and used to ride on your shoulder, that I am sure you will let me say what I think well, and not even interrupt me till I have said my say. Indeed, now I come to think of it, I don't want any answer at all. I shall discharge my conscience, and there is no need whatever for you to tell me what you think of my unwarrantable

interference.'

Raymond bent his head, more than a little puzzled, and Dagmar looked on for a moment towards Winstead, as if she too were calculating distances and wondering whether she had allowed too long. Apparently she thought not, for she went on: I know that your engagement to Agnes was made and broken before I was old enough to understand such things. But it is possible that I understand them better now. I remember crying when I heard that you and Agnes were not going to be married after all; and it still seems to me to be a great pity, for you. For it appears to me that you care for her still, and that you have not the power to be inconstant even if you had the will. I think you must have cared for Agnes too long to be able now to forget her, and I respect you for it. But I suppose that you might want to be married some day, like other men; and you ought to remember that any other girl, though she might not be jealous of your feeling for Agnes, might very well think that you had nothing worth having left to offer her.'

Perhaps Dagmar's heart was fluttering a little faster than usual as she spoke, but her voice kept the same tone of even emphasis, and she did not even blush. Raymond would have spoken, but she lifted her finger.

'I asked you not to answer me,' she said. 'I have told you what I think, and there is no reason whatever why you should tell me whether I am right or wrong. The matter concerns no one but yourself-me least of all. I shall never allude to it again, whether you can act upon my suggestion or not. And if you forgive me for touching on such a point, you will never mention it again either.'

She quickened her horse's pace as she spoke, and Raymond did the same in silence. He knew that he had had his answer, knew too that Dagmar had guessed his intentions, and was not in the least degree flattered or pleased by them, and that she did not care for him one jot.

And yet in the midst of his natural mortification he felt grateful to her for the way she had treated him,-grateful for having been spared the awkwardness of refusal, and for having got his congé only in the form of a compliment to his constancy and enduring attachment. 'She is a woman, after all,' he thought, and worthy of more than I could ever have given her. I wonder if she will get it!'

They had reached the lodge-gates, and passed through them while these thoughts occupied his mind. He was quite willing to obey Dagmar, and to say no more; but she gave him no opportunity. She fled up the avenue under the brown, over-arching trees without drawing

rein; and Raymond only just contrived to be at her side in time to help her alight.

'Thank you,' he whispered in her ear as he did so; and for the moment he felt really grateful.

But as soon as he was by himself, other feelings began to work. He thought that he was not vexed or annoyed in any way by the failure of his plans, since Day's words had opened his eyes to see that it might be all for the best; but perhaps a certain warmth of anger mingled with and intensified his other emotions, as cayenne pepper heightens the flavour of strawberries.

Was it really true that he loved Agnes still? Perhaps it might be, in the sense in which Dagmar had spoken when she implied that he had no love left to give to any other woman. And in that case she probably loved him still; since every one agrees that women are, on the whole, more constant than men.

Dagmar's words, spoken with such calm conviction, haunted him. Was it possible that he had really no power to love again? not spring enough left in him to turn from the old life to the new, or to win a woman's heart? Worldly and easy-going as he was, he had no wish to venture on to such a quicksand as to marry, without caring for her, a woman who did not care for him.

Was it Agnes, then, or no one? He had no wish at all that it should be no one. Free and luxurious as his bachelor life had been, he was beginning to shrink from its loneliness. His own contemporaries were almost all married or settled down in some way; and he felt himself too old for the young men who had succeeded them-older, in fact, than in point of years he had any right to be. He wanted a place of his own; what a German writer calls the yearning after cottage smoke, the inclination towards sitting-still comfort,' had begun to tug at his heartstrings.

Had it really been a mistake, the breaking off of his engagement long ago? Would it be possible to go back upon it, to retrieve the mistake, to ignore the past, and to begin again?

For a moment he wilfully shut his eyes to all difficulties,-Agnes' poverty, his own, the sacrifices which both must make, and the narrow, restricted life that they must lead. He let his heart go out towards her, and felt with a strange thrill, half pain, half pleasure, how easy it would be to win the old love back.

He had felt old and cold, and inclined to self-analysis while he was striving to fancy that he was in love with Dagmar's fresh, lovely youth. Strange that he should feel almost young again when he thought of Agnes, in whom her partial friends were obliged to allow this one defect, that she looked old!

The painter or the sculptor who for years has been compelled to warp his mind into some uncongenial pursuit, feels an almost boyish intoxication of delight and conscious power when he takes the brush or the chisel into his hand once more. Later on he may find that that

hand has lost its cunning, and that Art, too, is vanity; but the rapture of that first moment was in itself too great to abide, since in it the fairy mistress of his boyish dreams smiled on him once more.

Raymond fancied that he had always loved Agnes; but perhaps he had never loved her so well as now that the thought of her had given him back, for the time, his lost youth.

As for Dagmar, she was not at all dissatisfied with her own course of action. She had disposed of Raymond and his attentions, as she had long since resolved to do, with as small a wound to his self-love as possible. And she had discharged her conscience with regard to Agnes, though she did not much expect him to marry Agnes now, and, indeed, did not wish it.

She was not afraid of intermeddling in other people's affairs, as an older person might have been. She saw what both she and they ought to do, with the quick, undoubting perception of youth, that takes no complications or side issues into consideration.

Perhaps we all, in our young days, think that we would like to help Fate in moulding other people's lives, to put in the word in season, to bring about the meeting that would change a whole future destiny. Indeed, we sometimes take every step towards this end except the last and practical one-plan out momentous conversations, bring about interviews, hover a finger round the spring that would move the whole machine, and do all but touch it. But there our

courage generally fails us. We are doubtful of our own courage, doubtful of meeting with precisely the right amount of response, afraid of making ourselves ridiculous. And so Fate is left to arrange matters without our assistance.

