"He will be improved," says Green Sleeves, picking up a cloudberry from her lap, “for he will be five months older.”

"You are in a great hurry to grow old, child."

"I like boys to be boys," she says, gravely. "Now Anak and the twins are bricks, but Lord Siva wants to be grown up, and--"

"He is nearly as old as Ullathorne was when he married Hetty," I say, drily. "But how came he here?"

"We met him at Hetty's," says Pink May, "and there he asked if he might come and have a chat with us about you; so he took our address and wrote it down before everybody."

"I thought Bell and Cynthia would have had a fit," says Green Sleeves, breaking into a peal of laughter; "I believe they prayed he might die before that visit ever came off!"

"And did he faint on the doorstep?" I say,

laughing.

"Anak happened to be sitting on it, in his shirt sleeves, with a jug of beer beside him (it was a very hot day), so he asked Lord Siva to have some, and they were having a very good time indeed when we came down stairs.”

“It was

very unfortunate that Anak should have been at home just then, and on the doorstep," says Pink May, "but luckily I had got a most becoming cap on, and Charolais was quite neat, so it might have been worse."

"We talked about you," says Green Sleeves, "till our breath was gone, and then-he went."

"But he came back," says Pink May, nodding.

"He told us of all your doings abroad," says

Green Sleeves, clasping her hands about her knees, and looking at me thoughtfully, "of how, wherever you went, you were always taken for him—”

"And called by every one the English 'milord,'" interpolates Pink May, "while all the ladies, without exception, were in love with you!"

“Thinking I was Lord Siva,” I say, drily ; "that would have been a compliment indeed if it had been true, which it was not."

"He told us a story," says Pink May, putting her hand to her head, "of some adventure you both had in Milan. I can't recollect it, but I know there was a lady in it. Can you recollect what it was, Charolais?"

"No," she says, intent on her flowers; "it was just like the other stories-somebody took a fancy to Mr. Dick, thinking he was Lord Siva!"

VOL. II.

14

She looks up earnestly enough, but our eyes meet, and are held fast to each other. And now, if I possess Green Sleeves' secret, she also possesses mine.

CHAPTER V.

"The white o' my my love's skin is white
As down o dove or maw;

The red o' my love's cheek is red
As blood that's spilt on snaw."

AN he mean anything?"

"What luck if he does!"

"There is something in the very

name that tempts matrimony. He thought at first she was Miss Sieviking, and the thing was done!"

Thus Bell and Hetty, as Green Sleeves and Siva, the first couple, delicately take the floor before them.