coming. The Oxfordshire wolds were getting dim, and the western reaches in the river were getting crimson, when along the valley below a little column of steam fled swiftly, and a little train slid across a bridge, and into a wood, and was gone. Then he arose, and, having made some preparations, went out and watched again.

Not for long. Far across the broad darkening fields his keen sight made out a figure advancing steadily towards him. The footpath crossed the broad fields at different angles, and sometimes the figure was lost behind hedges or outstanding pieces of woodland; but he was sure of its identity, and sure that it was solitary. It was lost to his sight when it entered the denser forest which fringed the base of the hill; but he knew which way it would come, and advanced across the open glade to meet it. He was at the stile when Mrs. Sugden came out from the wood, tired, pale, and dusty, with her walk from Twyford, and she put her arm round his neck, and kissed his cheek.

They fenced a little at first.

James said, "I thought

you would come by that train. I saw it go by, and

watched for you."

"It is a nice train. It's express, you know; but the country gentlemen have made them drop a carriage at Twyford; but there is no third class, and that makes eighteenpence difference, and the money is running so very short. And so you saw the branch train run along, did you? I wouldn't come to Shiplake; the walk is nearly as great, and there's the getting across the river."

And so they fenced, as they were walking together towards their cottage. On this occasion James showed the greater valour, by introducing first the subject nearest to both their hearts. He said, "You must tell me about it."

And she said, "It is all over."

He said, "Not quite, sister. I want to know how he went off. Come. Only one more tooth out, sister. Let me know how the boy went off. Now or never, while the wound is raw and fresh; and then leave the matter alone for ever."

"If you will have it, Jim, he went off very well. Cried a deal; quite as much as you'd expect any boy to cry who believed that he was going to see his mother again in a fortnight. I told him so, God help me!

Sent his love to you; is that any odds? Now it's all over, and I wish to have done with it. You've been a kind and loving brother to me, James, as God knows, and I have been but a poor sister to you. I have worried you from pillar to post, from one home to another, until I thought we had found one here. And now I have to say to my dear, stupid old brother, We must walk once more.' Oh, James, my dear brother! if I could only see you settled with a good wife, now; you have been so faithful and so true, you have given up so much for me."

A very few days afterwards, the steward was standing at his door, in the early dawn, when the Sugdens came towards him, and left the key of their cottage, paying up some trifle of rent. They were expedited for travelling, he noticed, and had large bundles. Their furniture, they told him, had been fetched away by the village broker, and the fixtures would be found all right. In answer to a wondering inquiry as to where they were going, James merely pointed eastward, and very soon after they entered the morning fog, bending under their bundles, and were lost to sight.

CHAPTER XII.

ARTHUR SILCOTE MAKES THE VERY DREADFUL AND

ONLY FIASCO OF HIS LIFE.

For two years there was no change worthy of mention, save that the muddle and untidiness in Lancaster Square grew worse instead of better, and Algernon's health suffered under the hopeless worry, which ever grew more hopeless as time went on.

Dora had grown into a fine creature, pretty at present with the universal prettiness of youth, but threatening to grow too large for any great beauty soon. Reggy had, likewise, grown to be a handsome, but delicatelooking, youth: with regard to the others we need not particularize. The pupils had been succeeded by two fresh ones, one of whom, a bright lad of sixteen, by name Dempster, was staying over the Christmas vaca

tion-his father having returned to India-and supposed himself to be desperately in love with Dora, who received his advances with extreme scorn.

Old Betts was there still, not changed, in the least, to the outward eye. He used to go to the city every day, look into the shops, and come home again; at least, that was all he ever seemed to do: but it turned out afterwards that sometimes some of his old friends would, half in pity, half in contempt, throw into his way some little crumbs in the way of commission. Betts had carefully hoarded these sums, and kept his secret from Algernon, nursing it with great private delight until that morning; but Algernon's worn look had drawn it from him prematurely. He had been accumulating it for years, he told Algy, and there it was. He had meant to have kept it until it was a hundred pounds, and have given it to Algernon on his birthday. But it had come on him that morning that it lay with him to make the difference between a sad Christmas and a merry one; and who was he to interpose a private whim between them and a day's happiness? So there it was, ninety-four pounds odd; and it was full time to start across for church, and the least