before him, and behind him a great and lonely wall of crumbling slate; and, whenever she had time, she used to walk with her sister across from Eglosilyan by the high-lying downs until they reached this little indentation in the coast where a curve of yellow sand was visible far below. If this poor fellow and his donkeys were to be seen from the summit, the two girls had little fear of the fatigue of descending the path down the side of the steep cliff; and the object of their visit used to be highly pleased and flattered by their coming to chat with him for a few minutes. He would hasten the filling of his bags so as to ascend again with them, and, in a strange tongue that even the two Cornish-born girls could not always understand, he would talk to them of the merits of his favourite donkeys, of their willingness, and strength, and docility. They never took him any tracts; they never uttered a word of condolence or sympathy. Their visit was merely of the nature of a friendly call; but it was a mark of attention and kindliness that gave the man something pleasant to think of for days thereafter.

Now, on one of these occasions, Mr. Roscorla went with Wenna and her sister; and although he did not at all see the use of going down this precipitous cliff for the mere purpose of toiling up again, he was not going to confess that he dreaded the fatigue of it. Moreover, this was another mission of charity; and, although he had not called again on Mr. Keam-although, in fact, he had inwardly vowed that the prayers of a thousand angels would not induce him again to visit Mr. Keam-he was anxious that Wenna should believe that he still remained her pupil. So, with a good grace, he went down the tortuous pathway to the desolate little bay where the sand-carrier was at work. He stood and looked at the sea while Wenna chatted with her acquaintance; he studied the rigging of the distant ships; he watched the choughs and daws flying about the face of the rocks; he drew figures on the sand with the point of his cane, and wondered whether he would be back in good time for luncheon if this garrulous hunchback jabbered in his guttural way for another hour. Then he had the pleasure of climbing up the cliff again, with a whole troop of donkeys going before him in Indian file up the narrow and zig-zag path, and at last he reached the summit. His second effort in the way of charity had been accomplished.

He proposed that the young ladies should sit down to rest for a few minutes, after the donkeys and their driver had departed; and accordingly the three strangers chose a block of slate for a seat, with the warm grass for a footstool, and all around them the beauty of an August morning. The sea was ruffled into a dark blue where it neared the horizon; but closer at hand it was pale and still. The sun was hot on the bleak pasture-land. There was a scent of fern and wild thyme in the air.

"By the way, Wenna," said Mr. Roscorla, "I wonder you have never asked me why I have not yet got you an engaged ring."

"Wenna does not want an engaged ring," said Miss Mabyn, sharply. They are not worn now."

This audacious perversion of fact on the part of the self-willed young beauty was in reality a sort of cry of despair. If Mr. Roscorla had not yet spoken of a ring to Wenna, Mabyn had; and Mabyn had besought of her sister not to accept this symbol of hopeless captivity.

"Oh, Wenna," she had said, "if you take a ring from him, I shall look on you as carried away from us for ever."

"Nonsense, Mabyn," the elder sister had said. "The ring is of no importance; it is the word you have spoken that is."

"Oh no, it isn't," Mabyn said earnestly. "As long as you don't wear a ring, Wenna, I still fancy I shall get you back from him; and you may say what you like, but you are far too good for him."

66

Mabyn, you are a disobedient child," the elder sister said, stopping the argument with a kiss, and not caring to raise a quarrel.

Well, when Mr. Roscorla was suddenly confronted by this statement, he was startled; but he inwardly resolved that, as soon as he and Wenna were married, he would soon bring Miss Mabyn's interference in their affairs to an end. At present he merely said, mildly—

"I was not aware that engaged rings were no longer worn. However, if that be so, it is no reason why we should discontinue a good old custom; and I have put off getting you one, Wenna, because I knew I had to go to London soon. I find now I must go on Monday next; and so I want you to tell me what sort of stones you like best in a ring."

"I am sure I don't know," Wenna said, humbly and dutifully. "I am sure to like whatever you choose."

