went to Edinburgh, and I made so bold as to keep her back a bit longer till I'd got her things tidy, and made her fit to be seen."

"It is a pity. The less time lost in her education the better."

Something in his tone made Geraldine look towards him. His cheek was flushed and his brow darkened by a frown. She felt instinctively that she would do well not to take open notice of this change of mood. Following the direction of his eye, she saw peeping out from behind the chintz curtains, the curly head of the little girl, whose champion she had been on her last visit to the cottage.

The child dropped a curtsey as she met the young lady's glance, and then smilingly kissed her fat little hand. Geraldine went towards her and bending, enfolded her in her

arms.

"So you have not forgotten me, my wee darling ?" she said.

"I merember you quite well, you lovely little lady," answered Dolly, showering the softest of kisses on her cheeks. "Be you going to be married to my Lord? Please tell my Lord that I don't want to go to Scotch-land, if you are coming to live up at the Castle."

"Geraldine, we must be going!" exclaimed Lord Rotherhame, imperiously, while Mrs. Weedon, glancing at his disturbed face bustled forward.

"Oh, lor' ma'am ! don't ye be touching

her! We keeps her clean, ma'am, but she's not fit to be handled by the likes of you. Dolly, Dolly! mind your manners to the young lady, my dear.'

66

Why is she going off to Scotland ?" asked Geraldine, rising. "I should like to have had the sweet thing often to see me when I come to live here. She looks so soft and comfortable, so far nicer than the pampered noisy little torments that always pesterone in drawing-rooms."

"She is going to a school in Edinburgh, where she will have exceptional advantages in the way of education," said Lord Rotherhame, positively. "For her grandmother's sake I wish to do well by her. But she must not stay here-a child in the house is too much for Granny! Now, dear, won't you come? The dressing-gong has sounded, and you know we shall be keeping your father and mother waiting."

They left the cottage, but in the garden Lord Rotherhame was detained a moment by Sally Tibbetts, who had hobbled to her door to watch for him, and who looked like one of those evil creatures, bats or beetles, which the darkness of night calls forth. Geraldine was passing on to await him in the lane, when suddenly a hand was laid upon her arm, and, turning, she found Mrs. Weedon's sharp chin almost resting on her shoulder.

"Look to yourself, Miss Egerton," she whispered, hoarsely; "and if you dwell in

peace and safety, and have a good home, never leave it for them walls," and she pointed ominously towards the grey, solemn towers just seen through the deep shade of the trees. "Look to yourself, I say; for he'll never make a young life happy, and a curse is on them walls."

And before the young girl had time to answer, or ask her meaning, the old woman had released her arm, hurried back to the cottage, and shut the door behind her.

Geraldine was strangely excited, and emotions of romantic pleasure at the mystery of the warning contended in her mind with vague misgiving. But when Lord Rotherhame came to her side, and, taking her hand, led her gently through the weird gloom of the oak-trees, his touch once more thrilled her with a passionate joy, and she felt that, whether the old woman's words were true or false, a curse shared with him would be better than a blessing with all the world beside. The western glow had faded now from crimson to a vivid orange, and the sable shadow of coming night was descending on the grass. The young moon, sickleshaped, as though in honour of the newlygathered harvest, hung low on the eastern horizon; and the dew was falling thick and heavy. Lord Rotherhame spoke to her, as they went, soft words that flooded her soul with rapture. The hour had its witchery for him also, and his eyes began to sparkle.

That which, at the time when he first contemplated making her his wife, had seemed to him a sacrifice of almost unmixed pain, made only to lighten his burdened conscience of a fresh load-remorse for a cruel wrong done to a young and ardent heart-was now fast becoming a delight. Haunted by the ceaseless consciousness of wrong done to others, it was soothing to feel that to one fellow creature at least he could give happiness, a relief to think that his guilty life would be redeemed by the good deed of one soul made glad. Only at intervals a sudden recollection of the dead would strike a discordant note within, would shade his face with gloom, and make his tender tone turn hard.

"This day has been perfect happiness!" said Geraldine.

"Do not say that, dear child. Solon bade Croesus call no man happy till he was dead. He meant that while life lasted there was no security, and that the gods have a malicious pleasure in discrowning those whom they have raised above the common height."

"We are not pagans, however, nor are we governed by malicious caprice. All things are given us richly to enjoy, and I do not see why we should cloud our present happiness by anticipations of trouble that may never come."

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Ah, we look at life, each of us, from our own point of view, little Geraldine. You

stand on the threshold of the highway, and replete with excitement, novelty, and wonder, the world lies all before you. I have lived my life! Births, marriages, deaths, travellings, stayings at home, the pleasure of being virtuous, the excitement of being wicked, I know them all. And so to save you undue disappointment, I warn you that if your future has no violent shocks in store for you, it will at least carry, almost inevitably, dull disillusion in its wake. Cheer up, however! Before you reach that point you will have plenty of fresh experiences to encounter, both interesting and enjoyable, and will assuredly receive your full meed of love and admiration."

"Do not fear that your croakings will frighten me, Kenelm. I am aware that yours is one of those minds which find an artistic pleasure in melancholy. But no gloomy prognostications can shake my faith that my future holds, at all events, boundless possibilities of bliss."

Her confident smile, her unmoved trust, sent a sharp pang of self-reproach through his soul. He had not the heart to continue the warnings which conscience had urged him to utter on the changefulness of human things. Involuntarily he raised his eyes toward the ivied buttresses towering high among the trees, the spot where his criminating secret lay concealed a snake in the grass of this young girl's smiling Eden-a torpedo,