transacted in town, and he went both on my account and on his own. I did not want to go myself; I could not leave the mother; I have not left her since-since our heavy loss."

"He is visiting Mrs. Crosbie, I suppose?"

He went there at first, but he is with the Keppels now, John Keppel, one of Walter's greatest friends, an old schoolfellow and college-chum, has just come back from China. It was partly to see him that Walter went

so much sooner than he had intended."

66

So, then," meditated Hilda, when she was alone that night, "he could not mount Prince,' and that was why he did not call at the Blue House. Still, I wonder that neither Christina nor Agnes mentioned the accident when they wrote. Though I am sure I don't know why they should. What is Walter Braden to me? What is he? He is my friend a friend, too, that I could not well afford to lose. He understands me so well, and in many ways we seem so completely in harmony. Yes, it is the truth, I shall miss him dreadfully, and, perhaps, by the time he returns, I shall be at the Grey House again. Bradenshope is not quite the same without him."

Next morning brought Miss Capel a letter from her friend Mary Sandys-a long one, such as young ladies love to write and to receive from their intimates. There was a good deal of news in it that did not greatly interest Hilda, but suddenly she came upon a passage which at once aroused her: "I have met your friend, Mr. Braden, of Bradenshope, and I like him immensely. He is with the Keppels, as I dare say you know. John Keppel is back from China, or Japan, or somewhere, and people are making a grand lion of him, and getting him to their evening parties. People' say that Mr. Braden and Ada Keppel are engaged. Is it true? Of course you know. I should have thought she was quite too dull and languid to please him; and she has straw-coloured hair, too. I never could take to a woman with hair of that colour. But men often admire their opposites, don't they? Ah! and very often they make sad blunders in this way. It may be only a report, but I have seen them together several times, and Ada seems mightily content."

6

It was a good while before Hilda finished her friend's letter. "Now I understand," she said, slowly. "This is his important business in town, and Miss Ada Keppel is the lady to whom his mother thought he would be soon engaged. I hope she is really good and true, for his sake. He would never be happy with a wife who did not love him for himself alone. Yes, I do hope, with all my heart, he will be very happy in his marriage.'

But in her heart, I am afraid Hilda did not think affectionately of Ada Keppel, whom she had never seen. She had quite a sisterly feeling for Philip Harwood, because he was going to marry dear Emily. She certainly did not feel drawn towards Miss Keppel because she was to marry dear Walter, and yet the cases were identical. That evening Lady Braden said to her daughter Christina, "What ails Hilda ? she is dull and quiet. I am afraid she is hankering after the Blue House."

"She complained of weary headache before dinner, mamma," replied Miss Braden.

"Face to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw herGod, and she, and I only; there I sat down to draw her

Soul through the clefts of confession: 'Speak, I am holding thee fast,

As the angel of resurrection shall do it at the last." "

It was almost Christmas, and Mr. Braden and his sister, Mrs. Crosbie, were expected very shortly. Hilda had become most uneasy at hearing nothing from Mrs. Dorothy, who had proposed being at home again about this time. She was increasingly anxious, too, on Irene's account; altogether, the brightness which had so filled her

spirit during the summer and autumn was considerably overshadowed.

"No news from America," she said rather plaintively one morning when the letters as usual were distributed. "I wish Aunt Dorothy would write; this inexplicable silence is so unlike her; when I was last at the Grey House, her factotum Barnes was in what his wife called a regular quandary,' for want of orders."

"No news is good news,' you know," observed Emily. "Depend upon it, Mrs. Dorothy is doing' America-that is to say, the States-in style, while she has the opportunity; she may be tolerably certain that it will never

She is somewhere in Canada, I believe. Her last letter was from a place called Ottawa, and she had found her friend." Hilda by this time knew something of the quest on which her aunt had gone, and she sympathised mightily with the sentiment which, at her age, could take her across the sea and into another hemisphere.

6

"Ottawa!" exclaimed Agnes; "that sounds like The Spy,' and 'The Last of the Mohicans.' Fancy being at such a distance from home; dur sojourn at Catania was nothing to it. What makes you look so pleased, Emily? Your letter has given you a most becoming colour."

66

Philip is coming," she replied, blushing with shyness and delight; "he will be here to-morrow, and he can stay till after my birthday, and that is more than three weeks to come."

