'I do wonder that Mrs. Donolly is not here,' she said with a good deal of emphasis.

'Mrs. Donolly?' replied Diana simply; 'who is she?' and it sent quite a shock through Lettice to find that Mrs. Donolly's very existence was unknown to Miss Diana Hope-Mrs. Donolly, who in various ways, and for various reasons was, in her world, quite an important person, and who until yesterday she had been rather proud of reckoning among her friends.

'You don't know?' she answered quite timidly.

'No,' said Diana; 'I don't know the name. There's Donolly the wine merchant, from whom papa gets his common sherry, but that's the only Donolly I ever heard of in Clanmena. Is it his wife or mother you mean? or has he a wife or a mother?'

Lettice was silent, but she had learned, through Miss Hope's ignorance of the very existence of Mrs. Donolly, a lesson in the insignificance to one person of that which is of extreme importance in the eyes of another. While pondering on this, to her youthful inexperience, rather unknown fact, something made her raise her eyes and look at the window opposite to her; and there, in the soft but deepening twilight of the summer evening, she saw a sight that filled her with surprise.

T was the fisherman's handsome face, set in the frame of the window, and with bright eyes fixed on her, that almost drew an exclamation of astonishment from Lettice's lips. She could not help giving a little start, and the man she started at immediately perceived that he had been recognised, and held up a square of something white for one passing rapid second, so that she saw it distinctly, and then, with it still in his hand, disappeared as noiselessly and suddenly as he had appeared.

Lettice was at first thoroughly puzzled, and could not imagine what he meant, and why he had shown himself to her in so strange a manner. Then it occurred to her that the square of white was a letter, an answer to the one she had given

him that afternoon, and that he meant her to understand that he would find some method of conveying it to her on her way home.

She longed to let Diana Hope know what she had seen, but did not dare to do so with so many people about them.

'How do you go home, Miss Hope?' she asked rather abruptly.

'Papa fetches us, more's the pity. He is coming in to hear the glees, and we all walk home together,' and Miss Diana made an undutiful face as she spoke.

Then she and Lettice, both of them, had to give up their attention to the glees, during the performance of which Mr. Hope-a tall, stern-looking man-joined his daughters, who from that moment took no more notice of Lettice than of the other performers.

At last the meeting broke up, and while the members were sorting and collecting music, Miss Diana Hope contrived to catch hold of Lettice's hand under the table, and to give it a warm and significant pressure. This pleased Lettice, for she had been vexed at the change in her friend's manner; but she would have been still more pleased at an open recognition and adieu that all the room, and especially Mrs. Donolly, might have seen, for that would have flattered her vanity (and I am sorry

to be obliged to confess that vanity was a very prominent feature in my heroine's character).

She left the room in a flutter of expectation as to what the walk home might bring about. There could, she thought, be little doubt that the fisherman would join her, and give her the letter. Fresh from all the sweet enjoyment of her own love affair, Lettice was able to throw herself into intense sympathy with that of another. Love was to her the one thing that coloured or even formed life. It was the atmosphere she breathed-she, who had so recently been offered, and had accepted it, and whose whole life had been, through it, changed. To help any one in love was to her at once a sweet pleasure and a bounden duty; and true love, the course of which did not run smooth, was deeply interesting, and if her hand could help to smooth it, that would be almost too delightful. Added to all this, the principal performers in this love affair were gentlefolks, and she was elected the confederate of the lady. Happy she!

It was a great annoyance to her that Mr. and Mrs. Donolly joined her as she left the schoolhouse, and evidently considered it as a matter of course that they should walk home with her. Had they not done so, there would have been no difficulty in receiving the letter, and she might even have had the escort of a real gentleman, as the fisherman, she

had no doubt, was lurking somewhere near, and only waiting for an opportunity to join her.

She looked disdainfully at Mr. Donolly, considering how very unlike a real gentleman he was. What badly cut clothes! what a vulgar way of walking! and he-alas! and alas!-he was Frank's best friend, and beyond any doubt his superior in the social grade. Donolly, whose name Miss Hope had never heard, except as the man from whom her papa bought his common sherry, and of the existence of whose wife she was ignorant-alas! and alas! But, notwithstanding this, her heart, loyal through all its vanity and folly to the husband she loved, assured her that Frank, whatever his position and whoever his friends, was a perfect gentleman himself, in appearance, manners, and mind.

'Frank can't get out to-night, I suppose?' she found that his obnoxious friend was asking her; and she assumed all the grandeur and affectation of manner in her power before she replied:

'He is engaged on business for Mr. Hope, I believe. He is Mr. Hope's right hand, I think.'

Mr. and Mrs. Donolly, who knew Frank's affairs at least as well as she did, and that all he did for Mr. Hope was to occasionally sell him books and notepaper, were extremely amused; and Mr. Donolly could not keep from replying in what Lettice called 'his brutal manner':