SMOKING tranquilly in an easy-chair one evening in June, Major Hartwell was roused from the deep and painful reverie into which he had fallen by a step in the hall and a knock on his parlor-door.

"Come!" he said, and a smile lighted up his grave, handsome face, for both step and knock were familiar to him, and if there was any man on earth whom he held near and dear, that man was he who now entered.

"I was beginning to wonder what had become of you, Arthur," stretching out a welcoming hand which Arthur Hazard took in a warm grasp.

"I have been unusually busy," and Arthur threw himself into a chair and took a cigar out of a box on a table near him. "I've been getting ready to leave town for a few weeks and haven't had time to even think of my friends. I shall be glad to have a rest, for I'm completely done up."

"Then you've come to say au revoir ?” "Yes; I'm off to-morrow by the early train. I wish you were going with me, Cyril."

"I can't leave the city now. Besides, I shouldn't enjoy having nothing to do. I haven't taken a vacation since I left the army. Where are you going?"

"To a place called Westholt, down in Buckingham County.",

The major started, and a shadow crept over his facethe shadow of a past sorrow, the memory of which was very painful to him.

"I am going to visit the big man of the place-Squire Drayton," continued Arthur, carelessly. "I made his acquaintance a few months ago by the merest accident. He was pleased to take a fancy to me, and invited me to his place. I think I'm in for a good time, and I mean to improve it. Some one was telling me the other day that the squire had one of the prettiest daughters imaginable.

So you can prepare yourself for anything in the way of news when I come back."

He paused, laughing, and expecting some facetious reply; but Major Hartwell was silent. The shadow had deepened on his face into a look of pain, and the cigar in his hand had gone out.

"What's the matter, Hartwell? You look as if you had seen a ghost. Are you envying me my good luck?" The major recovered himself with a start.

"No; I have no desire to visit Westholt. I shall never go there again."

"Ah! You have been there before me, then ?" "Yes; I was once engaged to be married to Lois Drayton."

"You were? Excuse me, major, if I had known that I would never have spoken as I did; but no hint of anything of the sort has ever reached me."

"No, I suppose not. It all happened three years ago— before I knew you-and people have long since ceased to talk about it here. But you'll be sure to hear the story at Westholt; such an affair as mine isn't easily forgotten in a little place like that."

"Are you willing to tell me about it ?"

"Yes; had I not been, I would not have mentioned it at all. It isn't a very long story, but I think it a very unusual one. I met Lois Drayton when my regiment was stationed near Westholt, and we were engaged for a year. I know she loved me; I have never doubted that, though what followed would have led almost any man to believe her utterly wanting in anything approaching affection. We were to be married on the 10th of October, and the wedding was to be a grand affair. All the Drayton relatives far and near were invited, and the squire had prepared for bonfires, fireworks and general enthusiasm. I went down to Westholt on the morning of the 9th, and

had no fault to find with the welcome I received from Lois. I thought I had never seen her in a happier mood, and we had a long talk about our future, and made all sorts of plans, which I little thought were never to be realized. We spent a very happy afternoon in the great, dusky parlor, and after supper the squire took me out for a long walk, wishing to show me some improvements he had made in drainage and parking. We left Lois in the hall, talking to an old woman who had come to get some medicine for a sick child. I remember that I looked back when I reached the yard and waved my hand to my little girl, thinking how sweet and fair and gentle she looked as she stood listening to the description of the child's illness! Ab, me! I did not dream that I was never to see her again !"

"Never to see her again ?" echoed Arthur Hazard, as his friend paused.

"No; I have never seen her since that evening. When the squire and I returned to the house, a couple of hours later, we found that she had gone to administer the medicine herself to the child, and on reaching home again had retired at once to her room, and had sent for her aunt, Mrs. Andrews, who had taken the place of a mother to her for many years. Mrs. Andrews found her pale and agitated, but she would not explain the cause. She simply wished, she said, to send a message to me. It was that she absolutely refused to marry me. Yes, on the very eve of our wedding she had changed her mind. And she would give no reason for the change, nor would she consent to see me. Her father and aunt reasoned and argued with her in vain. She simply wept and maintained her mysterious silence. And the end of it all was that I left Westholt the next day, together with my best man and the half-dozen bridesmaids. The affair created a great deal of gossip, but no one has ever been able to get to the bottom of it."

