dreaded a long shrilling of her amazement, which might be more or less sustained during the active week before me.

I was really so ignorant of the art of spending money to a good advantage that I do not know what I should have done without her counsel. She accompanied me to the various shops, selecting, rejecting, and bargaining in a fashion that made the fifty pounds in her hands worth one hundred in mine. She entered into the strong excitement of shopping with hearty and unaffected relish. Perched on a chair with radiant face and wisely-frowning brow, she monopolised the attention of pretty well all the countermen in the shops we entered; for a tedious while she kept the poor fellows trotting up and down ladders, pulling out package after package from top shelves, throwing up dress after dress before her. She would volublyresent the least incivility, and would occasionally order the master to attend upon her, protesting to him with an injured tone that he hadn't a man in the place who knew his business. It

was with a deep sigh of regret that she rose from effecting the last purchase.

6

'I'd gladly keep it goin',' she said to me ast we left the shop, for the next twelvemonth. I do like twittin' them insolent men as stands sarvin' you so dandified as if you was dirt. If it 'ad been a place as was fit for you to spend your money in, there's a shop I'd jes like to have gone to, to keep 'em dodgin' about and waitin' on me for two hours, wi' goods as shouldn't have come to sixpence. The master's the sarciest man i' Huddleston. But after all, takin' revenge on folks o' his kind is poor beer to swallow.'

Our next task was to give the dresses we had bought out to make. From eight in the morning till eight at night a middle-aged woman sat in the parlour sewing incessantly. But her diligence could not keep pace with the fleeting hours; and more assistance had to be procured.

Dr. Monck came regularly every morning; and as we could not converse before the middle

aged woman, our interviews took place in Mrs. Shaw's drawing-room; a stiff little apartment with an ash-coloured drugget, tiny green repcovered chairs, and a spotty-papered wall hung over with small circular portraits of elderly gentlemen with heads supported on high collars and huge lappels, and old ladies consisting largely of noses and caps.

Tender beyond portrayal was his manner towards me, marked by no extravagance of passion, though deeply impassioned. His was such a love as a woman could believe in; purc, healthy, thoughtful, genial; ventilating itself in no heroics, impressing itself upon the heart with no declamatory appeals, and winning confidence without a single vow. His eye was serene with truth; his manner respectful with the courtliness. of high-breeding.

I could appreciate if I mourned his perfect trust in me, implied by his careful evasion of every topic that in any vague way could cause the attention to recur to the past. There were times when, stirred by this great confidence,

and stimulated by my great passion which craved some such sacrifice that it might symbolise itself by a form which no glance, no kiss, no accent could shape, I could have cast myself at his feet and told him all. He would have comprehended, he might have adored, the heroism of the devotion that could have prompted such a confession-a confession which would have involved our eternal separation; and I even thought that though we should never meet again, that victory of love's truth over love's passion would leave me peaceful, whilst it would make him know that he had not erred in loving me with so pure and simple a

trust.

But my courage halted when the leap had to be taken. Reason spurred in vain : Truth urged: Conscience cracked the knotted thong; I trembled, I sickened, I stood rooted. The chance fled.

My marriage morning dawned after an active week. We were to be married early, as soon after eight as we could. The townsfolk could

hardly be astir by then, at least that portion of them who had leisure to become spectators.

Before I had fallen asleep the night before, I had long and earnestly wrestled in prayer. I had besought my Father not to withhold His blessing from me because I was about to break His law. He knew the truth; He had watched the long and bitter struggles that had been going on in my mind. He would be merciful; He would not force me to expiate my offence by some great stroke of misery. I knew the ceremony I was to undergo would be idle mockery. It could not make me the wife of the man I loved. It could not separate me from the man I hated. Words of dread import I was to hear in the morning; dolefully as a knell, funereally as a dirge, coldly as a curse they rang in my ears, they vibrated through my being. I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why