd had right across the kingdom; and as for the vicar's daughter! Well, all I can say is, that the sight of Mary Cheriton's face, as I saw it first, would have repaid me for a three months' campaign in the Great Desert! How shall I describe her, as she stood at her father's side in the dimly-lighted hall, and bade us welcome? Small rather in stature, but beautifully formed, with delicately-cut features, and a figure softly, but fully, rounded to the perfection of womanly grace, rich auburn hair coiled round a small head, proudly set on shoulders and bust of ravishing beauty; eyes-large, wondering, timid as a fawn's, and of exquisite blue; a rosy, pouting mouth, with teeth of dazzling whiteness, sweet floodgates of the rippling laughter that seemed for ever rising from her joyous, sunny heart. Now that I've written this description of her, I find that it doesn't convey any idea of her delicate, perfect beauty. But as no words could do justice to that, my readers must rest satisfied with my feeble efforts, and try to imagine what I am utterly unable to describe.

I verily believe I should have fallen desperately in love with her, there and then, had I not seen in an instant how the land lay. Her welcome for me was almost sisterly in its warmth and cordiality, and she met my look of unmistakable admiration calmly and unflinchingly. But before Dick's impassioned gaze her eyes fell, and the tell-tale colour mantled in her lovely cheeks and spread like an autumn sunset over the glory of her face. To use a sporting phrase, I wasn't "in the running

D

anywhere. My number was scratched at the post. What else could I expect? I prided myself upon being a cynical woman-hater, and thought it a manly thing to sneer at the softer sex, fool that I was! Oakley, on the other hand, had been a general admirer and an accomplished flirt. Ah! be was caught at last; and the most violent symptoms of that oldfashioned malady developed themselves with amazing rapidity.

What a happy, merry party we were at the vicar's dinnertable that evening! How we laughed and chatted, and made arrangements for no end of fun and adventure. I felt as though I had come amongst old friends whom I had known from childhood. Yet I had never been in Pembrokeshire before. What simple, homely, kindly folk they were, to be sure! How proud the white-haired, studious old pastor was of his beautiful, motherless child! Nor could anything be more touching than her reverent love for him whose watchful affection had combined a mother's tenderness with a father's care. The only drawback to dear old Dick's enjoyment was the presence of a simpering curate from an adjoining parish for whom we both-Dick and I-at once conceived the strongest contempt. He, the curate, was burdened with the euphonious name of Shadrach Morse; was possessed of an effeminate face, watery green eyes, partially obscured by tinted spectacles, a bald head, fringed with what looked like the ragged remains of a demoralised door-mat. His voice was eminently suggestive of the distant plaint of an imprisoned kitten. His intellectual powers were evidently on a par with his physical endowments, and concentrated their feeble rays on the spasmodical production of religious tracts, in whose compilation stone" preponderated. On this supremely abstruse topic he was great; on all others, small-very small.

"brim

Absurd as it may appear, this subaltern in the "Church militant" had the audacity to lift his eyes to Mary Cheriton, in the fond hope of winning her hand and heart. It is needless to add that Mary treated his imbecile advances with ineffable scorn. However, Dick was none the less annoyed at the smirking smile with which the poor creature contemplated the vicar's fair daughter all dinner time.

Dinner over, we didn't linger long over the wine, but rejoined Miss Cheriton in the drawing-room, where music and pleasant chat made the time fly all too quickly. Mary had a lovely contralto voice, which had been cultivated with considerable care. But what gave the charm to her singing was the exquisite feeling that pervaded every inflection of her wonderful voice. Ballads she shone in, as you may well imagine; and the amount of pathos she threw into her words and music was thrilling. Ah how little of that ravishing melody I was destined to hear from those lips!

