warm. She had a strong and clannish affection for every member of the family, and in far-off days Ralph had been very dear to her. He had crossed her will by marrying, as she thought, beneath him, and she had never forgiven him. He died in a far distant land; and then, after writing a heart-broken letter, expressing desolation and grief, his widow married again. This was the final blow.

'I must forget I ever had a brother Ralph,' Miss Ponsonby said; and yet she never could forget it.

The two sisters were silent as the carriage wound slowly through lanes, where the early emerald hue of May still lingered in the lap of June. The little river was spanned by an old stone bridge just below the Court gates, and, with a pleasant smile and nod to the old woman who opened them, Miss Ponsonby drove at a leisurely pace up the avenue, where the spreading boughs interlaced overhead in many places, and the birds were just tuning their throats for evensong.

'Are you going to consult Mrs. Ponsonby about that dreadful telegram?' Miss Adelaide asked.

And her sister, flicking a fly from Peter's glossy back, answered evasively, 'Perhaps.'

RANNIE!' exclaimed a girl of fourteen or fifteen, from her vantage ground in one of the bay windows I have described, 'here come the cousins again. They were only here last Saturday. What do they want?' A boy, perhaps a year older than his sister, crossed over from a deep chair in which he was taking his ease, and, looking out from the same section of the window, said, 'Yes, here they are! muslins, and bows, and nonsense. hear?'

Addy in her Grannie, do you

Mrs. Ponsonby, thus addressed, raised her eyes from the sheet of foreign paper on which she was writing, in fair distinct characters, a letter to her absent son, and said, 'Tell Parker to bring some more hot water for the tea, Susie, and call your mother, Jack.'

Jack, who limped from an accident at the close of the football season, departed to find his mother,

and took care not to return. The cousins' were, naturally in his youthful eyes, ' an awful bore.'

'You won't be able to finish your letter, Grannie,' Susie said. 'How tiresome!'

'I have nearly finished; I can add a few words when the cousins are gone. There will be time before the bag is closed.'

Grannie, or Mrs. Ponsonby, now rose to meet her visitors with the kindly grace which was natural to her. Mrs. Ponsonby was one of that increasingly rare type, the real old lady,-one of those who make old age beautiful; who take its advances with quiet dignity, neither professing to ignore the flight of time on the one hand, nor continually proclaiming it on the other, and forcing it upon the notice of their friends and acquaintances. Mrs. Ponsonby had nearly reached her seventieth birthday, but her sympathies were widespread, and her interest in others keen and loving. It was this that made so many seek her out when any difficulty or trouble pressed upon them. She never seemed to advise or lay down the law, but, by a subtle influence of sympathy, she often insensibly guided those who sought her to a wise decision.

'Well,' said Miss Ponsonby, sinking down on a chair with a heavy thud, 'I hope I am not interrupting you. Susie, can't you take Cousin Adelaide to see the new fantails? she wants to buy a pair.'

Miss Ponsonby spoke as if the girl of fifteen and Miss Adelaide were friends and contemporaries,

and Susie gave her shoulder an almost imperceptible shrug.

'Yes, Susie,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, 'take Cousin Adelaide to see the pigeons, and the beautiful ring-doves Uncle Reginald sent home the other day.'

'Oh, thank you, dear Grannie!' said Miss Adelaide, 'I should like to go to the aviary so much;' and, putting her hand into Susie's, she tripped away.

'Have you seen the papers to-day?' Miss Ponsonby began.

'Yes, and I noticed that your poor brother Ralph's widow was dead.'

'That is what I came to tell you,' Miss Ponsonby said. 'The man Bradshaw telegraphed that he was coming to see me to-morrow. What do you think I ought to do? I feel,' said Miss Ponsonby emphatically, 'that he is coming to tell me Helen's child is living.'

'Poor Ralph's child!' said Grannie gently; 'you would feel an interest in her for his sake, Dorothy.'

'I am not sure that I should,' said Miss Ponsonby sharply. 'Ralph was, you know, once a great pet with us all; but when he wilfully threw himself away, and married a poor foolish girl, I for one had very little more to do with him. Certainly we had none of us any interest in Helen when she renounced our name. As Mrs. Bradshaw, she was like an indifferent person to me, and poor Leonard felt the same. Here is the telegram,' Miss Ponsonby continued,

pulling the crumpled piece of pinkish paper out of her pocket, 'I don't know if you can make anything more out of it.'

Grannie was no magician, and the words seemed to convey only the bare fact of Colonel Bradshaw's arrival, and defy the search for any hidden meaning.

'I think,' Grannie said quietly, 'you must receive Colonel Bradshaw kindly, and make the best of anything he has to tell you.'

'If there is a child in the case, what then? Am I to give up the comfort and ease of my life with poor Adelaide, in my old age, for the sake of a child?'

‘Dear Dorothy, you are jumping at conclusions. You do not even know that Helen left a child.'

'There was one,' said Miss Ponsonby, 'for I remember the ridiculous name poor Ralph called her-Elfrida. There was one, and I expect there is one, or this man would never have found us out. I thought I must tell you, for, you see, Addy is so like a child,—a very pleasant companion, but a good bit younger than I am, though, poor dear, not so young as she fancies she is. Still I cannot talk over matters with her as I do with you. Now, here they come, let us say no more.'

If

'If I can help you in any way,' Mrs. Ponsonby said, 'you must send Reuben over to-morrow. there is any point on which you wish for an opinion, let me know. Perhaps, Dorothy, if there is a child in the case, she may prove a great comfort to you in