Amy and Flora will require an instructress for some years, no doubt, but I do not anticipate taxing either your or my own patience to this greater extent. I would wish to discharge my duty to Alice, feeling, as I do, that so much of the pleasure and comfort of her future life may depend on the present cultivation of her several powers. Till then, I would ask you to trust my love, feeling that we may more confidently look for God's blessing on our union, if we first fulfil the duty which lies in our pathway."

Edith did not even to Edward Leslie confide one great object she had in view in deferring her marriage till the period she named; by that time, Herbert's three years at Oxford would be drawing to a close, and if she resigned her post before, how could his expenses there be paid? When he left college, she trusted that, with his abilities, he might make some arrangement which would at least partially support him; perhaps he might, with some good parish priest, learn the practical duties of a minister, and undertake the tuition of his children as a compensation. Her little fund, which had increased by her savings, would afford him thirty pounds for other expenses,

and thus, with economy, she pictured to herself that he might manage comfortably till he took orders, when, with a curacy, he would be "passing rich upon at least one hundred pounds a year. Edith did not doubt Edward Leslie's kindness and generosity, or that if he knew these details he would offer assistance from his means for her brother; indeed he had delicately hinted at this subject already, but Edith wished the two beings now dearest to her on earth to be real friends and brothers in affection as well as in name, and for that purpose she would never let Herbert be placed under any pecuniary obligation to her future. husband, nor let the latter feel crippled by the bounty he was bestowing on the relative of his affianced wife.

More than this, Edith knew that Edward Leslie's income was very moderate, as he received now no addition to his pay from his uncle; and any superfluity had, she also knew, for many years, been appropriated to the assistance of his cousin's large and straitened family, who was still an outcast from her father's home and hearth. To be the means of depriving her of help, by transferring it to one for whom other

ways of support were open, was out of the question, and an idea which Edith could not entertain for a moment.

The coldness which had sprung up between Sir Henry Leslie and his nephew, when he first discovered Edward's correspondence with his cousin, had, during the several years that had since elapsed, much increased through the misrepresentations and manoeuvres of some intriguing connexions who now surrounded the old man, and used every effort, and hitherto most successfully, to keep his high-minded nephew away from him. Edward had made a point of calling on his uncle whenever he was in town, but frequently found him out or unable to receive him, and even when he had succeeded in obtaining admittance to his aged relative, it was only under constraint, in the presence of those who, in his now infirm state and weakened intellects, coerced and controlled the once proud and haughty man, for their own selfish gains and purposes. Personal interviews were, therefore, both unsatisfactory and useless; but Edward was anxious to keep up some communication with Sir Henry, in the hope that he might yet turn his heart to his child on this side of the

grave, which he must now be fast approaching, and for this purpose, occasionally wrote to him; but he had, during the last two years, been neither admitted to his presence nor received any answers to his letters. The sharks were waiting for their prey, and resolved not to lose it by any want of watchfulness or clever artifice on their part.

THE spring following his engagement to Edith Howard, Edward Leslie's regiment was ordered on foreign service, war having broken out afresh at the Cape; and, as he had frequently given up his leave on former occasions, to oblige his brother officers, he found no difficulty now in making an arrangement, which would leave him his last month in England at his own command. He soon received an invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt to pass it at Langley Park, where he shortly after arrived.

66

Well, Edith, I acquiesce in your views of duty," said he, as they were conversing on his