66

When I retired to my room that night the moon was shining in at my window. I was in no mood for sleep, in spite of the many hours I had been travelling. So I flung open the ivy-sheltered casement and leaned out in silent, dreamy meditation. The air was as balmy as spring, for that eventful Christmas was what the country folks call a green Christmas." From my window I could hear the ceaseless murmur of the tide as it rolled in from the broad Atlantic, and right away in the far distance I could catch the glistening sheen of its silvery belt. As I looked upon it, a strange feeling of inexpressible sadness stole over me; a weird foreboding of I knew not what. It seemed as though the distant roar of the tidal wave was striving to speak to me in audible tones of a coming calamity. Dark shadows seemed to pass athwart the moonbeams, and an utterly indefinable chill crept into my heart, driving out the laughter and music that had dwelt there all the evening. Who can fathom that mysterious shadow of unconscious, unlooked-for disaster that throws its cold length on the sunniest reaches of our life journey? As the mariner is made aware at midnight of the vicinity of an iceberg by the sudden fall of temperature, so sometimes our watching hearts are chilled by the grim shadow of impending evil; yet we know not how or why. O! that I could have pierced the infinite obscurity that winter night. Vain, foolish wish! The inscrutable hand of Fate covered my eyes with the darkness of the shadow of death!

Oppressed and miserable, I closed my window and went to rest with that wailing voice of the treacherous sea ringing in my ears. In the morning I awoke from troubled dreams and started from my couch to find that it was past nine o'clock. Hurrying over my toilet, I went down, to find the vicar, Miss Cheriton and Dick awaiting me, and anxious for their breakfast. The morning was spent in rambling about the coast and admiring the grand, diversified scenery. And thus the days sped on. We went down into the sunken forest, and listened to the weird, wild music of Bosheston Mere. The quaint old chapel of St. Govan, perched in its rocky cleft, was duly inspected. Of course we turned ourselves round and "wished" in the crevice where the hunted saint once lay hidden; and equally of course we rung the bell-stone and drank the miraculous water of the holy well. We tried, as all pedestrians do, to count the uneven steps in the cliff, and, as may be expected, signally and ignominiously failed.

CHAPTER III.

At length Christmas Eve arrived, bringing with it all the hallowed associations of the vanished past, but no faintest, shadowiest presentiment of the awful, agonising future.

Dick and Miss Cheriton seemed in unusual spirits all the morning, laughing and teasing each other more than they had ever done before. After lunch they started, in tow of the Rev. Shadrach, for the church, in order to put the finishing touches to the Christmas decorations.

I elected to stay at home, much to the well-assumed chagrin of Mary and her cavalier. But I could see plainly enough that, as far as they were concerned, my presence would be de trop, and I really couldn't stand the curate.

On the way home in the moonlight the lovers gave their intrusive companion the slip. Dick and Mary wandered along through the fir plantation in that delightful silence more eloquent than words, both throbbing hearts full of a love as pure and passionate, as deep and true as ever possessed the fickle sons and daughters of Eve! At last Oakley spoke, and in his own manly, fervent way wooed and won the darling at his side. Yet, even as they sealed their plighted troth in the stillness of the deepening twilight, two angels hovered round them— Destiny and Love! And ever as the one entwined them with his amaranthine wreath, the other with relentless hand smote the fragrant bonds asunder! But the lovers knew it not.

When they came in they went straight to the vicar's study and prayed the old man for his blessing. Readily he gave it, and with it holy counsel for guidance in the after years. How should he know that they nevermore would need it?

I didn't see anything of Mary until dinner was announced, but Dick, dear sly old Dick! came tearing into my room, as I was leisurely donning my evening dress. If ever I saw a man look supremely, ridiculously happy it was Oakley on that Christmas Eve. I knew the meaning of it at once, and hastened to congratulate him on his good fortune in having secured the best as well as the handsomest girl in all Pembrokeshire.

"Austin, old man," he answered with real gravity in every tone, "that's just where it is. She is too good, far too good, for such a thoughtless, racketty fellow as I am! I'm going to sober down now though, and live only to make my little pet happy."

For half-an-hour he rattled on, confiding to me his future. plans, interspersed with extravagant praises of his "little rosebud," as he called her. I stood it as long as I could, but to a third party such ecstasies become rather monotonous. I determined, therefore, to bring him back to things terrestrial, and turning round to him observed in a calm voice, "Look you here, Master Richard, the fair one is still Miss Cheriton. She may never become Mrs. Oakley after all! What should you say if you lost her ?"

The words had scarcely passed my lips before I would have given all I possessed to recall them. His face, as he came