of her I gained courage, and stealing to his side, I laid my brown hand upon the delicate paper.

"Don't interrupt me, Tory," he exclaimed; "you know I cannot write easily. I am not clever at it, and even your presence rather disturbs me."

"Cousin Humphrey," I said, "I have just found these letters in a cloak of Harry's."

I stood beside him while he read them, enduring without shrinking the grasp of his iron hand upon my small fingers. The lines upon his forehead-for there will be marked lines upon the forehead of most men who are nearing forty-deepened into heavy wrinkles, and he set his teeth together as he gazed up into my face for some minutes before he spoke. "I cannot bear it, Tory," he said; "I had made up my mind to it before you came. But now-now, when I am getting my home ready for Lavinia, after all these years of waiting! I am not bound to send for him. If Rowland comes back of himself before October, he must have the place; but after that I am safe."

"But he is found," I whispered; "your brother is found; but he will not come home of himself. He will never hear of your father's will till he has lost his inheritance. If Harry had told him, he would have been master here now. Cousin Humphrey, you said once you were bound by conscience and honour: can that bond ever be destroyed?"

"But to bring such a man to my father's home,-to this peaceful little village! He will be a curse to it," said Humphrey.

"I don't know what is right," I replied sorrowfully; "but if we had found these letters last December, when we looked for them, you would have written to your brother, and he would have been on his way home now. Do perfect honour and honesty depend upon an accident like this? If you could only decide upon what is right, and leave the rest to God!" "But Lavinia!" he groaned.

"She will love you the better for it," I said, but not in perfect honesty myself, for I did not believe it in my heart. "If I were Lavinia, I would rather go with you into the bush than live upon a brother's birthright."

The remainder of the tinted sheet of paper on the desk before him was filled up with a very different subject, and far less elaborate penmanship than usual. Miss Grainger resented my unfortunate discovery bitterly, and appeared to think there was something felonious in my act of locking up my husband's coat in my own trunk, and that my finding the letters after this interval was part of a conspiracy. Cousin Humphrey, as if to strengthen himself against any return of indecision, made it known throughout Sherwood that Rowland was at length traced out; and at every time of telling the story to some old retainer who re membered his brother, his tone grew steadier and more cordial, as though he would be ready to give the prodigal a hearty welcome. All that was lacking to complete his resignation was Lavinia's reply.

It did not come for several days, during which Humphrey was rest

less and anxious; but one morning a letter for him, and another for Miss Grainger, arrived. He carried his away from the breakfast-table to the retirement of the library; but I had the double pleasure of seeing Miss Grainger read hers with a most expressive face, and afterwards of reading it myself. It was a long and very pious letter, full of admiration at the mysterious ways of Providence; extremely affectionate too, for she said that, though Humphrey had so nobly and generously released her from an engagement long distasteful to her feelings, she saw nothing to interfere with the sisterly attachment which had existed between them from her cradle. It was this last sentence that lashed Miss Grainger into fury, and ever afterwards rankled in her mind.

"Base creature!" she exclaimed; "it is too true. I have known her from her very cradle, but I could never have believed this. Away with such women! they are not fit to live. Providence! When any body does a mean, disgraceful, villanous action, they lay the blame on Providence. I have no patience. O Mrs. Harry, is it possible that such a woman can be found on English soil?"

I was ashamed to discover in my own heart a latent, hardly-acknowledged sense of satisfaction, not at all sympathetic with Humphrey's unhappiness, but which enabled me to join most cordially in all Miss Grainger's censures; and as nothing has a more reconciling tendency than a thorough unison of antipathy and resentment against another, the falsehearted Lavinia became the bond of union between us. All the morning we mourned over Humphrey, and wept compassionating tears, until, both of us growing anxious about him, Miss Grainger requested me, as a privileged intruder, to venture boldly into his presence.

