though it is very warm now; but the brown and yellow woods, and the song of the robin, and the cry of the rooks overhead, tell that summer has gone-gone to come again, if we wait-hoping. Shining, too, on Gabriel, as he walks slowly over the purple moor, on his way to Melton.

Summer is coming-even to Gertrude, though now there is no hope in those sad eyes that look so wistfully to the blue hills. Sad eyes, which see nothing; dull ears, which hear nothing; not even the ring which echoes through the silent house so it is no wonder she starts and turns pale, when Mr. Fairfield is announced; but she bids him welcome-unfalteringly too-after his long absence.

He stands in the bay window, where she sits, paling and flushing alternately,

not taking the chair she offers.

"I am

afraid almost, to tell you why I have returned to-day. Will you forgive me if I vex you?"

Once again the same low tone, the same entreating look.

"It is, then, once more to offer you, to pray you to accept, the love-Oh, tenfold the love! you once refused. You wonder, I know you must-but some one whispered a hope, and I could not but seize it, I could not but try my fate once more. William said I might-he gave me leave. Will you try to like me? May I try to make you like me?"

A silence a silence so long, that his heart sinks within him, and he moves away. "I see it-I see what you wish to spare me. I have been deceived-do forgive me, Miss Melton do forgive me,

and I will never vex you more." He is at the door-one more look, and he will go-but no, she rises, their eyes meet, she would speak, but there is no need― he sees, knows now, how blest he is.

So long they stay in the quiet room, that the sunshine creeps round, and throws a golden glory on the two, who are to be as one in all their life's journey; on the hands so firmly clasped; on the lips trembling with the new happiness; and the troubled hearts are at rest at last, beating for each other, now and for

ever.

"William! and you encourage that infatuated child! You, her own brother! How blind I was to that man's designs! And I must welcome him, and call him nephew! Things are changed indeed!"

Such was the finale of rather a lengthy harangue, addressed by Miss Wentworth to William, when he performed the very unpleasant task he had undertaken, of informing her of Gertrude's engagement. It was a real and most unexpected blow to her; she was fond of Gertrude, and proud of her prettiness and aristocratic air; and she had built many a castle in the air of a "good marriage" for this daughter of the Meltons, and now, she had "thrown herself away upon a mere nobody-worse than nobody."

She tried to speak coldly when Gertrude came to her in her room, in the blush of her happiness, which yet was mixed with pain; but the thought flashed on her that the child" had no mother -no sister, and so she followed the impulse of her kind and womanly heart, for

got her pride, and wished her happiness, with tears of affection in her eyes. And Gabriel, too; she had always liked him;

tolerated him," she said, but it was a real esteem and regard; and though in her first mortified surprise, she had accused him of "a design," she forgot it all, when he came up to her, and so gently, so deferentially claimed her approval and good wishes. He was "wonderful," she said to herself, but yet she heartily wished him again a chaplain at Nice.

Mr. Graham, whose consent Gabriel of course asked, at first objected; he thought Gertrude too young to know her own mind, and advised a delay of a year at least before any engagement was entered into. Gabriel was in despair; William was piqued that Mr. Graham should object to what he approved; and Gertrude, when