induce her to marry her cousin, Charles Kenneth and, as if this were not bad enough, she is equally positive that no one but Mr. Saville shall ever be her husband. I have spent the whole night trying to argue her out of this resolution. You know how gentle and docile she is usually; well, I assure you that now nothing has the least influence. Why, the wedding is actually fixed for to-morrow!" shrieked poor Mrs. Ramsay, as the appalling proximity of the long-looked-for Thursday was "borne in upon her."

"Yes," I answered, in true Job's-comforter fashion "Janet Parke comes to-day, and everything is ready, and we shall have to set to work at once to send messages to put people off."

"But what am I to say, Edy? What excuse am I to make? How can we ever look poor dear Charles, or Mr. Saville, or anybody else in the face again as long as we live? Oh, Helen, Helen! you have never caused me a moment's sorrow until now, but I really believe this will be the death of me;" and Mrs. Ramsay, albeit the most untheatrical of women, wrung her hands and rocked herself to and fro, like any heroine in melodrama.

"I don't understand it all in the least yet," I said. "Has she taken a dislike to Mr. Kenneth, or has she fallen in love with Mr. Saville? It can't be

his fault, surely; for so far as we could see he has never been anything but commonly civil to her. How unlike Helen all this fuss is!"

"Yes, that is just what puzzles me. I thought I knew my own child's heart and nature; and yet I declare I felt as if she were the veriest stranger talking to me last night."

"What is she doing now?" I asked.

"Well, I am thankful to say she has gone to sleep at last. I stayed till I was quite certain of that before I came away; she is perfectly worn out, as you may suppose, and the only way I could calm her in the least, was by solemnly promising that she should not be required to marry Charles to-morrow. Fancy Helen assuring me, and I could not help believing her, that if she were dragged to the church, she would drown herself before evening in the Mere yonder."

"Good gracious! she must be mad to say such things," I answered, much shocked.

"She is not in the least mad, my dear, only quite determined. Oh, how I wish Charles had never brought Mr. Saville near the place! Poor Charles, who will tell him this dreadful news! It will break his heart, I am sure;" and Mrs. Ramsay fell to sobbing and crying piteously.

“I will run down to the Rectory and leave a note, asking Dr. Hall to come here directly after his early breakfast, and we must see if we can bring Helen to reason, dear Mrs. Ramsay. And I can send a messenger to Janet Parke to tell her the wedding is put off. I feel as if it were a dreadful dream! Poor Mr. Kenneth, he is so good and nice, it seems very hard on him. I wonder what Mr. Saville will say to the news. Has Helen any idea that he likes her?"

"Not the faintest; she assures me that something you said quite accidentally, opened her eyes to the true state of the case; she laments most bitterly having brought all this trouble and misery on everybody, but she declares that she dare not marry Charles Kenneth, feeling as she does towards this other man. I asked her," continued Mrs. Ramsay, "whether she had not loved her cousin all this time, when she seemed so perfectly contented and happy; she said yes, she loved him then just as she loves him now, with a calm sisterly affection, springing from the knowledge of his many good qualities, but that if she had never seen Mr. Saville she would not have known what real love meant."

I was so perfectly ignorant myself, that bright June morning, of what real love meant, that I remem

ber feeling somewhat scandalized even at the phrase, and, hastening to return to the region of commonplace, advised Mrs. Ramsay to go to bed, promising to get up and dress and watch Helen until it was time to take some steps towards accomplishing the change of plan.

But Mrs. Ramsay would not hear of my going to Helen, and she assured me that she was not at all tired, and much too wretched to sleep; that she would go back to her daughter's room and lie on the sofa there. Helen had made her faithfully promise not to ask her to see any one, not even me. As for the servants, not one was to be admitted into her room on any pretence. She could not bear to see any person but her mother, and the faithful soul hurried back to her charge, leaving me to carry out our hastily formed plans.

CHAPTER IV.

THERE'S MANY A SLIP, ETC.

IT was impossible to lie still or go to sleep again after Mrs. Ramsay left, so I got up and dressed, and went to the open window.

Nature is generally unsympathetic; and on that day, when a dull or a drizzling morning would have suited and soothed our hearts, lo! she was smiling and chirping and sparkling with all her might. I know well how often this feeling has been expressed in better words, but still the experience is so universal that no record of a great anxiety would be complete without the trite remark; and it really jarred on me so much, that I felt quite as if I were making a new discovery, and no one had ever felt or said the same thing before, when I turned away, sick at heart, from the lovely out-door sights and sounds, with the half-uttered words on my lips