Everett. Now he felt provoked with himself for having ever put it there. That picture sobered him, and brought the involuntary thought, “I am not young." Who is young before the recollection of a dead passion?

CHAPTER XVI.

THE next day came, bringing with it cares and events which pressed on utterly regardless of the two lovers. James was suddenly oppressed by fresh affairs, and Mrs. Erskine alarmed and grieved by evil tidings of her sick daughter.

It was a hurried morning that they passed; and not through a spirit of procrastination did James defer to announce his engagement to his mother, but really because she was so unhappy that it would have seemed a selfishness to have troubled her with it that morning: although he disliked that mode of communication, still he would write it to her.

Georgy was disappointed, when, in the middle of the day, the hour for their departure arrived. James said that he would write to his mother; or, if Georgy liked it better, should he wait till in a few days he was able to go to Millthorpe Grange and join them?

She wished that he had done it already; but it was almost with indifference that she replied:-" It should be as he liked," and did not even state her

preference for waiting till he came. She startled him a little by her indifference.

"But what do you wish?" he said again, impatient for an answer.

"Well, then, I should like better to wait till you come-much better-Mr. Erskine."

"Will

name ?

you never call me by my "Very well, James," she said, laughing and colouring, but coming a little nearer to him.

She had begun by committing a capital error very early in her love. She had no will apart from his, and never reflected how much this might make her lose. He was her god; but she did not remember that he could not read her heart; and she was not always careful enough to answer to his far more demonstrative disposition. To one who loves such a nature as hers is often a misfortune.

All this did not apply, however, that day, for they were both happy, and both talked and laughed at every moment which could be so disposed of; and then at last came the time when they must separate. That morning was the first time that Georgy had ever been in James' sitting-room down stairs, and one of her first exclamations was:

"Oh! that engraving is very like Mrs. Everett!" you think so?"

66 Do

"Yes; how pretty and graceful she is!"

"Poor thing, she had a melancholy fate: it is well that she is a widow now."

"Was she unhappy with her head or her heart, I wonder?"—and one of his rapid changes of expression passed quickly over his face: he seemed about to speak again of her, but did not, and went on quickly to talk of something else.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, as she bent down to one of the lowest shelves, where she had taken out a thick, purple-coloured book,-" Oh! that is the Bible which my father

"I want it," she said, laughing, but very shyly"I want it give it to me-I remember it, a long time ago."

"Where?"

"In that little old room at Monklands, where you found me that day you drove me home so late."

"Poor old Monklands! Yes, I remember very well the day I found you there, and how pleasant you were," he answered, in a loving, courtly way.

That day Mrs. Erskine and Georgy set off; James went with them to the station. All these days he had taken a thousand little cares of Georgy:towards those whom he loved he was almost womanly in the service and attention he lavished on them; and a short time had so accustomed Georgy to this, that it was not only James that she

missed, but his care and protection.-She was still confused with happiness.

Mrs. Erskine talked of Julia, about whom she was very anxious: the more so, as she was still forbidden to see her. Each time Georgy looked at the old woman, something weighed upon her heart, and she only escaped from the burden by the thought that surely her love was worth something to James; but how would Mrs. Erskine, who had been so kind to her, take the consequences brought forth by that kindness. Georgy was softened by happiness, which brought, too, its own revelations. She had not so much pitied herself, as grown listless and apathetic all these years.—The old teaching of her childhood, till now grown cold and meaningless to her, returned. Why had she done this?-Why had she let those feelings slide out of her heart that it is often a woman's part to keep alive in man?-Why had she so lost them as to feel them only through her earthly love? She felt everything through that, and now could only so repent. If she had sometimes said within herself that she had done nothing to deserve her fate, she felt that she certainly had done nothing beyond others to entitle her to have her whole mind so granted. She saw things now that she had never seen before; only recognised them amongst the moral commonplaces repeated to ourselves, and which have no real meaning to us.