did, indeed. I told mother your very words, only she would have it that they meant—what we all wished they should mean," he ends, looking very downcast and snubbed and disconsolate.

There is another pause, then Mrs. Brandon rises and puts out her hand to Esther—in farewell this time.

"I'm afraid I've been in too great a hurry, my dear," she says, trying not to speak stiffly, and not succeeding quite so well as she deserved. "But you'll forgive me, I'm sure; you see, mothers are apt to be partial people, and I could not imagine any one trying to love my boy, and not succeeding."

But Miss Craven can never let well alone. She would marry Old Nick himself sooner than that his mother or sister should look askance at her, or seem hurt and grieved with her for expressing any want of relish for him, hoofs and tail and horns and all.

"Oh no, you must not go!" she cries, in her quick, eager way, putting up two anxious hands in deprecation; "you must not be vexed with me; I did not mean to be disagreeable. I shall like very much to belong to you, I'm sure. I was only afraid of your expecting more from me than I had to give yet," she ends, with head drooped a little, and cheeks reddened like a peach's that the sun has been kissing all the afternoon.

The stiffness goes away: nobody can be stiff for long with Esther Craven, any more than a snow-ball can remain a snow-ball under the fire's warm gaze.

"We don't want you to belong to us if you don't wish it yourself," the old woman says, very gravely, yet not ill-naturedly.

"I hardly know what I wish," answers the girl, naïvely, in a sort of bewilderment.

Then they go, and Robert walks off with his old mother on his arm. He would walk down Pall Mall with her in that identical poke bonnet, and the two little dowdy vestals pottering behind in the most perfect unconsciousness and simplicity, even if he were to know that his brother officers, to a man, were looking out at him from the "Rag" windows.

"Oh, my cheeks! my cheeks! will they ever get cool again!" cries Esther, flinging herself down on the oak bench in the porch, and laying her face against the cold ivy leaves.

"You look rather as if you had been poking your countenance between the bars of the kitchen grate," responds Jack, with all a brother's candour. Jack has been dodging behind the laurel bushes, after the 

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