The library was empty; but the window was open, and I passed through it into the park, where the hay was being made. A glance was enough to convince me that my gigantic cousin was not among the group of haymakers who were loading the wagons with the great cops which he and I had helped to pile up the day before. I knew Humphrey's haunts well; and a moment's consideration turned my steps to the coppice of fir-trees beyond the park, where a path, slippery with brown needle-like spines from the boughs over-head, led to a little meadow enclosed by woods, and sheltered with wild high hedges of rose-brier and thorn. Last night we had been watching the haymakers rake the newly-mown grass into long wavy swaths; and we had lingered after they were gone in the moonlight, sitting under a bowery hawthorn-tree in the midst, by whose roots a mountain-brook rushed rapidly and noisily down its narrow channel. The field-gate was swinging upon its hinges, and as I passed through it I saw in an instant that Humphrey was there, lying under the thorn-tree, and motionless,-so motionless, that, as I stood afar off straining my eyes to detect some symptoms of animation, my heart beat with a sudden panic, and darting down swiftly to his side, I bent over him, and laid my hand softly upon his uncovered head. Then he moved to shake it off, but did not look up.

"It is only Tory, Cousin Humphrey," I whispered, sitting down

beside him.

Cousin Humphrey hid his face upon my lap, and burst into such a passion of tears and sobs as only a strong man long unused to weeping can suffer; while I could say nothing to him, could do nothing for him, but press my hands lightly upon his bowed head, and reproach myself angrily for the unconquerable satisfaction I felt in the cause of his terrible grief.

"What a fool I am!" he exclaimed, at last, rising and shaking himself wrathfully. "I don't mind you, Tory; but I could not endure any one else seeing my weakness. O Tory! I have had no hope these ten years, but that of making Lavinia my wife."

"She is a hateful-" I began.

"Hush! not yet!" he interrupted, with a look of pain. "You must not say a word against her, Tory. All to-day every hope and plan I have ever formed have been passing through my mind again; and all the letters she has written, and every word of love, so few and rare, that she has ever spoken. I shall never be the same man again. See, Tory, here is her portrait."

It was a delicate miniature on ivory, with a smile upon the fair false face. He had been keeping it close in his hand; but as he held it towards me, I snatched it from him in a sudden freak of indignation, and dashed it against the stones of the mountain-stream at our feet. He looked amazed, and in some degree ruthful,-this rather slow, impassive, phlegmatic British gentleman; but he made no effort to recover the shattered fragments, already whirling down the tiny eddies of the rejoicing current. He lifted me over the brook, which I had crossed unaided in running down to him, and carried me some paces beyond it, held fast and close in his arms; and as we walked home side by side he rested his hand upon my shoulder, leaning upon me, and being led by me as one blind with rage or sorrow.

Never was I so mortified and humiliated in my life as to perceive how quickly a man can rally after the most cruel blow dealt by the most faithless of our sex. Sadly, with merciless reprobation of Lavinia's perfidy, I allotted many months for the term of Cousin Humphrey's mourning over the blighted hopes of his life, fearing that, as he said, he would never be the same man again. Mr. Grainger was moody, and inclined to an excess in solitary cigars, the next day and the day after; but on the fourth morning I heard him as usual early under my window, whistling his dogs about him, and summoning me imperiously to our customary stroll through the dewy fields. In a week he could laugh as heartily as ever; and before a fortnight had passed he was able to speak of Miss Yardley with Grandisonian magnanimity and courtesy, only smiling at Miss Grainger's very severe strictures, when along the chain of our numerous relatives ran the electric communication that Lavinia was going to marry a clergyman in Cheltenham.

For the first three or four months of my sojourn at Sherwood, the subject of my thoughts and conversation had been the letter that Mr. Grainger had written to my brother, and the reply I anticipated receiving from him. But as the many silent months passed by which could bring no message from my distant home, it seemed as if the limitless sea had flowed over Australia, so forgetful was I grown of its associations, so careless of hearing again of my brother's home. It was almost like the shock of an unexpected event when, at the end of August, a colonial letter arrived addressed to my cousin; and I could hardly conceal or control my agitation as I leaned over the back of his chair to read it with him. It was a very brief and laconic note, written by one of my brother's clerks :

"SIR, I am instructed by Mr. Wm. Burke to reply to yours of Dec. 16th ult. You will oblige him by embarking Mrs. Victoria Sydney Grainger in the next mail-steamer leaving England. Enclosed is a draft for the passage out, and for the incidental expenses incurred by you during Mrs. V. S. G.'s residence under your roof."