"And some one else is coming, the day after tomorrow!" said Sir Paul, holding up a letter as he spoke. "Walter, and Mary and Crosbie, of course, accompany him, and he has asked John Keppel and Ada to spend Christmas with us, and they accept; we shall have a regular houseful. Christina, you must talk seriously to

Mrs. Maxwell. Walter threatens to accommodate his friends at Arnheim, in case we find ourselves overcrowded; but Bradenshope is wide enough, I trust, to shelter the Keppels, and Philip Harwood, and a good round dozen

more.

"Of course it is, papa; we might entertain the county with a little contrivance. Arnheim is not to be thought

of; it is all sixes and sevens with the improvements, and only imagine Mrs. Bluff's discomfiture! Besides, one of us would have to go and play propriety, on behalf of Ada."

Hilda rose and left the room; fervently, she wished herself back at the Grey House. She was sure she must be de trop with so many guests arriving, and then-she did not know why-but she felt a strange disinclination to meet the yellow-haired Miss Ada Keppel. An hour afterwards, going into Lady Braden's boudoir, she found Christina and her mother holding a cabinet council; Hilda would have retreated, but that both of them called her back: "Do stay, and help us," said Christina, “we are settling about the rooms; there are plenty of them, as you are aware, but we do not want to throw open the north wing in winter time, nor yet the cedar corridor. Should you very much mind taking me in as your room-mate for the few days the Keppels will remain ? Ada could have my room, and John must be content with the bachelor's chamber; that arrangement would keep us all in this part of the house."

"I wanted to tell you," said Hilda, with a little hesitancy, "that I feel quite ashamed of staying on so very long! Aunt Dorothy said three months or four would be the limit of her absence, and it is full five since she went away, and left me under your kind care. I feel sure she never intended to inflict me upon you for so long a period, and all things considered, I begin to think it would only be right for me to go to the Grey House, and look after things a little."

"Nonsense, my dear," replied Lady Braden, looking, as she felt, a little surprised. "The servants at the Grey House do not want supervision. They were to apply to Mr. and Mrs. Arnison if they found themselves in any difficulty; nor can I permit you to be there alone, except it be for a few hours if requisite. Your aunt left you in my charge, and under my wing you must remain till Mrs. Dorothy in person claims you. I hope, my dear, you are not tired of us ? "

"Tired of you! Dear Lady Braden, surely you do not suppose I am so miserably ungrateful; you have made me only too happy, too much at home; but

"But you will stay here as an extra daughter, and be a good girl, and make no excuses of any sort. I cannot spare you yet, nor can Christina; besides, you will very much enjoy Mr. Keppel's society; he is a most superior man, as well as a great traveller. Now, my dear, will you consent to share your room with Christina for a week or so ? "

"Of course I will, and with the utmost pleasure. Christina and I have often wished there was a door between our rooms; have we not, Christina ?"

"That we have! It will be delightful to enjoy our nightly talk without having to go out into the corridor just as the clock strikes twelve, and the wind begins shrieking like a dozen Banshees.'

"At twelve o'clock you ought to be enjoying your beauty-sleep, you naughty girls. No wonder Hilda has looked so pale since she came back from Endlestone. My dear, I hope you are not really fretting at Mrs. Dorothy's silence ?"

"No, I am not fretting, I think, but I am anxious; and then the weather has been so tempestuous of late."

"Nevertheless, no steamer has been lost, nor even delayed; all the mails have come safely to hand. If there had been any missing vessel, the papers would have told us. I dare say we shall hear soon.

And next day the long-expected letter actually arrived, and it was addressed to Lady Braden.

Mrs. Dorothy was quite well, never better; she was delighted with Canada, and did not find it nearly so cold as she had anticipated; but her return was indefinitely postponed.

"I had little difficulty in finding my dear old friend," she wrote; "but I have found him, only to lose him again. He is very ill and feeble, and a voyage for him is quite out of the question; my presence is an indescribable comfort to him, and he has entreated me not to leave him. Before he asked me, I had quite made up my mind to stay with him to the last; it needed no medical opinion to tell me that it was not very far off, for death was on the beloved face that I had not looked upon for so many weary years. We have had one long sad talk over our