but when he had deposited his burden and received her smile of thanks and little nod of dismissal, he could not make up his mind to leave her. She thought him somewhat stupid and tiresome for standing upright by the chimney-piece while the fire-lighting business progressed, his helpless hands hanging down, or making vague dashes to reach her things she did not want, or drag the peat pail into corners where it was not required to be.

If he really cared particularly to study the art of piling peat-sods scientifically, she thought he need not have chosen to do it in wet clothes, in a cold room; and that there was no occasion to look so profoundly melancholy over the lesson.

"There," she said, arising from her knees when she had applied the match, and the little tongues of flame were shooting gaily from fibre to fibre of the carefully arranged cone of sods, "do you think you shall know how to do that another time?"

"I can't imagine how you come to know how to do it," he answered, as his eye fell on the white taper fingers that had been so busy, and then travelled upwards to the fair, soft, delicately-tinted face.

"I will explain the mystery if you like, though it involves a revelation which Pelham and my English cousins consider very humiliating to Connor and me. We, both of us, passed the first years of our lives in a mountain cabin. Mamma had always very delicate health, the country did not agree with her, and papa insisted on our being sent out to nurse, as used to be the fashion for everybody in our rank of life in this part of the world when papa was young. I was left long enough with my foster-mother to remember the cabin life perfectly; and I know two or three things, besides how to build up peat-fires, that you will never know if you live to be a hundred, and study all the books in the world. One is, exactly how it feels to run about barefoot on a turfy mountain side on a spring morning early, and how

delicious potatoes dipped in egg-noggin taste when you come in afterwards and sit on the cabin step, with the sweet peatsmoke curling round you-a sensible Connaught pig munching the parings at your side, and a brood of downy little goslings stumbling over your feet. You would not think the peasants such savages for living in the way they do, if you happened to know how pleasant all that is."

"I can't promise to be an immediate convert to the convenience of pighaunted cabins, but I give in about the peat-smoke from this night. I promise to find it the most delicious scent in the world, and to like no fire so well as a peat fire."

"You must have been very cold when you came in then," exclaimed Ellen, surprised. "You shall have time for the good impression to be confirmed, for now, as you have borne my first humiliating confession so well without any of the triumph over me I expected, I will tell you something else. This is your fire I have been lighting. I sent old Bridget to make up one for Lesbia when I looked into the dining-room just now to speak to mamma. room and fire are for you."

This

She looked up playfully into his grave face, and was puzzled to meet no responsive smile of thanks, no glance up, even of the eyes that had sought the ground when she began to speak.

She could not guess that he was afraid to look up or speak, because the thought that she should have acted servant to him was more than his reverential chivalrous heart, that knew itself hid under such a cold crust of reserve could bear.

When the door closed behind her he crossed his arms on the chimney-piece, and leaning his head on them and staring down at the fire, saw it all over again. One by one the rapid changes in the face, which he now acknowledged to be the dearest face in all the world to him, rose up before his eyes and photographed themselves in his memory, so as never to be forgotten again. The patient weariness that was

now the prevailing expression when the face was at rest (he had not failed when she was kneeling by the fire and looking down to observe the red lines round the eyes that told of recent tears), the flicker of amusement that brought light and life back to the countenance at once, the playful curl of defiance on the smiling lips, the glow of interest when speaking; lights and shades that followed each other as quickly as the shadow and sunshine on the mountain sides on a windy day, and had the self-same magical glamour of beauty about them. He tried hard to find something to criticize, to satisfy his conscience as to his loyalty to his old ideals. Bride would not have stood there and talked, and shown her thoughts to a comparative stranger, without any special reason for doing so; the little excitement of an unexpected influx of visitors would not have changed her mood from a tearful to a talkative one all at once. Could there be worth or persistence in feelings that followed each other so lightly? Was there not a want of dignity in such easy communicativeness shown indifferently to every one; for it was no special mark of friendliness to himself, he perfectly understood. He tried to think he did not like it that a person of such a nature could have no confidence to give that would be of any value; nothing in her to make real intimacy worth striving for-but it would not do, he could not wish any change in her. She was just herself, she had got into his heart and he must worship her. Why should not the lily open out its leaves and show all its golden heart? The sun and the wind that visited it might be dazzled by its white sheen and the lustre of gold in its depths, but its proud, pure head held itself unsullied and apart, however many gazers came.

