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would rather live at the Chase, and go about with you and grandfather, than live anywhere else with ever so many children.' which assurance the father was perfectly satisfied.

When Mrs. Grey arrived Thomasina, in accordance with the intention she had declared, was hidden away among the laurestinus bushes, and from this retreat she surveyed her aunt, pacing the terrace with Sir Richard. The old lady was arrayed in a black silk dress and a shawl of scarlet China crape. She stepped out with an alert, military step, and talked with incisive energy, and Thomasina again decided that she was like the malevolent godmother of a fairy tale. Many enquiries were made for the godchild, whom Sir Richard was eager to exhibit, but Thomasina did not answer to the call. She watched her opportunity, and, when his broad back was turned, she slipped

away from her retreat, and darted down the terrace steps and across the park in search of more congenial society.

Thomasina had been altogether shut out from any recognised companionship with children, except when she was summoned to entertain some stray child who had come with a morning visitor. On such occasions the two little girls would stand side by side and exchange shy, sidelong glances, or, when they were prompted by their elders to go and amuse themselves, they would sedately pace the kitchen-garden walks, or visit the tame rabbits and the strawberry beds, the little visitor never forgetting what was due to her best frock and gloves. And when the carriage had driven off, Thomasina would wrathfully declare that making pot-pourri or preserving dried cherries in the still-room was much more amusing than trying to entertain such stupid children. Yet in her

heart she longed for full and free companionship, and, now that she was growing too old to be merely a plaything, an aching sense of loneliness had crept over her hitherto unclouded life.

Mr. Windsor, the lawyer and agent for the estate, occupied a cottage on the outskirts of the park, and his family was large, and various enough in sex and age to afford Thomasina a choice of friends; but it had been decreed by the higher powers that such an intimacy might be inconvenient in after life, and the children knew little of each other beyond the colour of their Sunday bonnet ribbons, when they could be seen over the backs of their respective pews in church. Any nearer acquaintance must be considered as contraband, and Thomasina would not reveal such advances as had been made even to her most indulgent of grandfathers. Within the last few weeks two of

the Windsor boys had been sent to the grammar school of a neighbouring town, and they used to take the road which lay across the park. After Thomasina had once or twice encountered them, riding double on their forest pony, she began to consider such.

encounter as the pleasantest incident which enlivened her solitary rambles. She timed her walks to suit the hours of their return from school, and returned with a sense of disappointment if she failed to meet them at one of the cross-gates. When the boys began to discover that such frequent meetings could not be purely accidental, they acknowledged the compliment with a nod or a smile; and one day, when Thomasina was emboldened to hold open the gate for them, the elder boy threw her a handful of nuts with a saucy glance from his bright eyes. She coloured with pleasure, and thought that no nuts had ever tasted so sweet, though

these were plucked from the bushes which she had visited herself an hour before. It was, therefore, to her usual post that Thomasina now betook herself, and for the first time more than an unspoken greeting was exchanged with the two boys who rode up to the gates which shut off the deer-park from the more open forest ground. There was something amiss with the fastening, which Thomasina failed to undo, and one of the boys sprang off the pony to help her. It is too stiff for you,' he said, setting aside the little fingers with a certain blunt courtesy ; 'I can manage it.'

Thank you,' said Thomasina in a low, breathless whisper.

'We ought to thank you for letting us through so often. I say, what is your name? Jem says that it is no business of mine, but I like to know.'

Thomasina Bertram,' replied the little