cast a wistful look towards the other hill, where, surrounded by its ancient woods, lay embosomed the dwelling of Miss Olive Bellairs--the lady of Casterwell Manor. The soul of this hapless lover was full of regret in that he was not the occupant of Mr. Dimbal's fly, and he sighed as he mastered his feelings, in subservience to the exigencies of social intercourse--a necessity for the moment, but one by no means to his taste.

Meanwhile the fly--the tortoise to the Aldean hare--crawled doggedly along the dusty road. Mr. Dimbal, with a complacent smile on his rosy face, and his black bag established safely on his knees, glanced absently out of the window. Through incessant clouds of dust he caught glimpses of the flowering hedges, and now and again behind them of the corn waving in the hot wind. Then a cottage or so with its thatched roof and tiny garden marked the proximity to the village, and soon he was rumbling through Casterwell High Street. At last the avenue leading to the Manor House came in sight, and, as his eye rested on the mansion, Mr. Dimbal heaved a sigh of relief to think that he was at his journey's end. Three hours of continuous travelling on a hot midsummer day are not exactly the height of bliss to a comfortable elderly gentleman.

The house was typical of its kind. Here were diamond-paned casements, tall oriel windows, lofty-tiled roofs surmounted by stacks of twisting chimneys, terraces of grey stone with urns and statues--in fact, all and everything which we are accustomed to associate with the conventional old English manor-house.

The whole place was radiant with roses. The walls of the house were draped with them; they clambered over the balustrades of the terraces; they flamed in the wide-mouthed urns; they clothed the antique statues, and rioted round the lawn in prodigal profusion, dazzling the eye with their glorious tints, and filling the air with their perfume. "A dwelling fit for Flora, truly"--it was an unusual flight of fancy for Dimbal, but he gave way to it even as he stepped from out his dusty old fly. He raised his eyes, and lo! the "lady of flowers" was waiting to greet him. In truth she was comely enough, this young woman, for the most beautiful of goddesses. Not an ideal Venus perhaps, or an imperial Juno, but an eminently healthy and withal dainty goddess of spring was Olive Bellairs--a trifle reminiscent maybe of Hebe, the girlish and ever young.

Neither divinely tall nor unduly slender, her figure was neatness exemplified. Her hair was brown, so were her eyes; while, did you seek to compare her complexion, you must 

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