He generously ignores the selfish fear of sea-sickness, of personal suffering, which had occupied the fore front of my mind.

"It will be much, much better—a far more sensible plan for both of us," he continues, cheerfully. Where would be the use of exposing you to the discomfort and misery of what you hate most on earth for no possible profit? I shall not be long away, shall be back almost before you realise that I am gone, and meanwhile I should be far happier thinking of you merry and enjoying yourself with your brothers and sisters at Tempest, than I should be seeing you bored and suffering, with no one but me to amuse you-you know, dear-" (smiling pensively), "do not be angry with me, it was no fault of yours; but you did grow rather tired of me at Dresden."

"I did not! I did not!" cry I, bursting into a passion of tears, and asseverating all the more violently because I feel, with

a sting of remorse, that there is a tiny grain of truth--not so large a one as he thinks, but still a grain in his accusations. "It seemed rather quiet at first-I had always been used to such a noisy house, and I missed the boys' chatter a little, perhaps; but indeed, INDEED that was all!"

"Was it? I daresay! I daresay!" he says, soothingly.

'You shall not leave me behind," say I, still weeping with stormy bitterness. "I will not be left behind! What business have you to go without me? Am I to be only a fair-weather wife to you? to go shares in all your pleasant things, and then, -when anything hard or disagreeable comes- to be left out. I tell you" (looking up at him with streaming eyes) "that I will not! I WILL NOT!"

"My darling!" he says, looking most thoroughly concerned-I do not fancy that crying women have formed a large part of

his life experience,-“ you misunderstand me! I will own to you that five minutes ago I did you an injustice; but now I know, I am thoroughly convinced, that you would follow me without a murmur or a sulky look to the world's end-and" (laughing) “be frightfully sea-sick all the way; but" (kindly patting my heaving shoulder) "do you think that I want to be hampered with a little invalid? and supposing that I took you with me, whom should I have to look after things at Tempest, and keep them straight for me against I come home?"

"I know what it is," I cry, passionately clinging round his neck, "you think I do not like you! I see it! twenty times a day, in a hundred things that you do and leave undone but indeed, indeed, you never were more mistaken in all I will own to you that I did not care very much about. you at first. I thought you good and kind

life! your

and excellent, but I was not fond of you; but

now—every day, every hour that I live, I like you better ! Ask Barbara, ask the boys if I do not! I like you ten thousand times better than I did the day I married you!"

"Like me!" he repeats a little dreamily, looking with a strong and bitter yearning into my eyes; then seeing that I am going to asseverate, "for God's sake, child,” he says, hastily, "do not tell me that you love me, for I know it is not true! you can no more help it than I can help caring for you in the idiotic mad way that I do! Perhaps on some blessed far-off day you may be able to say so, and I to believe it, but not now!-not now!"

W

CHAPTER II.

ITH feet as heavy and slowly dragging as those of some unwieldy old person, with drooped

figure, and stained and swollen face, I enter the school-room an hour later to tell my ill

news.

"Enter a young mourner!" says Algy, facetiously, in unkind allusion to the gloom of my appearance, which is perhaps heightened by the black silk gown I wear.

"What is up?" cries Bobby, advancing towards me with an overpowering curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, legible on his burnt face; "what has summoned those