T undoubtedly seemed to Lettice Tippington, as she tripped gaily home, as if her wildest and most improbable dreams were all going to be realized. It is true that she had married a shop, and she still heartily wished that her husband was in a more genteel profession; but as for herself, notwithstanding this unhappy appendage, she found herself in very superior society to any she had ever enjoyed under her father's roof, or when on visits to her aunt; or than it had entered into her head on her palmiest days, or when dreaming her most sanguine dreams for the future, that she ever could enjoy.

Such families as the Hopes of the Castle, the real gentry, had ever been to her and hers unapproachable, and regarded by them with attention and

admiration at a most respectful distance. And now she had been singled out by such, invited to spend a morning with them in the most blissful intimacy, had been asked to perform a service that must draw that intimacy still closer, and had been kissed at parting! She could hardly believe in her own superlatively good fortune, and trod on air all the way home.

'Oh, blessed shop!' she said to herself; 'but for you, maybe this would none of it have happened. But however am I to manage to be left in you again, and so soon, too,-this very afternoon?'

Frank was in good humour (Lettice had begun to watch her husband's humours now), chatty and pleasant at dinner, and Lettice was all smiles and graciousness. She narrated her morning's adventures with extreme pleasure, only omitting any reference to the fisherman or the letter, while her hand continually stole into her pocket to finger the precious missive and make sure of its safety.

As dinner drew towards an end, and five o'clock came alarmingly near, she cleared her throat two or three times with a sort of a feeling that clear and easy speech might bring courage along with it; and at last, though it did not seem to her that the courage had come, she said rather feebly:

'It's not half bad fun being in the shop, Frank; but for that, maybe I'd never have known Miss Hope.'

'I'm glad you're coming to see that it's not such a disgrace after all.'

'I'm thinking, Frank dear, I'll run in there now, instead of up-stairs. Pat's out on errands.'

'And will I run up-stairs and read poetry or embroider slippers?' asked he, laughing.

'And why shouldn't you? Please yourself, only it's into the shop I'm really going. There are the books, and I'm wanting to look over them.'

'And it's the books I thought you had looked over fifty times before now, Lettice. However, I'm sure I will have no objections, and if you can really stay there, maybe I will go out for half an hour. There are two or three things I'm wanting to do.'

Lettice felt more relief and pleasure at this than it was at all safe to show.

'Do, if you like,' she replied, keeping down her smiles as well as she could, 'for it's useful I'm going to make myself.'

'Long may the whim last,' said Frank laughingly, but he kissed her at the same time, and her conscience gave her a little prick when she saw that 'he looked pleased.

So the unsuspicious husband went out and the wife entered the shop, glancing at the clock, which was just on the stroke of five, as she did so.

She seated herself behind the counter, and taking up a book amused herself by reading. It happened

to be the same volume that she had opened the day before, and on this particular afternoon as she turned over the pages, the following text and set of verses greeted her eyes:-'He that walketh uprightly walketh surely but he that perverteth his ways shall be known' (Prov. x. 9); 'The bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel' (Prov. xx. 17).

'Truth, which is itself complete,

Brings completeness to the soul;

He who traffics in deceit

Never can be sound or whole.
Falsehood, for a moment sweet,

Ends in misery and doubt;
Truth, which is itself complete,

Nothing is complete without.'

Lettice felt uncomfortable as she read these lines, but she satisfied herself by throwing the volume down and saying, 'That's great stuff.' Then she took it up again and turned over the pages.

'It's a queer sort of a book, that it is,' she said; 'a text and a few verses for every day in the year. And if they're none of them better or wiser than those I've read, I will not trouble them any more. It's the verses I mean, of course. Texts must be right, because they come out of the Bible. But it's a clergyman himself I've heard say, and in the pulpit too, that it's not fair it is, to take a text by itself and judge it, without considering what comes

before itself and after itself too. And sure that is just what this book is doing, so I'll not mind it at all.' Then she looked at the clock and yawned.

'Oh my, I wonder when he shall come?' and then she felt in her pocket for the hundredth time, and found that the precious document was quite safe.

A girl came into the shop and asked for pens. Lettice supplied her, and took the money, feeling rather affronted at having to attend to any one who was not a lady or a gentleman; and immediately after that her heart gave a sudden great thump, and the colour rushed into her face, for he himself entered, strolling in a listless, idle sort of way, with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth. He took the cigar out when he was inside the shop, and threw it away through the door. Then he looked round him carelessly, and his eyes alighted on Lettice, who was recovering from her agitation with some little difficulty, and endeavouring to appear as unconcerned as he was.

He moved lazily up to the counter.

'Have you any '-here he paused and looked about him in a Dundrearyish sort of manner. 'I wonder what it is? Do you happen to know? Neckties? Mushrooms? Bicycles? Bicycles? No,' shaking his head drearily, 'none of these? What have you got, then?'

'It is a bookseller's and stationer's,' replied she encouragingly.