He

What nonsense comparisons are. John caught himself up, ashamed and annoyed at the extravagances into which his thoughts were rising. had schooled himself all his life against exaggeration, or excess of feeling of any kind. Heavy responsibilities laid on No. 180.-VOL. XXX.

him had sobered him early; he had been used to say that in his life he had never had, and hoped never to have, time for sentiment. Sober duties that had to be met with well-regulated energies and sober judgment, had succeeded each other too rapidly to leave him any interval for dreaming; and of all kinds of dreams he was most resolute against love dreams. If he ever fell in love, he had meant it to be with such sober certainty of fitness and possibility as would provide against the waste of energy, thought, and life, that he held to be the worst result of disappointment in such a matter.

And now that it had come, in a very different guise to any he had intended, was there still time to turn it away? Did he wish to turn it away? His thoughts flew back through the events of the last eight months, since the autumn evening when Ellen and Connor had appeared suddenly at Castle Daly, concentrating all their joys and sorrows into a bitter-sweet draught which his spirit seemed to taste. His first amused distant admiration, and Bride's disdain of it. The pitifulness of that night in Dennis's cabin, when the playful girl he had half-admired, half-feared, had seemed to him transformed into an angel of consolation and strength. The long dumb pain of seeing her grief through the dreary weeks that followed, and having to stand quite apart from it, feeling every tear of hers he saw fall like a weight on his heart, and possessing no power to comfort. The meetings since they had left Castle Daly; the senseless keen pangs of mortification at heedless little words and phrases, that perhaps were not meant to carry any pain with them; the equally senseless keen pleasure called up by smiles or thanks, or sentences of acquiescence in something he had said, which reasonably could not be made to bear the weight of signification attributed to them at the time. The underlying satisfaction that through all the winter had been the secret spring of his content, arising from the fact that unknown to herself, he was protecting her and hers, standing every

K K

day between them and a great flood of calamity, that would overwhelm them but for his unmeasured exertions and watchfulness. Ah, yes! and that was the consideration which must determine his course. The question no longer was-whether or not this love would end in his own good and well-being. He had made himself necessary to them -to her; and as long as she had no one else to look after her interests and protect her, he would not desert his post, let the pain be what it would to himself. When his thoughts reached this point, John raised his head from his arms, drew a long breath, and began to move about the room and get ready for dinner. If Ellen had passed a rubicon, and taken a resolution that rainy afternoon, so had he; he looked the future in the face, and with his eyes open accepted a love which he had very little hope would ever bring joy into his life. He did not say to himself that there are some sorts of pain better than joy, or some sorts of giving that transcend taking a millionfold, and that life is indeed more than meat; for he had not come yet to give such clear account to himself of what was working within him; but he felt the calm and strength that a deliberate putting away of selfseeking always brings with it.

Ellen, meanwhile, had really thrust aside all sad thoughts, in the bustle and actual hard work that under present circumstances an unexpected inroad of visitors to such a house entailed. When Lesbia had been taken to her room, and furnished with a change of dress-the selection of which from Ellen's wardrobe had given rise to a good deal of chatter and reference to old times between the two girls-Ellen returned to the kitchen, and found Pelham standing by the fire, with an expression of much anxiety, mingled with a certain triumph, on his handsome face. She lifted up her hands with pretended amazement and horror at his doings.