"But what do you prefer yourself?" he again said.

Wenna hesitated, but Miss Mabyn did not. She was prepared for the crisis. She had foreseen it.

"Oh, Mr. Roscorla," she said (and you would not have fancied there was any guile or malice in that young and pretty face, with its tender blue eyes and its proud and sweet mouth), "don't you know that Wenna likes emeralds ?"

Mr. Roscorla was very near telling the younger sister to mind her own business; but he was afraid. He only said, in a stiff way, to his

betrothed

"Do you like emeralds ?"

"I think they are very pretty," Wenna replied, meekly. "I am sure I shall like any ring you choose."

Oh, very well," said he, rather discontented that she would show no preference. "I shall get you an emerald ring."

When she heard this decision, the heart of Mabyn Rosewarne was filled with an unholy joy. This was the rhyme that was running through

her head :—:

Oh, green's forsaken,
And yellow's forsworn,

And blue's the sweetest
Colour that's worn!

Wenna was saved to her now. How could any two people marry who had engaged themselves with an emerald ring? There was a great deal of what might be called natural religion in this young lady, to distinguish it from that which she had been taught on Sunday forenoons and at her mother's knee a belief in occult influences ruling the earth, unnameable, undefinable, but ever present and ever active. If fairly challenged, she might have scrupled to say that she believed in Browneys, or the Small People, or in any one of the thousand superstitions of the Cornish. peasantry. But she faithfully observed these superstitions. If her less heedful sister put a cut loaf upside down on the plate, Mabyn would instantly right it, and say "Oh, Wenna!" as if her sister had forgotten that that simple act meant that some ship was in sore distress. If Wenna laughed at any of these fancies, Mabyn said nothing; but all the same she was convinced in her own mind that things happened to people in a strange fashion, and in accordance with omens that might have been remarked. She knew that if Mr. Roscorla gave Wenna a ring of emeralds, Mr. Roscorla would never marry her.

One thing puzzled her, however. Which of the two was to be the forsaken ? Was it Wenna or Mr. Roscorla who would break this engagement that the younger sister had set her heart against? Well, she would not have been sorry if Mr. Roscorla were the guilty party, except in so far as some humiliation might thereby fall on Wenna. But the more she thought of the matter, the more she was convinced that Mr. Roscorla was aware he had the best of the bargain, and was not at all likely to seek to escape from it. It was he who must be forsaken; and she had no pity for him. What right had an old man to come and try to carry off her sister— her sister whose lover ought to be "young and beautiful like a prince"? Mabyn kept repeating the lines to herself all the time they walked homewards; and if Wenna had asked her a question just then, the chances are she would have answered

Oh, green's forsaken,
And yellow's forsworn,
And blue's the sweetest
Colour that's worn!

But Wenna was otherwise engaged during this homeward walk. Mr. Roscorla, having resolved to go to London, thought he might as well have that little matter about Harry Trelyon cleared up before he went. He had got all the good out of it possible, by nursing whatever unquiet suspicions it provoked, and trying to persuade himself that as he was in some measure jealous he must in some measure be in love. But he had not the courage to take these suspicions with him to London; they were not pleasant travelling companions.

"I wonder," he said, in rather a nervous way, "whether I shall see young Trelyon in London."

Wenna was not at all disturbed by the mention of the name. She only said, with a smile—

"It is a big place to seek any one in.”

"You know he is there?"

"Oh yes," she answered directly.

"It is odd that you should know, for he has not told any one up at Trelyon Hall; in fact, no one appears to have heard anything about him but yourself."

"How very silly of him," Wenna said, "to be so thoughtless! Doesn't his mother know? Do you think she would like to know ?"

"Well," said he, with marked coldness, "doubtless she would be surprised at his having communicated with you in preference to any one else."

