have tried again and again to find out where you were from Mr. Menzies, but he would not give me your address; he said he was forbidden."

"So he was," I say.

“There—there, you

can't help being a fine lady, Bell, but never fear that we'll disgrace you. Come to see us, if you please, but don't ask us to go and see you."

"Which is the very thing I was just going to do," says Bell, "but before we begin to talk let us get into the shade "—and there is not much further talk till we find ourselves seated beneath one of those giant trees that would be grand, were its roots not usually infested by some noxious insects that thrive peculiarly well in those parts, and are invariably found in pairs-lovers.

I think we have forgotten how handsome Bell is; or we are so unused to see the beauty

that "goes beautifully" as to hail it with surprise; but certainly since I came to town I seem to have seen no creature so pretty as our Bell.

"This reminds me of Sieviking," she says, meditatively, as she leans, regardless of green smudges, against a tree. "I should have liked to see the dear old place again; but I don't suppose I ever shall now. How was

it that old cat, Aunt Theodosia, or that little cock-sparrow, Uncle Golightly, didn't buy it?"

Their talk drifts by me. I do not hear them. . . . I am back again in my lost home. In my ears is the sound, as in my nostrils is the scent of the wind as it plays hide and seek among the gorse-covered slopes. I hear the chatter of the brook as it runs through the big meadow with its border of mock myrtle and agrimony. I search for, and find, the round

leaved sundew on the boggy bit of ground beyond, and follow the trail of the silver weed, with its flowers soft as velvet, whilc the blue eye of the flax, widely open, is at her post, watching over the slumbers of my favourite Jack-go-to-bed at noon.

In the garden the balsams rear their prim and stately columns, and the arched doorway leading to the espalier walk is one purple blaze of gorgeous passion flowers.

"If Peter and I were not so poor-so dreadfully poor," Bell is saying, "we would have bought it for you; of course, we never thought of such a thing as its going out of the family. You were so quiet over it all; everything was so hurried."

"We had no notion of coming down on our brothers-in-law," I say, shortly; "they provide for two of the family as it is, and I should think they have all their work cut out for them

to do that," I add, with a nod towards her dress.

it.

Bell blushes a little as she glances down at

"One must be clothed," she says, "but girls, where, where in Heaven's name, did you pick up the extraordinary garments you have on? Antiquated I know we always were at Sieviking; I shudder to think of the gown, considered by poor Mrs. Trevelyan a miracle of taste, in whch I stood up to be married to Peter; but never did I walk abroad clad in such a thing as that!"

"It was too short," says Hetty, apologetically, "so Pink May gave me a flounce off one of her skirts to eke it out."

"What! is Pink May with you?" cries Bell.

"If she were not," I say, "we should be in the workhouse or the streets. She houses, feeds, and clothes us, for as yet not one of us,

strong and able-bodied as we are, have been able to earn a penny that we can call our own."

I am not able to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Would to God mine were that virtue so pleasantly made by Hippias to consist of the entire freedom of man from all and every sort of dependence upon his fellow men!

"I knew that you had become poor," says Bell, in a shocked voice. "We are poor

everybody is poor; but I never for a minute imagined it to be anything like this."

She falls to thinking for a minute, twisting between her fingers a sprig of that herb, coralrooted, shamrock-leaved, beloved of the good Fra Angelico, the wood sorrel.

Finally she pulls out a gossamer handkerchief, whence comes a whiff entrancing as if from the very "Boat of Foolish Smells" itself, and wiping an honest tear or two from her eyes, puts it away again with decision.