learning, as represented by the 'Peep of Day.' Bobby is leaning against her knee, while in the corner-why such peculiar ignominy should attach to the corners of a room tradition saith not-stands Tommy, committing to memory these soothing lines

“Now if I fight

And scratch and bite,
In passions fall
And bad names call,
Full well I know
Where I shall go."

Now and again, as the thought of the gloomy regions whither his iniquities are hurrying him comes home to his mind, he blubbers suppressedly. What amplest enlargement on the horrors of hell could equal that portentous hint ?--

"Full well I know

Where I shall go!"

Sylvia to Bobby: "Has God been kind to dogs?"
Bobby to Sylvia, doubtfully: "Ye-es."

His round eyes are fixed on Toby the pug, basking in the fire warmth, and chasing the lively flea through the preserves of his soft fawn hind-quarters, and his mind is wandering from the typical dog of the fable to the actual dog of real life.

you

"Is the dog's body like yours?"

Bobby (thinking it safe to stick to the affirmative): "Yes."

"The dog's body like yours! What are you thinking of, child? Are covered all over with black hair, and have you got a big bushy tail?" Bobby glances down uncertainly at his small person, but seeing no caudal appendage, shakes his head.

"Are the chicken's legs like yours?"

Silence.

Mis. Prodgers is reduced to answering herself from the enlightened page before her: "No, the chicken has very thin dark legs."

Bobby does not appear sufficiently impressed with gratitude for the essential difference between his own fat chubby supporters and those of the benighted chicken. He is still watching Toby, who has abandoned the flea chase, and runs barking towards the door. "Mother, dear, there is a ring at the door bell."

Prospect of emancipation, and consequent elation of tone. "Nonsense, darling; attend to your lesson. Has the pig a Whether the next word was soul or tail, gizzard or imagination, transpires not.

"But there was, really, mother. I hear Morris going to open the

hall door."

Mrs. Prodgers listens. "So there is !"

She jumps up hastily, while the Peep of Day,' with all its mingled treasures of piety and natural history, rolls unregarded on the floor, as she stands before the pier-glass, tweaking the black ribbon bow that ornaments her head, and smoothing away the hair behind her ears. By the time the butler's solid footstep is heard nearing the room she is à quatre épingles. The door opens: "Mr. Scrope." My mouth opens too; my jaw falls. The stocking I am knitting tumbles into my lap. "Charlie!" cries Sylvia, with a little scream, half real, half affected, of surprise, running forward, with her hands clasped.

Mr. Scrope enters, looking rather sheepish and somewhat disheveled. There are black marks under his eyes; his yellow curls are tossed and dim; he looks unslept and night-traveled.

"You did not expect to see me, did you?" he says, with a rather embarrassed laugh. "Thought you had got me clear off-that you were rid of me at last? But you see I have turned up again, like a bad sixpence."

"It is a surprise, of course," answers Sylvia, looking modestly down, and fondling Bobby; "but-but quite a pleasant one.

We were getting to hate each other, as only two sisters tête à tête can; were not we, Jemima ?"

His face falls.

"Two sisters ?"

Nobody explains: I, from malice, Sylvia from pre-occupation.

"The fact is," continues Scrope, seeing that some explanation is looked for from him, "that I-that I thought-in fact, I found that I could get away for a day or two, so I thought I would run down and look you all up."

"Why did not you telegraph? Why not write? I would have sent to meet you?" asks Sylvia, raising her bashful eyes. "What scatterbrained things men are!"

He does not heed her; his eyes are wandering round the room. "Are you looking for Lenore?" I ask, in a matter-of-fact voice. "She is in the library, writing letters. I will tell her you are here." "Do not," he cries, eagerly, almost pushing me back into my chair. "I will not give you the trouble; I will go and find her myself."

"How very extraordinary!" says Sylvia, as the door closes upon him, smiling consciously, and leaning her elbow on the mantlepiece. "What can have brought him back? I have not the least idea; have you, Jemima? Poor, dear old boy, how pale he looked! I was so glad you were in the room. By-the-by, did I get very red? I felt as if I were turning all the colours of the rainbow."

"I do not know; I dare say."

"Be sure you do not leave me alone in the room with him," she continues volubly. "I shall always keep the children with me; there are no better chaperones in the world than children."

CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT THE AUTHOR SAYS.

As the young man opens the library door a rush of cold air meets him; it is a bitter frost, black and pinching, yet one of the wide sash windows is thrown high up, and she whom he seeks is leaning out into the hard dull air. Her elbows rest on the sill; her dark, winter dress hangs in heavy, close folds about her, and her bright blonde head leans languidly against the window frame. The blotting-book is unopened, nor is any pen dipped in the ink. Lenore's correspondence will keep, apparently. Hearing the noise he makes in entering she raises herself quickly, as one ashamed of her listless attitude, and they stand face to face.

"You sent for me," says Scrope-abruptly, without any preliminary hand-shakings, or "How do you do?"—" and I am come."

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She nods familiarly to him, and smiles a little. 'I knew you would." "I was not in London; your letter followed me to the South of Ireland-the instant I got it I set off-I have been travelling night and day ever since. More fool I, you will say probably."

Again she smiles, coldly and sweetly.

"Since you have said it, I need not."

"And now that I am here," he says, brusquely, "what do you want with me? Tell me quickly."

