They had to carry him almost up the old-fashioned wooden flight.

Richard Butler dined alone in the great dismal diningroom, and while he was at dinner Mundy told him the lawyer had come. "Mr. Butler desired me to open a bottle of his best claret for you, sir," said Mundy "he wishes to see you again after dinner. Mr. Baxter is with him now."

The lawyer had not left when Dick came into the room. He was tying red tape round long folded slips of paper and parchment. Old Charles was in his old-fashioned four-post bed, with the ancient chintz hangings, upon which wonderful patterns of dragons and phoenixes had been stamped. Dick had often wondered at these awful scrolled figures when he was a child; he used to think they were horrible dreams which had got fixed upon the curtains somehow. Charles was sitting upright in the middle of it all: he had shrunk away and looked very small.

"I'm more comfortable up here," the old man said. "I've been talking to Mr. Baxter about this business of yours, Dick. It's lucky for you, sir, it didn't happen a year ago-isn't it, Baxter ?"

"Your uncle shows great trust in you, Mr. Butler," the attorney said. "There are not many like him who . . .

"You see, Dick, one thing now is very much the same as another to me," interrupted the master of Lambswold. "It seems a risk to run, but that is your look-out, as you say, and I should have known nothing about it if you had not told me. If in another year's time you have not changed your mind . . . Mr. Baxter has provided, as you will find. I have experienced a great many blessings in my life," he said, in an altered tone,-" a very great many. I don't think I have been as thankful as I might have been for them, and-

and- I should like you, too, to have some one you care for by your bedside when Lambswold changes masters again," Charles Butler said, holding out his kind old hand once more. "I was very fond of your mother, Dick."

Dick's answer was very incoherent, but his uncle understood him. Only the old man felt a doubt as to the young man's stability of purpose, and once more spoke of the twelve months which he desired should elapse before the marriage was publicly announced; he asked him to say nothing for the present. He owned with a faint smile that he did not want discussion.

Of course Dick promised; and then he wrote to Reine, and told her of the condition and of the kind old uncle's consent.

Twelve months seemed but a very little while to Dick, faithful and busy, with a prosperous lifetime opening before him. As days went on his uncle rallied a little; but he knew that this improvement could not continue, and of course he was not able to get away. He often wrote to Reine, and in a few simple words he would tell her of his gratitude to his uncle, and of his happiness in the thought of sharing his future, whatever it might be, with her. Although Heaven knows," he said, "how sincerely I pray that this succession may be put off for years; for you, my Reine, do not care for these things, and will take me, I think, without a farthing."

66

But a year to Reine was a long weary time of suspense to look forward to. She found the strain very great; the doubts, which returned for all her efforts against them, the terror of what might be in store. She loved Dick as she hated his surroundings, and sometimes she almost feared that her love was not worthy of his, and sometimes the foolish, impatient woman would cry out to herself that it was he who wanted to be set free.

Ir had required all Fontaine's persuasion, backed by the prestige of his municipal authority, to persuade Justine to open the drawing-room shutters, and to allow Catherine to use that long abandoned territory. With many mumbles and grumblings and rumblings of furniture, the innovation had been achieved a few days before Madame Mérard's return; Monsieur Fontaine himself assisting in most of the work, or it never would have been accomplished. He was not the man to do things by halves. Catherine wished for a drawing-room and a piano;-poor Léonie's instrument was standing there, it is true, but cracked and jarred, and with a faded front. Soon a piece of bright new red silk replaced the sickly green, the rosewood complexion was polished to a brilliant brown by the indefatigable master of the house; he would have tuned it if he could, but this was beyond his powers, and the organist was mysteriously brought in by a back-door, while Toto was desired to detain Catherine on the terrace until a preconcerted signal should announce that all was ready for her to be brought in, in triumph. Monsieur le Maire was delighted. He led

her in with both hands, and then stepped back to contemplate the result of his labours. "Now we shall make music," he said. "Come, Catherine! place yourself at the piano. Another day, perhaps I myself . Catherine looked up with her dark grateful eyes, and began to play as she was bid.

Monsieur Fontaine contented himself at first by beating time to his wife's performance, with great spirit and accuracy; but one evening, somewhat to her dismay, he produced a cornet, which he had disinterred from its green-baize sarcophagus and rubbed up during office hours. He had practised upon it in his early youth, and he now amused himself by accompanying the movements of Catherine's gentle little fingers with sudden sounds, somewhat uncertain perhaps, but often very loud. Justine sulkily called it a vacarme," as she banged the kitchen door. Passers-by, driving their cows or plodding home with their fish-baskets, stopped outside astonished, to ask what it could be. The old cider-bibbers at Pélottier's could hear the rich notes when the wind blew in that direction. Poor Madame Fontaine herself burst out laughing, and put her hands up to her ears the first time she heard her husband's music; but Monsieur le Maire instantly stopped short, and looked so pained and disappointed that she begged him to go on and immediately began to play again. Only she took care afterwards to select the calmest and the most pastoral and least impassioned music in her repertory. When she came to passages marked con expressione or with arpeggios, or when she saw ƒ ƒ ƒ's looming appallingly in the distance, she would set her teeth and brace up her courage for the onslaught. By degrees, however, Fontaine's first ardour toned down, or Catherine's nerves grew stronger. Toto thought it great fun, only he wished they would play polkas and waltzes, as he stood leaning against