WO men loved her. One was rich; the other poor. Her whole life was influenced by an accident, a mistake, a misunderstanding, a calumny. They who loved her most were her detractors. Sometimes our best friends are the first to be deceived by appearances which belie us.

Tom Mayfield gave her the name of Clytie even before he had spoken to her; she was so round and dimply, and had such wavy hair, and such brown tender eyes, and was altogether so much like the popular statuette of the goddess who was changed into a sunflower for very love. Tom Mayfield was a student in Dunelm University, and he saw Clytie first at a boat-race on the Wear. She was accompanied by her grandfather, the organist of St. Bride's, with whom Tom speedily made friends, that he might have facilities for wooing this belle of the cathedral city.

Tom had already a rival before he had the right to regard any man as his opponent. Love's shadows of doubt and fear had fallen upon him before his sun of hope could even be said to have risen. Tom was poor. Philip Ransford was rich. Tom was a palefaced student, and burnt the midnight oil over hard tasks that were his battles for wealth and fame. Philip Ransford was a big, VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

S

burly fellow, who followed the hounds, belonged to London Clubs, kept a yacht, and was the son of James Ransford, whose cotton factories manufactured money with a daily regularity that at any moment could be made into a sum and reckoned up to the closest nicety.

When Philip Ransford learnt that Tom Mayfield was a frequent visitor at the organist's pretty little house in the Bailey, he swore with his fist clenched that he would ride over Tom in the street, or brain him with his whip-handle.

"Calls her Clytie, does he ?" Phil muttered, as he strode along the Bailey on a summer's evening, after a day's salmon fishing up the river; "I'll Clytie him!"

It was glorious to see the sun finding out the moss and lichens in that dull street which echoed the footsteps of Clytie's swashbuckling lover. The quaint gables of St. Bride's flung purple shadows over the road, and the great Cathedral towers rose up strong and bold against the red sky. On one side of the street a high wall shut in the Cathedral Close and St. Bride's; on the other the back entrances of some dozen houses opposed the gloom of the mossy wall; but now and then you had a peep of paradise, for the fronts of the houses looked out upon the Wear, and here and there a door was open, showing a long vista of lawn and garden, of tree and river, and of distant hills cold and blue, in contrast with the red of the sun which set behind St. Cuthbert's towers. Farther down the street called the Bailey, as you came to a bend of the way, an arch closed the road. It seemed to be filled with a picture of laburnum, lilac, and elm, with a bit of balustrade and a shimmering glimpse of river. This was an outlet into the Banks, separated from the Bailey by the Prebend's Bridge, on which Tom Mayfield first saw Clytie, who lived within the Bailey, and a few yards on this side of that lovely picture of laburnum, lilac, and elm framed in the crumbling old archway of Prebend's Bridge.

The Hermitage was a small house. It was hard to divine how it had come to find a place among the fine houses which were built on either side of it, with gardens sloping down to the beautiful northern river. It was rented at only twenty-five pounds a year; but it belonged to the Dean and Chapter, and they were very particular about their tenants. Indeed, it was looked upon as a patent of respectability to be allowed to rent the Hermitage. Old Luke Waller, when he arrived in Dunelm with his grandchild, then an infant of six, brought a special letter of introduction to the Dean from a noble lord, through whose influence he had been appointed

organist of St. Bride's, at the handsome salary of two hundred a year, one hundred and fifty of which came out of his lordship's purse, unknown to Luke Waller, whose antecedents were a complete blank to the citizens of Dunelm.

Luke had a history that would have astonished the ancient city of St. Cuthbert. Sometimes when he was playing the voluntary at church, and thinking of the past, he got his story mixed up in the music, and found himself wandering in imagination through the streets of London. It had been necessary on several occasions for the parson to send a message round to the organ-loft to stop the musical reverie with which he was accompanying his reminiscences. On these occasions Luke Waller would suddenly pull himself together and go through the service with an earnestness that lent additional charms to the quiet simplicity which marked the orthodoxy of St. Bride's. But he would go back again with Clytie when the church was empty, lock the doors, get the girl to blow for him (it was a small organ, and she delighted in the work), and play out his dream. He was a strange old man-a tottering, grey-headed old man, with almost a youthful blue eye, white teeth, and cheeks like the streaky side of an old-fashioned apple, red and wrinkly. Life to him was a daily devotion to the happiness of his granddaughter, Mary, or Clytie, as I have re-christened her in deference to the poetic fancy of Tom Mayfield, and for some suggestiveness in the name which may be justified hereafter.