Humphrey's sun-burnt face grew more swarthily red as he perused this short epistle, and Miss Grainger bridled with haughty hospitality, though there was something reassuring in this ready remittance, which had no taint of felony or poverty about it. Little was said, but both of them seemed to consider my immediate departure inevitable; and Miss Grainger commenced energetic preparations for it, insisting upon providing me with a thorough English outfit, as if we could not procure similar articles in the colony. She would not rest without making Humphrey go down to Southampton beforehand, wasting four of my precious days, that he might secure the very best and most comfortable cabin for me; and after his return she studied all the almanacs she could find to ascertain when the equinoctial gales would begin, every evening giving us a different and more appalling statement respecting them.

The equinoctial gales had sent no pioneer breeze before them on the third Sunday in September. It was a warm, soft, brilliant day, with the scented fragrance of early autumn pervading the serene atmosphere;. a very quiet, peaceful day, with neither business sounds nor the boisterous merriment of village children at play; only the chiming of the churchbells, which rang like a knell to me. I was very miserable, hearing amid the stillness the monotonous splash of waves, as they had followed me during that long separating voyage of my widowhood; a wilderness of desolate waves, which I was again to cross. In the evening I strolled out with Cousin Humphrey, to wander, without aim or purpose, through the fields, as our custom had been all the summer through, talking together in a subdued tone, partly of reverence for the day, and partly of quiet enjoyment. But to-day I could not talk; and Humphrey, sitting on the stile which divided two of his corn-fields, lit his cigar, and smoked in placid silence, while I placed myself on the cross-bar at his feet. These golden shocks of corn, standing erect with plumed heads, I had

watched growing from the first tender blade; and they were ripe and ready for gathering in now,-memorials of all the pleasant rambles across these furrows since the early spring. I remembered Humphrey pointing out to me the first swallow that ventured to try his dusky wings; and here was a whirling, careering crowd of them, shrieking with delight as they darted in and out among the upright sheaves. Australia was so far away! This fond, long, lingering twilight, full of vague suggestions and emotions, dearer to me than the broad common light and darkness of my native land; the wild melody of song ringing from tree to tree, which stirred my heart uneasily though rapturously; those deep, mystic shadows of the broad-leaved trees-I felt that it would break my heart to hear and see all this no more. Yet we sat so still in the fading light of the western sky behind us, that an indolent grasshopper at my feet crawled lazily through the bending spears of grass, not caring to leap out of our motionless shadows; and a linnet in a poplar-tree near us sang deliriously, in an ecstasy of song, as it faced the crimson sunset. I watched and listened, thinking listlessly of the barren and silent waters I had to voyage over, until both grasshopper and linnet disappeared; and, as if I were already come to the moment of my departure, I wrung my hands with a gesture of despair, and turned away my face from Humphrey's scrutiny.

"What ails my little woman now ?" he asked, in the lowered, modulated tone he reserved for me, and only used to me upon rare occasions. "What does all this trouble mean at this particular moment?"

"Oh, nothing!" I sobbed; "only foolishness. I feel so tossed about from country to country; and I want to be at rest somewhere. It is so peaceful here! I don't want to leave these singing-birds, and this long, pleasant dusk. I like England best now. I found it out this morning in church when we read, 'forget also thine own people, and thy father's house.' I've done it, Cousin Humphrey; and, oh, I am so afraid of that long voyage alone!"

"Is there nothing else you do not want to leave?" asked the same low, tender voice.

"Oh, I don't want to leave you!" I said recklessly; "at least not just yet. I should like to stay till you were settled at Russett Farm, so that I might know the rooms you were living in when I am away in the colony. I could be of some use to you now, Cousin Humphrey; could help you now that you are going to be a poor man."

"Tory, if you are to stay any longer with me, it can only be as my wife."

I did not move or speak, but sat like a statue, looking straight forward at the sheaves of corn. There was a breathless pause, for the birds had finished singing, and the swallows, fled to distant fields, were only just visible against the evening sky. The only sound was the tiny rustling of the poplar-leaves overhead, clapping continuously together with a small, cheery murmur of applause.