fun and gravity. "See what it is to be a person of importance, Miss Elliott: Was it not the great Julius Cæsar who said, 'It is better to be first in a village than second in Rome?' I suppose you don't know the happiness of having all your actions canvassed. How do you do, Lady Marsden? Miss Patty, this is your first visit to Birstwith, I believe. Mrs. Trevor, your humble servant. My dear mother, for fear you die of curiosity, which occurrence will assuredly damp the fête, I will explain that, having torn the silk lining of my coatsleeve, and seeing Miss Elliott in the porch, I made my way to her, having a curious sort of fancy that women and needles and thread are synonymous terms: hence the result."

"Oh, Mr. Chichester, you are always so droll," laughed Miss Patty.

Dym timidly made her way to Mrs. Chichester, and was rewarded for her effort by being welcomed with a benign smile and kindly introduced to the vicar and his wife.

"This is my new companion, Kate. Latimer, this is Miss Elliott-the young lady I spoke to you about."

They both bowed, but Mrs. Fortescue looked at her curiously.

"Rather a young companion, is she not, Aunt Constance?" with a smile meant to be winning, but Dym thought there was something peculiar in her tone. Dym had plenty of graphic power; she reproduced the whole of the group afterwards for Will's benefit, adding droll little touches of her own. Will, as he read her description, felt as though he could see it all exactly. The gray vicarage, covered with climbing roses; the church, and the long green meadow, touched with sunlight and dotted with white tents; the vicar, standing tall and slim, with long fair beard, and just a touch of Puseyism in the cut of his coat, "looking very clerical, very proper, and just as a Latimer Fortescue ought to look," put in Dym, with one of her sly hits. "One could imagine him doing everything but play cricket with his boys-two such bonnie sturdy little rogues in gray Highland costume. I don't think Mrs. Fortescue-that is, Cousin Katherine-a bit pretty," wrote Dym; "but she has dark eyes, and an oval face, and looks very elegant. She wore quite a serpentine train of white muslin. I watched her all the afternoon, and I cannot think how she managed all those limp-looking folds. With her long neck

F*

and slow movements, and all that whiteness, she looked just like a swan. She does it beautifully, but I think she must have been studying it for years," went on naughty Dym. "And every now and then she wakes up from her languor, and is as brisk as possible. I know now what Mr. Chichester meant by her management."

And then she went on to describe the London cousins. Lady Marsden, a pretty clever widow, looking almost as young as her own daughter; and Miss Patty, with her voluble chatter and incessant questions; and a young cub of an undergraduate brother, "against whom no one must breathe a word," because he is Sir George Marsden, of Marsden Court; and Mrs. Trevor, a fine young woman, but so over-dressed that Dym at once said she must be a farmer's daughter, which was the truth; and her husband, a stout placid young man, looking very much the farmer too, and as unlike as possible to the lawyer he really

was.

After that they formed into procession, the squire heading the van with Lady Marsden.

Dym followed slowly in their wake. They went first into the large central tent, which was devoted chiefly to the produce of the hot-houses and conservatories of the Great House and vicarage: here the fruit and flowers were really very beautiful. The other tent was less imposing, but far more interesting, as it contained merely the product of cottage gardens and windows-small plates of homely vegetables, glass cases of honeycomb, piled-up heaps of fruit, and big nosegays, or “bowpots," as the villagers called them, this word defining excellently the gaudy pyramids of color, banked up with green, that were disposed with more liberality than taste on the wellscoured wooden tables.

"This is not Honor's handiwork," Dym heard Mrs. Chichester say; and the squire, who seemed to hear everything, answered

"Honor had enough to do with the large tent and the refreshment booth. I made her leave this to the boys and Grace Dunster. As usual, we had a dispute over it. She has vowed she will tell every one on the ground that it is my fault." "You deserve to be punished for your interference, Guy," was the quiet answer. "You know the Nethecotes manage all these things. You had no business to be on the field at all."

"When Greek meets Greek, great is the tug of war. Fancy the ruling powers falling out between themselves. I think little Grace Dunster thought we were in earnest. Mother, there are the Fotheringays. Your court is getting too large; we had better adjourn to the other tent."

"Who is this Honor Nethecote every one seems talking about?" whispered Miss Patty to Miss Trevor.

"She is Mr. Nethecote's sister. That is he in the tweed coat and straw hat, just speaking to the squire." Here some one trod on Dym's dress, and she lost the rest of the answer; but as she followed on more slowly, she found herself echoing Miss Patty's words,

"Who is Honor Nethecote?"

CHAPTER X.

NIDDERDALE COTTAGE.

"WHO is Honor Nethecote?"