Instead of complying, she turns her head round again, and looks out at the frosty black trees, while her fingers play little tunes on the sill. “Tell me,” he says, coming nearer to her, and breathing quick and hard. "What? You will not speak? I know you-you would keep me on the rack a year, if you could. Why did you write and say, 'Come back.' It was for no good, I'll be sworn, or it would not be you who did it, whatever it was. Speak out, and put me out of my misery."

Then she speaks, but her words, at first sight, seem to have but small connection with his questions:

"Have you been in the drawing-room?" she asks, while the cold wind blows in on her cheek, and puts no additional colour into it. "Have you heard Bobby say his hymn ?-such a pretty one! Yes" (putting her finger on her forehead)" this is it :—

'Now if I fight

And scratch and bite,

In passions fall
And bad names call,
Full well I know
Where I shall go.'

Does not it describe me exactly? I laughed so immoderately that Sylvia said I was irreverent, and I had to leave the room." She throws herself into an arm-chair, and begins to laugh violently.

"What are you talking about?" he says, looking at her in half scared amazement; "are you mad?" She stops laughing.

"Last time we met," she says, gravely, "at the ball, don't you know?-how I hate balls!-I have an idea that I fought and scratched and bit; at least I know I

I called you a great many ugly names, and you did not like it; you were very angry. Well, I have sent for you all this way, just to say that-that-I am sorry."

"What!" cries the young man, breaking into ungovernable fury, "is this the fool's errand you have sent for me on ?-to laugh in my face, and quote an idiotic nursery rhyme to me? By God, Lenore, it is too bad! For the last seven-eight months I have been your butt, a football for you to kick about; but I tell you I am sick of the part. I throw it up! Find some one else to take it, if you can."

He turns toward the door; his broad chest is heaving; his strong. hands are clenched; his deep blue eyes flash and darken with uncontrolled anger-a passion much more becoming to men's hard faces than soft and sawny love.

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Stay!" she cries, rising hastily, and putting her back against the door to prevent his egress; "sit down, and, whatever you say, speak lower, for I have no special desire to be overheard. I had another reason for sending for you; but-but—I am ashamed to tell it you.” "What is it?"

Big, upstanding, and exasperated, he does not look a man to be trifled with; but, after all, a man may not knock a woman down, so she may shoot all her little arrows at him with a smile and a quiet mind, and fear nothing. Her eyes drop to the carpet at her feet, and a colour burns like fire on her cheeks.

"I sent for you to-to-to-ask you to marry me."

At the last words she raises her eyes, and looks him in the face. A deep and utter silence. He has staggered back against the wall, and is staring at her with wide disbelieving eyes of utter astonishment.

"I have no reason for supposing that you wish to marry me," she says collectedly, though her face is scarlet. "You never told me so; it is only an instinct—an instinct that perhaps has led me astray." Still complete silence. "It is not leap-year, is it?" she says, with a forced laugh. "No! Well, then, I have no excuse-none, except that I wished it; and you know, from a child, I have always asked for what I wished; and always-no, not always—not always," (stifling a sigh) "but generally I have got it."

"And-and Le Mesurier ?" says Scrope at last, in a rough and altered voice, trying to stand steadily on his feet, while his knees shake under him, and the room whirls round him.

"What about him?" she cries sharply. "Why do you drag him in? If it was anybody's part to mention him it was mine. You will hear no more of him; he is gone-it is all off, you know that; it was all off before you left-only, I suppose, it gives you pleasure to hear it again."

"And ?" you says the young man, staring into her calm face, while he stammers and stutters; "you-you-do not care; you-you are not cut up about it?"

She turns her face suddenly aside, but only for an instant; in a moment she is looking at him again-looking at him, and smiling. "Cut up!" she says, laughing. "What an expression! It is only men that are cut up! Do I look very down-hearted? Do you see any willow in my hand? No, no! I am not the sort of person that is ever cut up much about anything."

Still he looks at her with a bewildered face, paled and quivering, as one but freshly waked from a heavenly dream, that knows not whether he yet sleeps or wakes; afraid to grasp within his hand the immense and utter bliss that her words seem to set within his reach, lest it should melt away like fairy gold. His emotion does not communicate itself to her; rather, it makes her more composed.

"Well," she says, with a pretty chilly mocking smile, "you have not yet answered me. How cruel to keep me in suspense! Does it require so much time to decide? The matter lies in a nutshell. Do you wish to marry me, or do you not?"

"Do I wish to go to heaven? Did Dives in hell wish for that cup of cold water?" cries the young man, passionately, waking with a leap out of his trance, and flinging his happy arms around her.

She shudders, and pulls herself away.

"Bah!" she says coldly, retreating several paces from him; "do not let us have any flowers of rhetoric; and it is too early days to be affectionate. If Dives had got his cup of cold water he would have taken it quietly, like a gentleman, and not snatched it."

"You were not in earnest, then?" cries the young man, fiercely, with a revulsion of feeling as bitter as his former triumph had been heavenly sweet. "I was a fool to be taken in! It was only an unfeeling, unwomanly joke. Will you be kind enough" (coming close to her and breathing heavily) "to tell me where the wit is-where the point?-for upon my soul I do not see it."

"There is no wit-there is no point," she answers, with perfect gravity and unflinching seriousness. "What wit or point need there be in naked truth? As I stand here" (clasping her hands, and looking full into the fierce beauty of his face,) "I am in earnest. I wish you to marry me. I ask you! It is unmaidenly-immodest of me-I know that, and so do you, but-I ask you!"

"God above!" he says, in a whisper of intense excitement; "is it