me just after you had gone," shè cried, as he entered the room, and while she hastily and tremulously disengaged a little golden key from her watch-chain. "You want money-I haven't money, but I have all these, which can be sold, and will be as good as money-won't they? Vaughan, won't they? and your friend can be helped, and all will be right. Look here!"

Tear-drops of sheer joy glistened in Caroline's eyes as she unlocked and opened the casket and displayed her treasures. They were not many, but were mostly of value. There they shone in their pretty velvet recesses-rings, bracelets, two or three brooches, and one dazzling ruby necklace.

"Will all these make up a hundred pounds, do you think?" she asked, anxiously, and looked up in his face for the answer.

Let it never be forgotten, in the record of Vaughan Hesketh's thoughts and deeds, that he was touched by the young girl's artless generosity, that his first impulse was to draw her to his side, and say, emphatically-meaning what he said, too "Dear Carry, I won't touch them for the world!

Keep your trinkets, you dear little soul, and I'll manage as best I can."

"But how can you? Do take them-you don't know how glad I am!—and then all your trouble will be over."

He kissed her-this time without verbally deprecating her plan. He even looked with a halfcalculating glance at the jewel-box. She went on, flushed with eagerness, "I shall think of you so happily after you are gone, if I know everything is right, and you are not going to be worried or miserable. Do take them?"

"Your jewels! I can't. Suppose my uncle should ask about them?"

"Some day I could tell him." Vaughan frowned. "Or," she went on, bright with a new idea, “could not you sell them as people do in books, and ask the man to keep them, and let us buy them back again some day."

He seemed struck by this suggestion.

"Think, Vaughan, couldn't you?"

She urged him, with dewy eyes, and cheeks all flushed with earnestness. He listened, and glanced

K

at the ornaments, and smiled on her, and pressed her hand to his lips many times.

And so it came to pass, that some ten minutes afterwards, Caroline watched from her dressingroom window the departure of the carriage for the railway station. Vaughan sprang to his seat beside the lawyer-like gentleman, his visiter, and Vaughan held carefully under his arm a certain square brown paper parcel. He looked up at her window, waved his hand, and was no longer in her sight.

And then Caroline sat down and cried; what for, she could never have told-for she was relieved, glad beyond expression. Everything was happily arranged, and Vaughan was to be back the next day but one. However, so it was-she cried heartily and long, and when she rose from her chair, and looked out of the window, the September twilight had shadowed everything, and with a flash the thought came into her mind, "It is too late now, to go to Beacon's Cottage."

A knock at the door, and Miss Maturin's maid announced "Miss Kendal has just come, miss, and is waiting to see you down-stairs."

Chapter vii.

A LADY dressed in black, middle-aged, of a dignified presence, with a calm face, neither handsome, nor remarkable for anything except a certain expression of quiet humour and equable self-possession, which was thoroughly womanly, although not often seen in women. This was the outside

aspect of her who advanced a few steps to meet Caroline, took her for an instant into her arms, kissed her, and then let her go.

"Now sit down, and let me look at you comfortably."

She looked. Caroline smiled, but she could not hide either her embarrassment, or the traces of the tears she had just been copiously shedding. Both might have been detected by eyes of several degrees' less acuteness than those keen but kindly ones of bluish-grey which were now fixed upon

her face. But the tongue was not so quick as the

eyes.

"How is Mr Hesketh?" was Miss Kendal's next utterance.

"Not well-he has been ailing for the last two or three weeks."

"Nothing serious, I hope?"

"At first it seemed only a cold; but it hangs about him very strangely. He is weak and languid -sometimes keeps his room for two or three days together. Dr Barclay has attended him the last few days."

"The doctor! a tangible disorder, indeed," said Miss Kendal, gravely. "And you are nurse, I suppose?" she added, after a pause, looking at her again.

"Very little nursing' has been needed, nor, I trust, will be. I almost dread the word-it sounds like a real illness."

"Never mind what it sounds like, my dear; there are real things enough to dread, without taking words into the account. Besides, I've been ill once in my life, and I think respectfully of nurses and nursing."