But Dagmar was very inexperienced and very keen-witted, rendered, not self-conceited, but fearless, by the fact of her own beauty and grace, and the admiration and love that had surrounded her ever since she was born. She did not actually believe that she could do no wrong; but at least she thought that it was not likely, when she was acting to the best of her judgment and from the best of motives. Mrs. Tyndal would have thought it almost as wicked to try to bring two people together as to keep them apart, and she would have said, if she had been asked, that Day did not know or think anything about such things. But the young birds do not always wait for the old ones to teach them to fly; and in the meanwhile her daughter was not only disposing of an unwelcome lover for her own part, but calmly arranging, on behalf of her cousin (nearly ten years older than herself), that she should, if possible, have her choice of

two.

The next day Raymond spoke of going back to town, but was pressed by Mrs. Tyndal to stay a little longer. He hardly wished to do so, but he fancied he saw Day's eyes fixed questioningly upon him, and he was determined that she should not think that he cared enough to find it necessary to run away.

He had all but made up his mind to take the desperate step, to bring himself, once for all, to poverty and a very small way of living, and to ask Agnes to share it with him. But he fancied he would rather do it by letter, and let them slide gradually into the feelings of engaged couple once more, and let every one's wonder wear itself out before they met again.

He stayed on a little longer, nevertheless; and, in the meantime, something happened to precipitate his resolution.

Mr. Layton called one afternoon, was alone a good while with Miss Morrison, and left without seeing any one else. Dagmar met him in the avenue, and he passed without seeing her, walking swiftly under the brown autumnal branches, and looking, as it seemed to her, like a man who had lost something. Agnes, too, was far from being herself that evening, and Day's quick wits put that and that together while she and Dick were ostensibly squabbling over a game of chess.

That night, as Agnes Morrison was dreaming over her fire, looking into the red embers with eyes to which they somehow seemed to quiver and spread themselves into a burning haze, a light tap came at the door and a lovely apparition glided in. It was only Day, in her long, blue dressing-gown, with her hair just loosed from its coils, and hanging in brown, glossy waves to her waist. But Agnes half started, smiling through her tears.

You pretty creature!' she exclaimed. Are you never sleepy? You look just ready to begin the day now, with those bright eyes. No wonder they call you "Day's Maiden."

'Never mind me,' said Day, sinking on to the rug at her cousin's feet and laying one arm upon her knees. I hope I shall always be worthy of my name; but "it does not agitate of me" just now, as Dick said in his French translation.'

She was silent, looking into the fire, playing caressingly with Agnes' hand, and laying it against her cheek.

'What does it agitate of, then, child?' asked the other, stroking the smooth, shining head.

She was silent still for a moment, and then, still looking into the fire

Tell me about it, Agnes.'

About what, you enigmatical little lady?'

'You know,' she answered, softly.

It was Agnes' turn to be silent.

A certain thrill ran through

her; a pain that she had carried dumbly in her heart all these years awoke and cried, demanding at least the relief of speech.

You can speak plainly to me, you know,' went on Day in the same impassive fashion, still looking into the fire. I never repeat things, and I never show any indecent astonishment. Moreover, I think I know pretty much of what has happened already. I only want to know what you think of it.'

'What does that matter?' cried Agnes, with a hint of passion quivering in her voice. What has it ever mattered what I thought

of things?'

'It matters a great deal just now,' said Dagmar, quietly. 'Tell me, why did you say "No" to Mr. Layton?'

'Who told you that I had?' answered the other hastily, thrown for the moment off her guard.

6 No one. But I have eyes to see and wits to make a guess; and I could tell you why you did it, only I would rather you would

tell me.'

'You couldn't, Day,' answered Agnes, her grasp unconsciously tightening on the strong supple fingers that were still playing with hers. No girl like you would ever imagine that any one should be so foolish. That I should grieve Mr. Layton and set him aside for the sake of a man who never in his best days was worthy to be compared with him! Oh! what fools we women are. That I should feel myself bound to be true to him after all these years after all the pains he has taken to prove to me how completely he has forgotten!'

'I confess I don't understand it,' said Dagmar, as dispassionately as if she had been discussing a situation in a novel. 'You see that the man, whoever he is, is unworthy of love, and you do not love him, and there is an end. That seems to me to be the natural order of things.' She waved her little hand as she spoke with a gesture as though she were committing some worthless thing to the fire.

You don't know yet, my sweet. I hope you never may,' sighed the other. We do not love him, but there is not an end. There is something left behind that dies hard, and never can be buried or forgotten. And one cannot go to another man with a dead corpse in one's bosom.'

'No, but you might go to the other man, and leave the dead to bury their dead,' answered the girl, not irreverently.

The woman sighed again. Not after all these years,' she said. 'You see, I made him so many promises; and they would rise up against me if I myself had put it out of my power ever to keep them. I let so much of my heart go out to him; and if it could be taken back, how could it be worth giving to another man?'

'You might let the other man be the judge of that,' said Day with a quick, flashing smile.

Nay; the better they are the less they are to be trusted to do themselves justice where we are concerned. It is as much for his sake and more-than for my own that I said "No" to-day.'

'Then you think that you still care too much for Raymond to be able to marry Mr. Layton ?'

'I suppose so. I told you that I was more foolish than you could guess.'

Dagmar rose as if the discussion were over, and turned to go, but paused an instant, leaning over the back of her cousin's chair.