any connection with your family. I shall make inquiries at once into Mrs Tachbrook's history."

"Do what you like. Don't trouble me more than is necessary. I am going to the Channel Islands to-morrow, and will give you an address."

"The Channel Islands!"

"Yes; Sark. You may have heard that, though I am an ancient mariner, I have a couple of young children to look after. My good cousin, Doctor Tachbrook, wanted the young heathens to come to his place; but I wouldn't have him bothered in his old age, so they have been at a boarding-house on Wimbledon Common. But, in answer to an advertisement, I have heard of a Miss Delisle, at Sark, a wonderfully ingenious person, whose mission it is to civilise small pagans."

"At so much a-year?" said Sherwood. "Of course. The labourer is worthy of her hire. Now these two children, who are called Adam and Eve, have lived in the water from infancy. They know nothing except what they have found out for themselves. They are amphibious. They have lived un

clothed till we entered the realms of decorum. They are a couple of superb little animals, and I quite shudder at the notion of educating them. Still, it must be done. Little Adam, you know, may be Sir Adam Tachbrook, if the other fellow turn out a failure."

"I shall be greatly interested in the future development of these children; but what cause have you for sending them to this person at Sark? What do you know about her?"

“I have made full inquiries. She is a lady of about forty, of good family and means, with a special faculty for educating children who have been warped or neglected. There is some romance of disappointment about her early life which has caused her to find for herself an unusual occupation. She seems, from all I hear, to have amazing powers of insight and of control. There are children who are thought stupid, because the exact things they could do well are never given them to do. This is one sort of problem she solves. There are also children who become little rebels for want of sensible treatment: they are either coaxed too much or castigated

too much. She has discovered the via media."

"She must be a remarkable woman," quoth Sherwood.

"So I think. I am going to take these youngsters over from Southampton to-morrow night, with special intent to see her. And, as I know one can get comfortable quarters in that picturesque islet, I shall probably stay there awhile. So, if you have anything important to say, write to Sark; if not, don't." "Good!" said the lawyer, taking his final glass of cool claret. "But don't fall in love

with this eccentric schoolmistress.”

CHAPTER XIX.

AN INSULAR ENCHANTRESS.

"Circae pocula nosti."

ALLEGORY doubtless lies beneath all that Homer tells us, but it is allegory based on actual events. All fiction is based on history, as all language on onomatopoiea. There will never be any adequate explanation of the primeval mythus, yet it is full of suggestion and of moral, and cannot be studied without ample reward. Even to read it backwards is useful now and then. Miss Delisle had read backwards the story of Circe.

Her own early history was not a happy Left an orphan when quite young, she had been taken under the care of a maiden

one.

aunt, who had a fierce temper and a stingy temperament. It was her mother's sister. Both sisters had been in love with Miss Delisle's father, and the lady who lost him. never forgave either of them. Delisle himself was penniless; the sisters were COheiresses to considerable property, but so settled that whichever survived, the other should take the whole, without any provision for children. Hence the orphan girl was wholly dependent on her aunt, who revenged upon her what she considered the misdeeds of her parents. The poor little animal was half starved, made to do menial work, punished for sheer love of cruelty, taught nothing at all. But in time people talked about her treatment, and the rector of the parish heard of it, and gave her persecutor a good lecture. As the aunt was a lady of exemplary piety, she did not venture to rebel against her clergyman's authority. So at about sixteen the girl was sent to a boarding school-of course, a cheap one. When she had been there a year or two, and had learnt all that the mistress could teach, her aunt made an arrangement by which she was to