"Perhaps Miss Drayton heard something against you," suggested Hazard.

"No, that question was asked her, and she insisted that she had not."

46

And you do not think her merely fickle?" "I know her too well to think that?" "And there was no other lover?"

"No. She had other suitors, of course, but I was the only one for whom she had expressed any regard.” "And she has never given any explanation of her singular action ?"

"Never. I see her father occasionally, and he has repeatedly assured me that she maintains her mysterious silence. They never mention my name to her now. She requested them not to do so."

"I wish, for your sake, I could get at the root of the matter, major. Suppose I try. I will have a good opportunity, you see.”

"You can try, of course. Thank you for your interest. But there is no reason to think you will succeed. No, I must bear my sorrow as best I can. I must not hope, for hope would end only in despair. But I have talked too long about myself. Let us find a more cheerful subject. Tell me about the races yesterday. I heard you were out."

Arthur, who was an enthusiastic lover of horses, began at once an animated description of what had taken place on the race-course the day before, and thus forgot for a time the story he had just heard.

He remembered it, however, when he was in the train the next day, on the way to Westholt, and felt a great curiosity to see the heroine of so peculiar a tale.

Squire Drayton was the richest landed proprietor in

the large and fertile county in which Westholt was situated. His house was a handsome, rambling building, surrounded by trees, and overlooking beautiful gardens, rich pastures and well-tilled fields.

His family consisted of his daughter Lois, a widowed sister and a nephew, the son of his only brother. Arthur liked Lois at once. She was a delicate, refinedlooking girl of about twenty-five years of age, with large, soft brown eyes, an olive complexion, an abundance of chestnut hair, and a lithe and graceful figure; but she was shy and reserved, and talked little, even to her father.

Arthur rather prided himself upon his ability to read character. He thought he understood that of Lois, and the fact that she had been able to keep secret for three years her reason for refusing to marry the man she loved puzzled him very much.

"She does not look like a woman who could keep a secret," he thought. "I should say that she could be frightened into almost anything; she has a weak mouth, and is credulous and timid."

This opinion was strengthened as he became better acquainted with her, and he felt a greater desire than ever to penetrate the mystery which surrounded her broken engagement.

"Perhaps Henry Drayton can help me," he thought. And, with this object in view, he cultivated that young man's acquaintance.

But the squire's nephew proved of a surly, unsociable nature, and showed no disposition to meet Arthur's advances even half-way.

Arthur, at length, concluded to let him severely alone, and turned his attention to Mrs. Andrews, who was a kind, motherly woman, fond of talking, and of a genial, confiding nature.

She had taken a great fancy to Arthur, and he found it easy to draw from her all that she knew or surmised concerning her niece's love affair.

But she could tell him very little, and it was substantially the same as he had heard from the major.

66

Do you think your niece really loved my friend ?" asked Arthur.

"I am sure of it," answered Mrs. Andrews, earnestly, "and she loves him still. I have almost given up all hope that she will ever marry, now. Oh, Lois has changed so much in the past three years! She used to be the life of the house, and now she never opens the piano, never sings, and appears to take very little interest in anything going on about her. She seems to have settled down into a despondent, hopeless state, from which nothing can rouse her. Sometimes I think that any change would be better for her than this continued stagnation. I would even advocate Henry's cause if I thought it would do any good."

"Is her cousin in love with her?" asked Arthur, with a start of surprise.

Yes; he has been in love with her for years, and has asked her half a dozen times to marry him. He was keenly disappointed when she became engaged to Major Hartwell, but bore it much better than I had expected. His wedding-gift to her was as handsome as anything she received, and he could ill afford such a present, for his income is very small, and he is partially dependent on my brother. I think he is still bent on winning her, and probably thinks she will consent to marry him at last from sheer weariness at his persistence. But I think that scarcely possible.'

Arthur no longer wondered that Henry Drayton was surly and reserved. His disappointment had probably