offended if I cannot stay long talking to you. You know poor Lord Fermor was only buried this morning, and I must not fret Lady Fermor to-day by being out of the way, should she want me.'

'No, to be sure,' Honor admitted frankly. 'But, my sakes! how tied up you are, and what a little delicate creature, if you will forgive me for saying so, you do look in your black. You are not much above my shoulder if we were to measure, miss.'

'I believe it without measuring,' said Iris, with a faint smile; 'more than that, as I am not very little-I am as tall as Miss Acton, for instance-you must be a big woman, big and strong, fit to face and conquer the world.'

'Ah! but it was you as faced and conquered me and Will, when I durst not have done it to him, not though he is my master. Now, weren't that strange? a delicate, dainty young lady as couldn't shoulder or fire a gun, not to save your life, but you could face the wild beasteses, which he said him and me were when the drink were in him and the rove on me!'

'It was not I,' said Iris; it was the good that was deep down in your own hearts; it

was the spirit of goodness striving with your

by a word or a look, Oh! Lady Thwaite, Fight and pray for

spirits. If I helped you that is my great reward. see that good overcomes. yourself and your husband, and may God bless and prosper you in the land to which you are going!'

'That's a kind wish, Miss Compton, and I'm main indebted to you for it and for all that went before it,' said Honor less restlessly and flightily, in a more subdued, earnest tone.

Surely I'll do my best, if—if he comes to me of his own free will, if he shows me beyond mistake that there is none as is like me to him, none-not even an angel from heaven as can come between us two.' And again, with one of the quick revulsions natural to her moods, the craving for supremacy, the exacting tyranny of a proud and passionate temper flashed from her grey eyes.

'Sir William has gone to you; he has shown you that already,' said Iris a little wearily, as she remembered with self-reproach afterwards. 'Don't play with your newlyfound peace; don't be captious, and plague your husband with idle suspicions. I cannot tell-I am speaking from what I imagine and

what I have read, but I believe if you would keep a man you must trust him.' She was in haste to get back. 'Good-bye, Honor; I will not say farewell, for although we shall be far apart, there is no saying but that we may meet again.'

Iris did not know how far she would be, in time to come, from this early friend and late claimant on her pity and charity. The girl could not guess under what different conditions the two would meet again, as she hurried home, feeling that on this day she ought not to be abroad, ought not to be engaged in the most innocent unpremeditated interview of which her grandmother would disapprove. It seemed to her as if Honor Thwaite and her husband were melting away from her view, fast sinking beneath the horizon, gone together for their new chance and their united struggle in a fresh country, while she remained forlorn, standing by her colours, facing Lady Fermor and the world.

Under the circumstances, Iris heard nothing from the world without of Lady Thwaite and Sir William for the next ten days, when an appalling piece of intelligence startled and

shocked her.

On the very morning following Lady Thwaite's visit to Iris, Sir William, to his unbounded surprise, dismay, and anger, found his wife's place vacant and herself gone without leave. She had left a letter for him primitively queer in caligraphy, orthography, and syntax generally, still queerer in sense, but eminently characteristic of the wayward

woman:

'DEAR WILL THWAITE,

'By the time this retches you and finds you all well, father and me, we will have saled for 'Merica. We, leastways I, for father did no more than I bid he, 'ave stolen a march on you, and are starting in the small 'ours so as train may retch Liverpole in time for us to sale in a himmigrant vessel as is to leve old England a month before the vessell in which you wos to take our births. The reson why, Will, is that I wishes to leave you free to make your chice anew. I am sensible as our marrage do not have ansered so far, and I have been a truble and a burden to youdruv you back to the wild curses of your youth. All that may be ended, I hop so, with all my hart for your sake, still more

than for my own; but I 'ave made up my mind, Will Thwaite, you shall not be forced to keep to your bond. If you prefers to stay on at Whitehills without the cumbrance I have been to you, if you would lick to go back to the ranks of the fine laddies and genlemen as you're entitled to walk in, this here is to say you can and welcome. Even though I had not done you enuff harm already, I am not the womman to hold a man against the grain. But, Will, if But, Will, if you do care, the rod is before you as before me. You have not to do, but to come on in the next ship, as us spoke on, and father and me will be awaiting of you at New York. I can take caire of myself, as you know, and father, too, both; so no more at present, and I am your servant to command or your loving wife as you will. 'HONOR THWAITE.'

Sir William Thwaite was not a meek man by nature. Events had left him full of honest compunction and desire to amend his ways, no doubt; but he was also sore, worried, and irritable.

He took great umbrage at this last very inconvenient and unseemly freak of Honor's.