he assented, and both of them set to work exhorting and encouraging her to eat, as if they feared she might drop under the table with exhaustion unless she could be persuaded to eat of everything on the table.

Mr. Etheridge seemed to place great faith in the old port as a restorative, and had some difficulty in concealing his disappointment when Stella, after sipping the first glass, declined any more on the score that it was strong.

At last, but with visible reluctance, he accepted her assertion that she was rescued from any chance of starvation, and Mrs. Penfold cleared the table and left them alone.

[8]

[8]

A lamp stood on the table, but the moonbeams poured in through the window, and instinctively Stella drew near the window.

"What a lovely place it is, uncle!" she said.

He did not answer, he was watching her musingly, as she leant against the edge of the wall.

"You must be very happy here."

"Yes," he murmured, dreamily. "Yes, and you think you will be, Stella."

"Ah, yes," she answered, in a low voice, and with a low sigh. "Happier than I can say."

"You will not feel it lonely, shut up with an old man, a dreamer, who has parted with the world and almost forgotten it?"

"No, no! a thousand times no!" was the reply.

He wandered to the fireplace and took up his pipe, but with a sudden glance at her laid it down again. Slight as was the action she saw it, and with the graceful, lithe movement which he had noticed, she glided across the room and took up the pipe.

"You were going to smoke, uncle."

"No, no," he said, eagerly. "No, a mere habit——"

She interrupted him with a smile, and filled the pipe for him with her taper little fingers, and gave it to him.

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