No one ever dreamed of not giving a direct answer to the questions of the eldest Miss Tenterden; so Aunt Sophia faltered, 'Chloe was thinking that Captain Hawke does not take so much notice of her as he used to do.'

'I was saying that he was positively cross, Aunt Bell,' said Chloe pouting, the water standing in her eyes.

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It is as I have said to you, niece; you are no longer a child, and your trifling manners have doubtless vexed him as they have Mr. Ames-as virtuous a young man as Providence could have permitted to be a suitor for your hand.'

Chloe was standing beside a jardinière in the morning-room, arranging a tall carnation against a frame, and its crimson flowers shook violently.

'Ah, Chloe, if your sainted grandmother—'

Here a red flower lay on the carpet breathing its brilliant life away. Regret and childish irritation vented themselves in a perfect tempest of sobs. Her great-aunts were startled, for tears were as rare with Chloe as rain with an Egyptian sky. "Why! my dear!' cried Miss Tenterden anxiously.

'Never mind, you dear old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.' She threw her arms round that angular lady's neck and kissed her, then departed through the window. This comparative meekness was striking.

'She is seized with compunction,' said the elder lady, while the younger looked covertly at the broken carnation dying in the sunlight, and murmured something about the beginnings of womanhood.

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Always unpractical!' said Miss Lydia, joining the others. What, Chloe crying! give her some of my anti-spasmodic pills.'

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'It would do her more good to read "Glowworms of Grace," remarked Miss Belinda; but even as a child she refused to read that blessed little book, Janeway's Token for Children,' saying that the good children in it fell ill and died, so she thought the naughty ones were better off.'

Miss Sophia shook her head; she had her dream-children (not at all like the little Janeway unfortunates), but like John and Alice Elia, the dream-children of Alice W. and Elia. These sang little nursery rhymes, and small hymns, and said tiny prayers, and committed small sins, and had small fits of repentance, like the real children who flourish everywhere. If she had been a less timid woman she would have been a better friend to Chloe, for she was tender-hearted. That young person had rushed through the garden to her favourite haunt, hatless and gloveless for once. She lay in the gnarled old arms of her apple-tree, a limp white

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figure, over whose muslin and lace nurse mourned a few hours later, which Miss Chloe never would behave like a young lady.' Abandoned to a new and incomprehensible desolation, her mind swung round to the cause of it. She sat up and smoothed her hair, smiling to herself, then began to cry again.

'I have not behaved badly to him, at any rate; I never laughed at him; then crossly, I do wish I had my handkerchief.'

Is this yours, my child?' said a kind voice close to her ear, and a fragment of cambric was held towards her. She caught it and hid her face in it.

Now tell me your trouble, little girl,' said John, throwing away his cigar.

She wiped her eyes, then looked full into his, till they fell before hers. I have no heart, and I am sorry for it,' cried she. He felt an unreasonable joy, which he concealed beneath a calm exterior; but she perceived it as one sees a light through the chinks of a closed door. 'Oh, guardy, I did not think that you would turn against me! Oh! what shall I do?'

"Why should I be vexed with you, child? but stay, I do wish to speak to you.'

He drew her from her perch, and kept her hand in his, speaking to her in serious tones.

'My little ward, you are no longer a child, yet you are so childish in some things.'

'Well?' she ejaculated, trying to withdraw her hand.

'I have seen you break a good many dolls not so long ago, but it is a much more serious game that of breaking men's hearts.' 'What do you mean, Uncle John? Mr. Ames is Chloe-proof -he will get over it.'

"It is not only Mr. Ames,' said John, with an inflection of contempt which sounded sweet to the girl; but I mean poor Featherdown. You have done your best to make him miserable for life.'

Serena has told you. I hate Serena !'

'No,' said her guardian, he came to tell me he had good prospects, and to ask me to use my influence with you in his favour." She gave a little soft chuckle ending in a hysterical laugh. It is just like that poor dear Job,' said she, when his house fell down and smashed his sons and daughters, and the Sabeans &c., you know.'

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Can you love him?' said he. Speak to your old friend.' 'How can you!' she said indignantly. I put it to you, how could I ever like any man with a red nose, and cotton gloves, and flat feet, and goloshes?"

She leant against the stem of an apple-tree, and contemplated him; the tali figure, well-set head, and clear features were a great contrast to the curate's.

He had let fall her hand, and was musingly regarding the waves of grass which lapped his feet. Should he speak for himself? would it not be like plucking the little globing apples which swung overhead with some winged petals still clinging to them? Better to wait a little longer that the fruit of womanhood should ripen yet it is so hard to wait.

Some hint of his feeling must surely have reached her perception, for she dried her eyes, and some strange undefinable sensation lurked behind the mischief in them.

'Guardian, are you sure that you care for me as much as ever you did?'

'More, child,' he answered, trying to keep all traces of passion from voice and manner.

Then let us kiss and be friends.'