Dym's curiosity began to feel aggravated by the constant recurrence of this name. Who could this mysterious individual be, who seemed to be the presiding spirit of the day, so that nothing could be done without her supervision? Was she young or old? If she were Humphrey's sister, was she plain and freckled as he was? Dym wondered. There is nothing like a mystery to excite interest. An unconscious fascination impelled Dym to every spot where Honor Nethecote's name was mentioned: it seemed to be on the lips of every one, rich or poor.

"Honor's taste-how beautiful!" from Mrs. Trevor. "Miss Nethecote-ah, she promised Doll her fuchsia should be put in a good place." The latter sotto voce from a lame, sicklylooking girl, who with one crutch was trying to push her way through a throng of merry-faced lasses. "Ah, where's Phil, I wonder?" with a patient sort of sigh that excited Dym's compassion.

"You are tired: can I help you to find your friends? It

must be very fatiguing to you in this hot tent and with all this crowd," says Dym, in her pleasant voice.

"It is only Doll's fuchsia, thank you. I can see it over those heads."

Ah! there it is!

"You had better see it closer," returned Dym, kindly. She pilots a way for the lame girl, and stations her very carefully where she can get a good view of the precious flower. She has no idea that this is the object of Guy Chichester's chivalry this morning-the lame dressmaker, Grace Dunster. Grace looks up with sparkling eyes. "Isn't it beautiful! I wish Doll could see how well it looks. we couldn't have tended it more. and count the buds be pleased with it. over."

trees.

If it had been a child Phil used to wash its leaves every morning. I think the squire will Phil will carry it up when the show is

"Is it a present for the squire?" asks Dym, with a winning look. She hears all about it presently, when she and Grace are sitting together on a shady seat on a hillock under some The bands tune up as briskly as though they were in the Cheltenham or Montpellier Gardens. Mrs. Chichester and her court have retired to the coolest tent; the villagers are beginning to come in, in knots of twos and threes. Dym sees Phyllis walking with her fellow-servants from the Hall. Mistress Dorothy, in her black silk and Paisley shawl, curtsies primly as she passes the hillock where Dym and her lame companion sit.

"I should like to hear all about it, Grace," says Dym, settling herself comfortably against the tree-trunk; and Grace, nothing loath, complies.

It was a long story, but Dym did not weary of it-possibly because it reminded her of Will's, wherein Mr. Chichester was ever the hero; without doubt he was Grace's hero. The little dressmaker's eyes filled with tears when she spoke of his generosity and goodness.

Grace Dunster lived over Burgess the tailor's; she had two little rooms there, which she called home. But she did not live alone; she had two young sisters, whom she had to maintain with her needle.

Grace did not dwell much on their poverty and strugglesit was not for naught that Grace Dunster had that sweet earnest face; patience and endurance were written in every

feature of it but she spoke of Doll, who had epileptic fits, and would not live to be a woman; and Phil, who turned out to be a girl; "who is very rough, but homely, miss, and scours and cleans up so nicely, and helps me with a white seam when her lessons are done and the other girls are at play.'

And then Grace related, but very briefly, how her foot had been bad from a child, and how it grew worse and worse, "till the bone seemed on fire with pain;" and Grace worked on by day, and cried herself to sleep at night, but softly, so as not to wake Phil; and how her face grew pale and pinchedlike with the constant trouble of it, and folks said she would go into a consumption and die; and then how this came about to the squire's ears, and one day, when Grace was sitting alone sobbing a bit over her work—just for relief's sake— the squire and Miss Nethecote came in together, and were both of them so kind, and the squire asked her if she would be a good brave girl, and do what he told her; and when she said " Yes," but very wanderingly, he told her that Miss

Nethecote had offered to take Phil and Doll home to Nidderdale Cottage and promised her old servant should look after Doll, but that he was going to send Grace down to a grand London hospital, where the cleverest doctors in the world would see her poor foot, and tell her what must be done to it; and when Grace cried, though it was only out of pure gratitude and joy like, "at being so thought of, miss," he promised there and then that he would come up to London and see her.

And he kept his word, and came twice or thrice into the great hospital ward when the amputation was over and Grace was relieved of her life-long burden; nay, more, when the doctor said it would be long before she would be strong and fit. for work again, he sent her to another beautiful hospital built somewhere on the seashore, where for six happy weeks Grace could see the waves rippling over the sand, and drink in health with the sweet sea-breezes..

Nor did his kindness end there; "for if he did not meet me himself at the station and bring me home in his fine open carrriage, which will hold eight comfortable, miss; and there I found Phil and Doll and Miss Nethecote, and the tea-table all dressed up with flowers, just as though it were a school feast. Why, it is making you cry, miss, I declare!"