a quiet little room could be found for you as a study. You could but try it."

"Do, do stay," Geoff added, clinging to him. "You always said you wanted to see Mont Blanc before you die!"

"Do, dearest papa!" Georgie added, clutching him by the other arm. "Let one number go. Send a telegram to say that your holiday is not over."

But he shook them off, and would not be persuaded. In an hour or two he was being whirled homewards by express train; and next morning the little party met in dreary

Then she looked from one to the other trying to read their thoughts. Georgie's handsome face had clouded over on a sudden, but she was determined to behave as she would have done quite naturally in her father's presence. Wonderful might of goodness and singleness of heart that can thus impose sterner obligations even than law and habit! Not one of Garland's children but tried to vanquish self and smallness when he was by, and thought of him ever came between them and temptation. At fourteen or fifteen years of age we are usually unheroic enough, but Geoff watched Georgie, and, like her, struggled for self-mastery.

"I believe we could manage well enough, mamma," the boy said at last; "but Georgie and I won't very much mind, will we Georgie ?"

"We are not babies. We must not mind," Georgie replied proudly, turning away her face to hide the rising tears.

Geoff, not reading the action, and stirred almost to martial ardour by the words, now went up to his mother, and giving her one of those rough embraces she bore so resignedly, added, "Babies, indeed! I shall soon be a man and able to take care of you much better than I do now. But as Mr. Garland and Mr. Durham are both gone, you will let me manage everything on this journey, won't you, mamma?"

"Dearest boy," Pearla said, fondling him, "I think it will be more prudent to take a courier from the hotel as far as Ostend."

It was now Geoff's turn to check the obtrusive tears, which he did right manfully, not in the least suspecting that he had betrayed himself even to Georgie. Sometimes playful, over-fond, nay, adoring as was this sweet new-found mother of his, she could

sway him hardly less than the kind but inexorable Durham. Pearla had been accustomed to rule from her childhood upward, therein lay the secret of her quiet influence, her unapproachable self-possession. All grace, winningness, and natural candour, this island queen ever remained sovereign of herself and of those who were bound to consult her will.

Geoff therefore did not now try coaxing and persuasion. He wanted to have his way, but he wanted to please her, to appear manly in her eyes, and having been trained by Durham to exercise self-control, generally contrived to hide these little inner struggles. Pearla seeing him thus amenable to reason, believed him to have the sweetest temper and most tractable disposition in the world. He was childishly heedless and impetuous, but he was not stubborn or unreasonable, at least so she thought with no small satisfaction. As soon, however, as Georgie and Geoff were alone they gave way to their feelings without reserve. The girl could not criticize her kind hostess, the boy could not impute unkindness to his more than indulgent mother, but both felt aggrieved by her decision, recalled by it from a world of enchantment to the prose of every day.

"Farewell to bliss!" Georgie cried. "Instead of Mont Blanc and the Swiss lakes, stocking-darning and pudding-making for me, Latin verses and Alpha for you. But we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for being such babies, Geoff. Had we either of us shown a particle of common sense or business capacity, I feel sure that Lady Auriol would have gone on."

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Speak for yourself, if you please," Geoff replied with considerable temper. "Mamma knows that I cannot be expected to speak German without ever having learned it, and as to common sense and business capacity, what use are they without experience in travelling? I have not been brought up as a courier."

Then whistling disrespectfully, he sat down, and plumping his heavy arms on a heap of Georgie's fancy work, pretended to busy himself in "The Heart of Midlothian."

"Sociable boy!" Georgie said, as if to her. self, glaring at the disordered embroidery whilst she spoke.

Geoff, with scowling brows and pursed-up lips, read on.

"What engaging companions some people can be when they are travelling abroad! pursued Georgie, still as if speaking in a monologue.

perennial in these favoured places, and that Lady Auriol's reappearance was the signal for renewed hopes and ambitions.

Pearla little thought, as she worded her elegant little pink note to a certain bluff colonel, elderly and a widower, living on half-pay with an only daughter, that he had anything of the visionary about him, and that her little rose-coloured missive would savour of Cupid. Still more unsuspicious was she concerning another guest, a superannuated naval officer, now condemned, after a brilliant and stirring career, to the wilderness of lodging-house existence; and she was equally off her guard with the parish curate, one of the poorest, most self-denying and charitableminded clergymen of the diocese, who had reached his sixtieth year without preferment, or success in matters of the heart.

The all-important day arrived, and as the hour of assembling drew near the only person who had no time for self-adornment was Ralph Garland.

Once, twice, three times had some member of the household tapped at his study door, reminding him of the fleeting moments, to which he had only murmured

"All in good time, dearie."

It might have been the cook or boy-ofall-work for aught he knew; that mattered little-every one in the world was dearie to him. But the pen never slackened its swift course over the wide page; the shaggy brows remained knit in concentrated thought, and only one thing was present to his mind. It was in fact the third week of the month, and half-a-dozen pages or so were wanted to complete the allotted portion of his serial story, now appearing in a magazine. At last the door opened and Bella appeared, looking distractingly pretty in her homemade, girlish finery, but ready to cry of vexation and dismay.

in the washing-basin. ""The Countess is angry, as you see, and

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And flies from Hubert, tearing the diamonds from her hair.' I am doing it beautifully, papa dearest."

At this juncture Garland appeared at the door, a huge hair-brush in each hand, dealing with each such blows on his shaggy poll as seemed to threaten mortal injury to the skull underneath.

"For Heaven's sake don't write that, my dear!" he cried desperately. "It is nothing but the Rosa Matilda style over again."

