up hunting, especially after what has passed between you and Sir Harry.'

'Nothing has passed between me and Sir Harry,' said Thomasina stoutly.

Well, well, Thomasina, you know what I mean. People will talk about young ladies in the hunting field, and if you do not ride. with him, it may be with less fit company. I wonder that you can bear to go out now that your poor father has been obliged to put down his hunters.'

'As neither of my horses are up to his weight, we should only be companions in misfortune and vex Sir Richard if I stayed at home,' said Thomasina.

'One comfort is that Sir Richard himself admits that he shall not go out after this winter; he is quite too old for it now.'

'What a very odd piece of comfort!' rejoined Thomasina. It is only when you are here that he is ever reminded of his age, and

I am glad to believe that Sir Richard will enjoy going out with me, soberly of course, for some winters to come.'

It was with such amenities as these that the aunt and niece parted. Sir Richard came in to say that the carriage was ready, and, while he accompanied his sister to the door, Thomasina executed a pirouette round the room with an animation on which the Bertram ancestors seemed to look down from their picture-frames with grim amazement. She was still breathless when Sir Richard returned.

'Well, grandfather, how do you feel? I am ever so much better since I heard the gravel crunching under the carriage wheels and knew that she was really off.'

'It is quite right that she should come once a year,' said Sir Richard, 'but I am never when the visit is over, and I do not sorry

think that your aunt's tongue grows smoother

with years. For one thing, I believe that she used to say a good many disagreeable things to your poor granny, and now they all fall to my share.'

And to mine, grandfather; do not suppose that I am spared. What a nice, comfortable dinner we shall have this evening, and how much better-tempered all the servants will be!'

They do say,' observed Sir Richard, in a meditative tone, that she had a bad time of it with Robert Grey, but I should think that she gave him as good as she got. There is no denying that she is an aggravating woman, and the confounded part of it is that what says is so apt to come true.'

she

She said or thought that I was going to

have Sir Harry, and that will not come true

at any rate,' said Thomasina.

to ride this afternoon, and I

It is too late

will go for a

wander in the park, to satisfy myself that I am once more a free woman.'

The year was now far advanced. The hazel coppices were nearly leafless, and the elms were grey and thinly clad, but great masses of golden-brown leaves still clung to the beechtrees, and the fading fronds of bracken streaked the ground with russet. Thomasina walked through the rustling leaves with an alert step, startling the hares from their forms, and starting herself at the whirr of a cock pheasant as he flew heavily from his perch on some branch which overhung the path. She reached a knoll which overlooked the wildest and most broken ground in the park, now glorified by the autumn sunshine, which lighted up the great boles of scattered trees and threw their long shadows across the turf. Thomasina threw herself down on the elastic couch formed by the withered bloom of the heather, and looked around with keen enjoy

ment of the scene, although her mood had changed since she left the house, and her spirits were in a state of flutter and excitement for which she could scarcely account. She was possessed by that imperious craving for positive happiness which so often consumes the heart of youth. In middle age we learn to limit our aspirations, not perhaps more easy of attainment, to some little respite from the sordid, wasting cares which stifle the growth of spiritual and intellectual life, and in old age we are apt to return to the unreasoning carelessness of youth, and neither hanker after the past nor look forward to the future. But the young, with their pulses full of life and their hearts as yet unchilled by disappointment and shortcomings, fret against every obstacle which besets the path to their ideal of happiness, and cannot rest satisfied with its imperfect attainment.