was no need for her to clothe them with words that they might stand out more distinctly yet, and gain fresh power to wound her.

She lay quiet a long time, and when she opened her eyes again, Ruth was prepared to start a fresh subject of conversation, and had made a strong resolution to avoid the vexed Meyer question for the future.

She had brought her mother into very comfortable chat about Caroline's pretty looks, and was skilfully leading on to one of those confidential talks respecting her early married life, in which Mrs. Brandon sometimes forgot present sorrow, when the sound of a deliberate firm step on the stairs caused a little electric thrill to pass through the room, and startled everyone into an attitude of preparation. Mrs. Brandon drew her hand away from between Ruth's two; Ruth jumped up and restored the stool to its proper place near the fire; Susan hid her story-book in a basket of plain-work; the children's talking and laughter

subsided lower and lower, and at last went out altogether, as the door opened quietly and admitted the mistress of the house, Miss Harriet Earle, and something else with her, an indefinable something which, somehow or other, always went into and came out from every company, into which she went and came. It was felt by everyone, this mysterious accompanying atmosphere; but none knew its full weight and pressure so entirely as the widowed sister and the orphan children, whom Miss Earle had taken into her home. For them, it came in with her, but it did not so surely always go out again. The chairs and the tables, the carpet and the ceiling, the very walls of the house, had absorbed some of it, and breathed out "Miss Harriet Earle" distinctly enough to keep a very wholesome check on the spirits of the inmates even in her absence.

She came in quietly, and there was nothing formidable in her outward appearance to account for the instant change her entrance

caused. The figure that entered the room was that of a thin, middle-aged lady, faultlessly neat, with the regular-featured fair face, and dark-fringed, blue eyes, which appeared to have been the birthright of the Earles ever since the family had begun to have their pictures taken.

Mrs. Brandon and Ruth, each with very different eyes, looked anxiously at Miss Earle's face as she approached the light, to see if any additional upward-wrinkling of the brow or down-drawing of the mouth betokened that Tom's presumptuous conduct in bringing Harry Meyer to the house had come to light. The penetration of both was at fault; the close-shut mouth told only that a dignified silence and reserve was the line of conduct determined on for the evening, and they knew that if it were merely a calm before a storm they must wait to know on whom the tempest would fall, till the thundercloud was fully brewed.

Ruth was satisfied with the present respite, but Mrs. Brandon lay back on her sofa and listened through the silence, to her sister's step about the room, and to the sharp click of the cups and saucers as she prepared the tea, with a sick heart and quivering nerves.

When the tea was made, it was time to begin to consult the clock anxiously, and to wonder, as every five minutes stole away, whether or not, Frederick would be very late again this evening.

The moments passed, and he did not make his appearance; the tea-equipage was finally dismissed, and the children resumed their work and their books. Ruth thought she knew quite well what sort of an evening they were going to have. She saw spread out before her the slow hours until bed-time, passed with the feeling of sitting in a cold, clinging, grey mist. The chance of any event arising to change the prospect appeared much too improbable to be thought of.

For once in her life, however, she was to have an experience in the occurrence of unforeseen possibilities. Before the children had been sent to bed there came a loud knock at the door, not at all like the hesitating single rap which was all Fred ventured on when he knew he was late. Mrs. Brandon and the children looked up curiously, Miss Earle left off counting the rows in her knitting, there was a minute's talk at the door, the sound of steps was heard coming down the hall; then the door was thrown wide open, and a tall man in a rough coat stood for a moment in the doorway, shading his eyes with his hands, and looking eagerly in, as if to make sure of the identity of the inmates of the room before he entered.

When his eyes were sufficiently accustomed to the light to see the inquisitive young faces that were turned to him, and to recognise Miss Earle's stately figure preparing to rise from her chair, which had its back