"It is quite beautiful, papa, I assure you," Bella cried, looking up from her task. "It is not Rosa Matilda at all. But pray take care, you will hurt yourself with those brushes!" "Is she gone, then ?" asked Garland, with a sigh of resignation.

Long ago, in the other page, papa; and Hubert, alone, soliloquizes distractedly. But Georgie must write the soliloquy," Bella cried, starting up to help her father with his coat and necktie.

Georgie must see that it goes to the post, anyhow; never mind the soliloquy," he added, looking hither and thither. "Gloves and handkerchief, Bella; have you thought of them?"

"They are in my pocket all ready for you," Bella answered gaily, pressing a fond kiss on the rough black beard, as she smoothed down the embroidered neck-tie and velvet collar. "Now we are both ready, and shall be in time after all."

Which, wonderful to say, they were. Just as Pearla's penultimate guests had arrived, and she was beginning to feel a little uneasy about Garland, in they came, with a look of airy unconcern-as if editors, publishers, printers, and monthly copy were figments of the imagination only.

Pearla smiled approvingly upon the pair, and at once put her hand within Garland's arm, thus signifying a command which would greatly have affronted all the assembled guests, but for one tacit explanation. This sovereign lady of an islet in mid-ocean, with all her grace, fine manners, and cordiality, did not understand etiquette-was still, in fact, as naïve and unsophisticated as a schoolgirl; and what else but a series of blunders could now be expected of her? Pearla, however, quite well knew what she was about, having had a proper training as mistress of the ceremonies, in her capacity of governor's wife. She liked Garland's company moreover better than that of any one else in the room; she wanted to show her appreciation of his

kindness in dining with her against his rules of life. Lastly, she felt no particular reason for doing honour to the rest of the company, and especial gratitude to Garland as the early befriender of her boy.

And when he sat down to table how different his discourse from that of his neighbours! Whilst Pearla's guests naturally chatted about the coming militia ball and the bazaar of yesterday, Garland, never for a moment unseasonably serious, stooped to no triviality of subject or commonness of speech. Sparkles of wit, graces of fancy, choice anecdote, and epigram fell from his lips as he sat by his hostess's side. The dinner passed off admirably. Bella and Geoff, who sat side by side, thought that none had ever been half so delightful. Every one's eyes beamed with pleasure as the evening wore on; the business of entertaining seemed to grow easier and easier to Pearla.

Towards the close of the evening, however, something happened which was to make it memorable in Pearla's eyes. One of the guests happened to ask Lady Auriol about Mr. Durham, the former tutor of her son. The question was not put pointedly, but Pearla became interested at once, especially as Garland, with a sudden glow on his face and a throb of fine feeling in his voice, eagerly caught up the theme.

"Ah," he said to the other listeners, not all sympathetic, "there is a man, there is a hero!"

"Well," said Garland's interlocutor, a good-natured, fox-hunting neighbour of Lady Auriol's, who had been serviceable in the matter of Geoff's equestrian education, "there are two opinions concerning Durham's behaviour. For my part I have ever regarded him as an injured man, but others take a contrary view and look upon his disinterestedness as infatuation. To suffer himself to be disinherited

"Disinherited ?" asked Pearla eagerly, and looking at Garland with some reproach. "To tell you plain truth, our friend Durham always begged me to be reticent on the subject, but I will tell you his story another time, Lady Auriol, since you ask it. You will think kinder of Durham when you learn all. Circumstances have embittered him. He was born with the sweetest temper."

"I think it would sour most tempers to be wrongfully despoiled of a fine estate and five thousand a year," Sir Bertram said, shrugging his shoulders. "But Durham might have compromised; he need not have been so

punctilious, I think. We must all compromise in this world, and he should have considered that he was throwing away all chances of usefulness. He might have got into Parliament."

"The plain matter is this," Garland said, now addressing himself to Lady Auriol, Sir Bertram having turned away. "Durham is one of two cousins, and being the elder was heir (next of kin) to a fine property belonging to a maternal uncle, who brought up both boys as his own, and always treated Durham as his especial favourite, and openly presented him to his friend as his heir. Now Durham's uncle was the best-natured person in the world, but not at all of the world, an eccentricity in fact, and very easily misled by those under whose influence he might fall. Having no wife or children, he amused himself with travel, and during a winter at Rome, went over, so at least report said, to the Romish Church. Whether or no he formally embraced the creed is not known, but after his death a clause was found appended to his will, which pointed to but one conclusion. The estate fell to Durham, with a condition attached to it, namely, that on it he should build and endow a Roman Catholic church and monastery, and other conditions of the kind. Durham very naturally refused, and so the estate went to his cousin, who felt no such scruple."

"It was certainly hard on Mr. Durham," Pearla said thoughtfully. She felt as if she should now understand him better.

"Yes," was Garland's reply. "It was a point of conscience with him, and-for we must look to both sides-most likely it was a point of conscience with his uncle. People who have estates must will them as they choose. The wisest plan is to make no heir patent to the world beforehand."

There the conversation ended. The ladies soon rose, Bella whispering in her father's ear as she passed out, looking as she spoke ready to cry of vexation, "Do, papa, look after Geoff-why should he stay behind and take more wine?"

Why indeed? Garland took the hint and soon quitted the table in Geoff's company, Fairfax, the old man servant who had been recommended to Pearla by Durham, looking on with satisfaction. Truth to tell, the lad, like many another too young left "lord of himself, that heritage of woe," knew not how to observe the just medium in good things of material kind. Upon more than one occasion Fairfax had slyly watered the wine before placing it on the dinner table. He