"Do you think you shall ever be a Fellow, Julian?

I should so like you to be?"

"And if I am, I shall hope very soon to exchange it for a happier fellowship, Eva."

She wouldn't see what he meant, so he said, "Eva, shall I read to you?"

"Yes," she said, "I should like it so much; I used to enjoy so much the poetry we read at Grindelwald." He took down Coleridge's poems from the shelf, and read

“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of love,

And feed his sacred flame."

He went on, watching her colour change with the musical variations of his voice, until he came to the

verse

"I told her how he pined,—and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
In which I sang another's love

Interpreted my own."

He saw her breast heaving with agitation, and throwing away the book, he bent down beside her, and looked up into her deep eyes, and said, "Oh, Eva, what need of concealment you have read it long ago, have you not? I love you, Eva. Do you return my love?" he said, as he gained possession of her hand.

She had won him then-the dream of her latter life? This was the noble Julian kneeling at her side. She trembled for very joy, and whispered-"O, Julian, Julian, do you not see that I loved you from the first

day we met?" She regretted the speech the next moment, as though it had been wanting in maidenly reserve, but it was the first warm natural utterance of her heart; and Julian sprang up in an ecstasy of joy, and as she rose he claimed as his due a lover's kiss.

She blushed crimson, but suffered him to sit down beside her; and they sate, hardly knowing anything but the great fact that they loved each other, till Mr. Kennedy's voice had ceased in the adjoining room, and he came in.

"O, there you are," he said. "Edward is sinking to sleep. How good of you to be so quiet!"

They rose up, and Julian led her to him with her hand in his, and his arm supporting her. “Mr. Kennedy," he said, "I am going to ask you for the most priceless jewel you possess."

"What? is it indeed so? Ah, you wicked Julian, do not rob me of Eva yet. She is too young; and now that Edward seems likely to be ill so long- -ah, me! I am bereaved of my children. Well, well, I suppose it must be so. Come here, darling, to the old father you are going to desert; I dare say Julian won't grudge me one kiss."

He kissed her tenderly, and she clung about his neck as she whispered, "But it will not be yet for a long long time, papa."

"What youth calls long, my Eva; but not long for those who are walking into the shadow down the hill." O happy, happy lovers! how gloriously that night did the stars shine out for you in the deep, unfathom

able galaxies of heaven, and the dew fall, and the moon dawn into a sky yet flushed with the long-unfading purple of the fading day! Yet there was sadness mixed with their happiness as they heard, until they parted, the plaintive murmurs of Kennedy's fitful sleep, and thought of all the sufferings of their brother, and how nearly, how very nearly, he had been hurried from the midst of them by self-inflicted death.

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

REPENTANCE.

"This world will not believe a man repents,
And this wise world of ours is mainly right;
For seldom does a man repent, and use
Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch
Of blood and nature wholly out of him,

And make all clean, and plant himself afresh."
TENNYSON'S Idylls.

BEAUTIFUL Orton-on-the-Sea! who that has been there does not long to return there again and again, and gaze on the green and purple of its broad bay, and its one little islet, and the golden sands that stretch along its winding shore, and its glens clothed with fir trees and musical with the voice of many rills?

It was there that Kennedy had lived from childhood, and it was there that he now returned to spend at home the year of his rustication. They arrived at home on the Monday evening, and from that time forward Kennedy rapidly gained health and strength,

and was able to move about again, though his hand healed but slowly, and it took months to enable him to use it without pain.

On that little islet of the bay was Kennedy's favourite haunt. It was a place where the top of a low cliff was sheltered by a clump of trees which formed a natural bower, from whence he would gaze untired for hours on the rising and falling of the tide. A little orphan cousin whom Mr. Kennedy had adopted, used to row him over to this retirement, and while the boy stayed in their little boat, and fished, or hunted for sea-birds' nests in the undisturbed creaks and inlets, Kennedy, with some volume of the poets in his hand, would rest under the waving branches, and gaze upon the glancing

waves.

And at times, when, like a great glowing globe, the sun sunk, after the fiery heat of some burning summer day, into the crimsoned waters, and filled the earth, and the heavens, and the sea with silent splendours, a deep feeling of solemnity, such as he had never before experienced, would steal over Kennedy's mind. He could not but remember, that, but for God's special grace thwarting the nearly-accomplished purpose of his sin, the eyes which were filled with such indescribable visions of glory, would have been closed in death, and the brow on which the sea-wind was beating in such cool and refreshful perfume would have been crumbling under the clammy sod. Surely it must be for some great thing that his life had been saved: it was his own no longer; it must be devoted to mighty purposes of