"I would not have believed it of you, Pelham! You to have been guilty of the indiscreet Irish hospitality of bringing hungry visitors to a house where there

is not a scrap of food for them to eat. Yes, it is true, there is no use in your turning pale now, or grumbling at me, for I can't help it. Our tiresome hens are not laying as well as they did, and I gave away two eggs this morning for a girl that is dying, and I must keep all I have left for mamma, so there is absolutely nothing in the house but some bread and the leg and wing of a chicken that old Bridget has fricasseed for your dinner, and that you must eat on pain of breaking mamma's heart. What could you be thinking of, to expose our famine Castle to such keen eyes as those I have shut up in the panelled bedroom over there? I should not have expected it of you."

Well, there is a boy now at the door. I made them ride on as we passed through Lenane, and went into the market to see if I could get hold of anything. There was not a bit of meat to be had; but I secured a white loaf and some cakes-the last bit of bread there was in the town; and I bought some decent fish that I spied in a tub by a cabin door, and that a woman told me she had caught out of the creek this morning in her petticoat. It's a poor

kind of fish, I'm afraid; but it will be something to eat. I had it put into a basket, and hired a boy to run after us with it, and he has just arrived.”

"How clever of you, Pelham; you are worth a hundred of Connor and me for foresight. I suppose these purchases will have made a great hole in next week's allowance,and some one will have to pinch for them; but, never mind, we won't grudge. We'll have two dishes on the table, and piles of toast, and for four or five hours we'll fancy ourselves in the land of plenty again. I'll do my best with the fish to make it pass for a dainty, and I don't suppose either of the Thornleys has much discernment. I should be quite easy if I were sure it was last year's little Babette who was going to sup with us; I could make her think we were having a pic-nic, and enjoying ourselves immensely; but you know there is a degree of uncertainty in that quarter now. I left little Babette

in my room, dressing in my old pink silk, that she used to covet rather last year; but it may be the great heiress, Miss Maynard, who walks into the dining-room."

"I don't at all know what you mean. I have never seen anything of the difference you speak of."

"No, I dare say not; you are too snubby yourself ever to be snubbed; but what induced you to invite them here, and why did they come?"

"I met them on the road between Good People's Hollow and Lenane. They had been spending the morning with Anne O'Flaherty, and said that they had intended to call on our mother, but had been detained at the Hollow, discussing relief measures with Anne. It was raining fast, and Eagle's Edge was nearer than the Castle, so I proposed that they should come on with me and stay the night. I hardly expected they would have consented; but Thornley said that he had business to speak to me about-and I certainly thought that she-that he, I mean-in point of fact, that both of them rather caught at the idea of coming here."

"Ah, I wonder if she can have heard." The words escaped from Ellen's lips involuntarily, and then a look of perplexity crossed her face, and she stopped

short.

"What is the matter? What do you suppose she can have heard ? "

"Nothing-nothing!-don't look at me like that, Pelham; you know I say silly things often."

He came close to her, and detained her when she would have escaped, by holding her wrists tightly, looking down into her changing face, with eyes full of dark fire.

"Yes, yes!—but silly or not, I choose to hear this!-What have you got in your mind? You have no business to have suspicions of her that you are ashamed to speak out."

"No, I know I ought not. Dear Pelham, I so hate myself for being such a sieve, that I should like to bite my tongue out. It was only that I had a letter from Connor this afternoon, and

I wondered whether by chance she could have heard anything that made her want to talk to me about him."

"By chance! I wish by chance you would give a straightforward answer. How could Miss Maynard possibly know anything about a letter of yours that only arrived this afternoon? You don't mean to insinuate, do you, that she and Connor correspond?"

"No-of course not. Please, let me go, Pelham; I know I am very silly-I wish I could hold my tongue.'

"That is not the chief thing to be wished; what I wish is that you would not concoct mysteries. I don't know what it is between Connor and you that makes you always seem to be living in a web of plots. I suppose you like it; but it is perfectly hateful to me to live among people whose doings I can't understand; and I beg, that at all events, you won't draw into your mysteries those who naturally prefer straightforward ways. At least, don't insinuate stratagems that don't exist, as if you could not believe in such a thing as a truthful person.'

