purity of a lily, the grace and tenderness of a child, that one cannot look on without feeling the heart grow warmer and better for the joy it affords to us.

"You have great influence with her, Sieviking," says Siva; won't you use it in my favour? It seems an unmanly sort of thing to ask; but my heart is so set on her that I feel I'd rather get her for my wife unwillingly than any other woman I ever knew with her whole heart."

"Would you? I don't think I could go so far as that. But I'll use any influence I may have with her on your behalf."

"You will!" cries the young fellow, “and at once? She seems better inclined towards me to-night than she has ever been before."

"Then make her better still," I say, drily, as Green Sleeves herself approaches; “and I will do my best for you to-morrow."

CHAPTER VI.

"Or does the wind blow in your glove?
Bowing down, bowing down;

Or runs your mind on another love!
And aye the birks are bowing.";

E left the ball at one, and for the remaining hour or so of night I have lain restlessly tossing to and fro on my bed, with the light wind

that has got up without for com

pany. Stirring the topmost boughs of the cherrytree opposite my window, it sends across my coverlid (for the moon is high) wandering shapes and indistinct outlines of flickering

leaves with now and then a leap, a tongue, a quiver of light between.

As the fantastic dance ceased, and daylight, first faint, then strong and lusty as a young god, grew and filled the heavens with his power, I rose, and, dressing myself, passed noiselessly downward through the quiet breathings of the sleeping household.

But as I passed the door of Green Sleeves' study, that once forbidden me is now always open to me, obeying some odd impulse, I pushed the door open, and went in.

She must have been here not long since; there are signs of her recent presence in the white kid-glove thrown down on the table, in the crimson rose placed in water that last night she wore at her breast, in—but what is this?

A broad sheet of paper lies before me, its whiteness all disfigured by splashes, and stars, and odd blurred shapes . . . tears?

She must have been here but a very little while ago, for the page is wet . . . O! Green Sleeves, what a tear was there! This one fell delicately, hope or memory touched thee, and thy heart slackened, then came a blinding rush that merged a hundred drops in one, and here I think thy head sunk down, and left this confused outline . . . It is a map traced by thy heart's agonies, and yet thou must have wept very silently, else, for I was waking, I must have heard thee.

The child's hurt is more incurable than I

had thought ... to come straight from the scene in which she had taken such delight, to weep alone for him thus; with every pulse set to the bounding joy and exhilaration of the moment, to turn aside, to remember! O! faithful heart . . . wretched as thou art, Ullathorne, one well might envy thee.

How can I talk to her of Siva with this VOL. II.

15

pitiful revelation of her inmost soul in my mind?

And even could I summon the courage, or by harshness persuade her, might I not be doing that which at some future day I should wish to Heaven I could undo?

Through the half-open drawer of the table, something in Green Sleeves' handwriting catches my eye. Before I am well conscious. of the dishonour of the action, the drawer is open, and the manuscript of the child's novel is revealed; a second more, and it is in my hand.

It was only yesterday that I said to her, "Green Sleeves, I think I should like to read that novel of yours."

"It wants such a lot of alteration," she said, turning her head away, "and-and it's dreadful stuff, Mr. Dick, you would only laugh at it."