She announced then her intention of leaving on the following day; and though my mother was courteous and hospitable, aunt's resolve remained unshaken.

"You are very good to wish me to have a little quiet and ease now," she said to my mother. "But till my nerves recover in a measure, I couldn't appreciate either. Some other time, when the boys are older, and Merylle has done her practising, I shall be glad to come to you."

Later on that day a mounted groom brought a note for my mother, which she just glanced at and handed on to my father. It contained an invitation to a dinner-party at the house of one of our leading county families, and my mother wished at first to refuse. My father, however, exchanged a few words with her in a low voice, and she consented then with a sigh.

She looked to me paler and more anxious since her return, and when I heard her settling for an early visit to Uncle George, I conjectured that something was weighing on her mind.

Aunt Rachel came down the next morning in her bonnet. She had fixed to take her departure by the ten o'clock train, and the carriage was ordered round immediately after breakfast.

The boys had not been told of the touching farewell which was in store for them, and Dick eyed her in amaze.

"What has Aunt Rachel her bonnet on for?" he

demanded. "She has nothing to do now.

would stay steady enough."

Her cap

I must say I scarcely wondered at the heroic composure with which she bore the impending separation. The boys were terrible to deal with. Dick's sharpness, George's dulness, were both equally trying. Aunt took a solemn farewell of me.

Good-bye, Ellen," she said.

"You did your best, perhaps. But there was too much left upon me. I doubt if I shall ever recover it!"

As she looked rather stouter and more rubicund than usual in tendering the statement, it carried considerable weight with it. But it was of a very obvious kind—too palpable to be premonitory. I really had grown thin, and might have talked more reasonably of injury to the system. Much as I had always objected to Merylle's circular chubbiness, I quite envied it now. There was a balance about it which must have kept her confident. I felt that I might be afloat any moment like "The Light Princess" if I gave too great an escape to buoyancy.

My father accompanied Aunt Rachel to the train, and when they had left my mother went up to her own room. Having some message to give, I followed her presently, and found her seated before the dressingtable in the act of opening an exquisitely carved casket in ebony. Seeing me, she put it aside hastily, and though my curiosity was roused, I did not venture to ask any question. My mother's confidence was

always given unsought, and it was rather a vain attempt to try to elicit it. Whenever there was anything which it was well for me to know I was taken at once into consultation; but should the matter be one for reserve, my inquisitiveness was checked by a decisiveness which it would have been vain to combat.

"Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;

Smali sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles life."

YOUNG.

THE delights of turmoil and teaching were not over for me yet. The next day my father and mother set out together on a visit to Uncle George, and replaced me in my position of trust. There was neither novelty, excitement, nor expectation connected with it now, and it was duty only which led me to acquiesce in the arrangement.

Fred still went to Mr. Locke in the mornings, and was to continue under his tuition for some time longer, so I was relieved of his presence at an early hour. My mother sent an invitation by him to the curate, asking him to lunch with us the same day at two o'clock. She and my father expected to be home then, and there was no reason to doubt their punctual return, if the demands of nature continued in force.

Unless some astounding revolution had taken place in the mind or ménage of uncle, they would not be likely to get much in the way of refreshment at the Manor-House.

The morning passed over in tolerable quietude, and punctually as the clock struck two Fred came bursting into the house, followed at a more correct pace by Mr. Locke.

I had not seen the latter gentleman since the evening of my parents' return and Lucy's recovery, and I met him with considerable warmth. His kindness then could not easily be forgotten, and I felt that it was possibly to his prompitude and energy that I owed my relief from anxiety at such a critical moment of suspense. I liked Mr. Locke, despite of Aunt Rachel's warning apostrophe; and as I saw nothing either wrong or hazardous in the state of feeling, I was not solicitous to check it.

"You still find me mistress in a measure," I exclaimed now, bringing him into the drawing-room. "The heads of the household are out driving, and have not returned. But we expect them back every minute. You know my father, I think, Mr. Locke; but I don't believe you have met my mother yet?"

"No, I have not had that pleasure," he said, and added that he was very anxious to make her acquaintance, from a letter he had received from her.

"About Fred?" I asked.

"Yes," he acquiesced. "It was one which only a