The indignant tones and looks were very hard to bear; the colour flew to Ellen's face, and an eager vindication of her own straightforwardness rose to her lips. Then she remembered Connor's letter, and the secret sympathy she had that afternoon resolved to give to him and his friends. "I have crossed the Rubicon now, and I don't think you are the girl to shrink from any consequences you may have to face on my account." The inevitable concealments,

-the having to seem a traitor to household confidence, would be to her the worst of these consequences; but since she had resolved to run such risk, the best homage she could pay to truth would be not to attempt any self-justification just then. The indignant flush faded out of her face, as Pelham continued to look at her, and tears slowly welled up and drowned the anger in her eyes. She felt very unhappy and helpless, but there was nothing to be said: Pelham relaxed his hold on her wrists.

"You think me very savage," he said,

"and I suppose I am. Ellen, I am sorry I have made you cry. I did not think you cared enough for anything I said for that; but I have so much distrust and dislike shown to me out of doors, that I can't help feeling it hard when you and Connor put such a mist of secrecy between us, that I don't know whether you are sympathising with my enemies or my friends."

Oh, Pelham, how could we sympathise with enemies of yours?"

"The Thornleys are my only friends, and my friendship with them is counted as a crime by the stupid people here, who, because they choose to believe that our father met his death in Thornley's stead, transfer to him all the horror due to the actual murderer."

"No, not all the horror; you would not say so if you knew more about it."

"There now, another mystery."

"Pelham, I can't help it; if people tell ine secrets that have life and death in them; I can't betray unhappy wretches that trust me."

"Perhaps not; but you can help giving all your sympathy to the wrong side. You ought to acknowledge that the Thornleys are behaving nobly, and to be indignant at the monstrous ingratitude shown to them. I say nothing about their generosity to us, though I wonder where you can think we should be without it; but just consider what a sacrifice they have made in staying through this miserable winter at Castle Daly, toiling night and day, and spending their money to feed a set of people who have no claim on them whatever, and who give them nothing but hatred and misconception in return for their charity. Why does not your sense of justice stir itself on their side?"

"Lesbia is liked-the people are grateful to her."

"She can't separate herself from her brother; she is not content to be adored by his haters."

You

"Oh, Pelham, no more can I separate myself from my brothers. don't know how hard it is when there is so much sorrow on every side, that one feels as if one's heart were being

torn to pieces every minute. I can see your hardships at all events, if I can't care as much as I ought for Mr. Thornley's, and I promise you now to be just to your friends, and to stand up for them to the extent of my little power. Indeed, I did not mean to make you sus pect Lesbia of anything underhand. You misunderstood me there. Dear Pelham, let us be happy this one evening-forget that I vexed you, dear, and let us all be happy together this once. I want so to have one happy evening. we have been sad so very long." She threw her arms round his neck as she spoke, and tried to draw his face down to hers. The muscles of his countenance relaxed, but he held his head rigidly upright.

"You can be unhappy and happy when you please then?"

"No, you uncompromising creature; but to night I could be a little happy if you would let me. I don't know how, but I think some fresh light has come into the house since morning. It won't last long, there is so much to quench it ; but let us bask in it for an hour or two. Someone is thinking kind thoughts of us somewhere to-night, and the warmth of them trembles round us."

"I don't understand such nonsense as that. Shall you?"-(hesitating)"Shall you?"-(with a great effort) — "Are you going to read that letter of Connor's to Miss Maynard?"

"No, that I am not; I shall not think of doing such a thing. Pelham, you may say what you like about my secrecies, I can't defend myself; but one thing you must believe about me-that my secrets are not of that kind that I would ever be a clandestine go-between in the way you are thinking of. not even for Connor."

No,

Then the stiff neck bent, and the kiss of forgiveness was given, with a warmth and tenderness of brotherly affection that Ellen had never before experienced from him.

Decidedly it should be a very happy evening.

The first thing that Lesbia did when Ellen left her alone to put the finishing