She held up her cheek as serenely as when she was a little child, yet she was not one of those girl-saints who contain in themselves the germs of a St. Theresa or St. Catherine, for she shrank a little, and blushed as his lips quivered against the fringes of her hair. Perhaps an angel touched her at that moment, one who had been waiting beyond the precincts of infancy to lead her into the quiet groves of matronhood--by name, Shamefastness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE twilight crept up and down from the valleys and over the hills, till the whole landscape lay under its veil; the upper sky stretched dreamily over the horizon, where the pale opal and rose tints were growing wan, and soft stars gleamed out one after the other. The bleating of distant lambs, the cawing of the rooks driving their fledglings into their nest beds, the cooing of the wood-pigeons, ceased gradually, and the whirr of the cricket and the drone of the beetle became distinct, as the dying day passed away from the earth. The perfume of the jessamine and the wallflower came in at the open windows of the morning-room where Chloe sat at the piano playing dreamy melodies, now and then rousing herself with a gay little air that had nevertheless a thread of sadness running through its glittering tissue.

Generally this young person preferred dance music, but there was a soft hush about her to-night; it seemed to John like a pause of expectancy, like the motionless time between dawn and day. He sat in a dark corner within the folding-doors, and watched the

tender look in her eyes, the grave curve of her mobile lips, the figure that swayed a little to the rise and fall of her music.

The other people were in the drawing-room, beyond the open doors. Serena and Mr. Ames, in the background, discussed cottages à la Ruskin, where sweetness and light' were to be exemplified in model gardens and pigsties. The lamplight showed the soft curves of her face and form; the flowing lines of her blue drapery gave her the air of a Madonna.

The old ladies, playing at whist with the rector, looked at them with dismay. How well suited they were to each other!given time enough, the young man's fancies would settle on Serena. Sweet, if shallow; she was his ideal, not brilliant Chloe, with the undeveloped powers of brain and heart.

She was not brilliant, however, on this particular evening: a pensiveness pervaded her-something for which we lack a name; an indescribable essence links soul and body so finely that a look, a touch on one, produces joy or agony in the other. Perhaps a headache made her sad, perhaps some look had jarred on her. 'Sing, Chloe,' pleaded John.

'How sad your songs are to-night, dear,' said Serena, raising her voice. Why not sing something gay, like yourself?'

The other smiled and sang 'The Land o' the Leal.'

Her voice broke a little at the last line.

has come to me,' she said.

Miss Tenterden rose and rang the bell.

I cannot think what

Jenkins, draw the curtains and bring in tea, and more lights. This room is gloomy, Chloe;' but she had slipped away to brood on the strange sweet feeling that had in it a sting of bitterness. How it had been born, how it had possessed her during the last two or three days, she was trying to understand, as she stood in the conservatory.

How she clung to him in her thought-she gave no name. When there is but one, no need of that to distinguish him. How she regretted every childish naughtiness, every look or act that had vexed him-and she had vexed him sometimes, she knew. She could hear his voice talking to Serena, and her heart was sore with jealousy. Ah, well! why should he not prefer her friend? and for the first time in her life she wished she were like her. Still she could not name to herself the feeling that was so swiftly opening the gates of womanhood to her,

Soon she heard the rustle of Serena's dress at the door, and John's step beside it.

'Chloe dear, Miss Tenterden sent me to call you; we are going to play at writing novels; we did it once before, you know,' and she went back to arrange the papers.

John stood beside Chloe. A lamp shaped like a lotus-flower was hanging from a palm-tree near, the tropical fragrance floated round them. What swift sympathetic intuition made him hold out both hands to her? Trembling, she feigned not to see thema little subterfuge to hide her trembling.

'I am so wretched,' she said, in a low tone; I think that story of Undine so true. What an awful thing it must be to have a soul! I was so happy yesterday,' she sobbed.

'What will make you happy? Can I?' he cried, with a great flush over his face, and a great light in his eyes.

'What do you mean-how can you?' answered she, looking at him wistfully, not yet comprehending.

'I want you to be my wife.'

Wifehood, obedience to him, that was what she needed to quell all this unwonted tumult of heart. The child-side of this little child-woman came uppermost. She had read many novels, and had condensed the sentiments contained in them into two, command and obedience.

Good tales, sermons wrapped up in incident like roast quails in vine-leaves (to keep the juice in!), insist upon a species of slavery as true wifeliness; consequently Chloe had hitherto concluded that state to be more evil than good. But now?

'Yes,' she said with a sigh of relief; 'I should like to be your wife, Uncle John, and obey you, but I am not good enough.'

'My life, I do not want obedience from you, but love,' he murmured, half angry with her.

The woman in her grew strong.

'Give me a little time,' she whispered; 'I do not quite understand, but-'

'We are all waiting,' said Serena, at the door.

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Chloe's tale was a parody of Faust."

'Once upon a time there was a princess who had grown elderly, with no one to love her. She was very ugly, but very good, so that could not have happened anywhere but in fairyland where she lived. She had always wanted something-what, she never could find out, though she was very clever and studied a great deal. At last there came a famous witch into that land. To her the Princess Strongmind went to be cured of her longing. There was but one remedy, said the witch: "You must grow young again."