Phil Ransford entered the Hermitage on this summer evening of my story, with his fishing tackle and a creel containing a brace of salmon, which in all their red and silvery beauty he laid on a bed of grass before Luke and Clytie.

"Those are fine fish," said Mr. Waller.

"I brought them for your acceptance, if you will oblige me," said Phil..

Clytie looked up admiringly at Phil's manly figure, and smiled with a quiet satisfaction.

"Thank you," said the old man-"thank you, Mr. Ransford; one will be quite enough for us."

"You can pickle the other," said Phil; "your cook is up to that, I suppose, eh, Miss Waller ?"

"Oh, yes," said Clytie.

"Yes, she can cook," said Mr. Waller; "that must be said in her favour."

Phil had sat down, and laid his fishing-rod in a corner of the

room.

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"You are tired," said Luke Waller; but there was little or no sympathy in the remark.

"I am, and hungry. I very nearly took that first fish into a public on the river and had a steak cut out of him; but I thought a brace of salmon would look far better at the Hermitage."

Although the organist did not much care for Phil Ransford's society, he could not well resist a hint so pointedly given.

"Have one cut now-stay and sup with us," said the old man. "I should just be in time for dinner at home," said Phil; "but salmon cutlets and Hermitage society !-Mr. Waller, I accept your most kind invitation."

"That is well," said the old man.

supper."

"Mary, my love, order the

Phil Ransford watched the young lady as she left the room, and Clytie answered his admiring gaze with a look of conscious triumph. There was hardly a girl in Dunelm who would not have accepted Phil Ransford as a lover. He was even freely admitted to the Cathedral society. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, young Ransford had a double claim to recognition. He had received the traditional training of a gentleman, and was rich; he excelled in manly sports, danced like an angel according to several flighty young things of forty, was a member of the Reform, and would some day, if he chose, sit in the House of Commons. Luke Waller was therefore somewhat flattered at Mr. Ransford's attentions, and Clytie encouraged them, because she rather enjoyed the jealousy and spitefulness of the Cathedral set who systematically kept her out of the society of the Close. But old Waller never left Ransford and Clytie alone; he had twice refused to allow Phil to see her home from those outside evening parties at which they occasionally met; but he had not been able to prevent Phil Ransford from stopping her now and then in the quiet old streets, and talking to her. Dunelm was such a dear silent old city that two people might step aside into an odd nook or corner, in the shadow of an old archway, or beneath an old tree, and talk to each other for an hour without being seen by any one. But it was enough for the old city if the gossips or lovers were seen by one person; the incident was soon reported; it was not necessary to employ the town crier, though Dunelm went to the expense of having such an officer. Phil Ransford frequently flung himself in the way of Clytie, and Tom Mayfield was jealous of him. Ransford had six months' start of the young student. He made a sort of declaration of love to the lady four weeks before that vision of beauty appeared to Tom, recalling to his

fancy his favourite bust of Clytie which was the only ornament in his little room near St. Cuthbert's gateway, where they rested the mythical bones of the patron saint in the mythical days of old.

CHAPTER II.

66 FRIENDS OR FOES?"

"I LOVE you," said Tom Mayfield. "You round, bewitching beauty; if you will only be mine I will never desert you, like the fool in the story."

It stood upon

He was addressing a large Parian bust of Clytie. his table amidst a pile of books and examination papers.

"I am not rich like that coarse, vulgar Ransford; but I have a heart that is true and faithful; I never loved before; I have an independent income of two hundred a year; I am an orphan; I mean to go to the Bar, and with you by my side I will make a name and fortune."

He moved the bust round and put his hand upon it.

"My dear Clytie! I am only twenty-two.

They tell me you are The man should be a few years

older than the woman. I am sufficiently romantic to be an interesting lover, but a practical fellow for all that. I should take care of you and protect you; and I should be proud of you. I want no money with you, and your dear old grandfather shall always have a seat in the ingle-nook."

The light fell upon the statue; fell tenderly upon the wavy hair; upon the full round bosom. Tom Mayfield looked at it and sighed.

"Let me see," he said, taking up a copy of Lemprière, "who were you in the classic days? A daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, beloved by Apollo, who deserted you for Leucothea. You pined away and were changed into a sunflower, and you still turn to the sun as in pledge of your love. Turn to me, my dear Clytie! Let me be your sun; I will always shine upon you, always be warm and gentle and loving."

He moved the figure again, that he might contemplate the threequarter face.

"Upon my soul it is a marvellous likeness! What a lovely, dreamy face it is!"

Then he turned over again the pages of the dictionary.

"There was another Clytie. What! A concubine of Amyntor,