Wenna's soft dark eyes were turned up to his face with a sudden look of astonishment. He had never spoken to her in this way before. She could not understand. And then she said, very quickly, and with a sudden flush of colour to the pale face

"Oh! but this letter is only about the dog. I will show it to you. I have it in my pocket."

She took out the letter and handed it to him; and he might have seen that her hand trembled. She was very much perturbed-she scarcely knew why. But there was something in his manner that had almost frightened her-something distant, and harsh, and suspicious; and surely she had done no wrong?

He smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper, and a contemptuous smile passed over his face.

"He writes with more care to you than to other people; but I can't say much for his handwriting at the best."

Wenna coloured, and said nothing; but Mabyn remarked, rather warmly

"I don't think a man need try to write like a dancing-master, if he means what he says, and can tell you that frankly."

Mr. Roscorla did not heed this remarkably incoherent speech, for he was reading the letter, which ran as follows:

"Nolans's Hotel, London, July 30, 18—.

"Dear Miss Rosewarne,-I know you would like to have Rock, and he's no good at all as a retreaver, and I've written to Luke to take him down to you at the Inn, and I shall be very pleased if you will accept him as a present from me. Either Luke or your father will tell you how to feed him; and I am sure you will be kind to him, and not chain him up, and give him plenty of exersise. I hope you are all well at the Inn, and that Mabyn's pigeons have not flowne away Tell her not to forget the piece of looking-glass.

"Yours faithfully,

"HARRY TRELYON.

"P.S.-I met Joshua Keam quite by accident yesterday. He asked for you most kindly. His leg has been ampitated at last.”

Here was nothing at which a jealous lover might grumble. Mr. Roscorla handed back the letter with scarcely a word, leaving Wenna to puzzle over what had happened to make him look at her in that strange way. As for Miss Mabyn, that young lady would say nothing to hurt her sister's feelings; but she said many a bitter thing to herself about the character of a gentleman who would read another gentleman's letter, particularly when the former was an elderly gentleman and the latter a young one, and most of all when the young gentleman had been writing to a girl, and that girl her sister Wenna. "But green's forsaken," Mabyn said to herself, as if there was great comfort in that reflection"green's forsaken, and yellow's forsworn."

And so Mr. Roscorla was going away from Eglosilyan for a time, and Wenna would be left alone. As almost every day now brought her a new and strange experience, she was not surprised that this change of circumstances should set her thinking afresh. She would have to write to him; and the letters of people engaged to each other ought to be affectionate. Hitherto Wenna's letters to her lover had been of a remarkably simple and business-like character, chiefly answering questions of his as to the hour at which he might come down to the Inn. She did not quite like the idea of having to write long letters to him at a distance.

Would their parting be very painful? Ought she to feel grieved when he went away? She hoped that other people would be present, and that Mr. Roscorla would treat his going away as a mere matter of course.

Certainly, if this brief separation promised to afflict her grievously, it had not that effect in the meantime; for once she had gone over the matter in her mind, and sketched out, as was her wont, all that she ought to do, she quickly recovered her cheerfulness, and was in very good spirits indeed when the small party reached Eglosilyan. And here was a small and sunburnt boy-Master Pentecost Luke, in fact—waiting for her right in the middle of the road in front of the Inn, whom she caught up, and kissed, and scolded all at once.

"Whatever are you doing down here, sir, all by yourself?"

"I have tum to see you," the small boy said, in no way frightened or abashed by her rough usage of him.

"And so you want Mr. Trelyon to ride over you again, do you? Haven't I told you never to come here without some of your brothers and sisters? Well, say How do you do?' to the gentleman. Don't you know Penny Luke, Mr. Roscorla ? "

"I believe I have that honour," said Mr. Roscorla, with a smile, but not at all pleased to be kept in the middle of the road chattering to a cottager's child.

Miss Wenna presently showed that she was a well-built and active young woman, by swinging Master Penny up, and perching him on her shoulder, in which fashion she carried him into the Inn.

"Penny is a great friend of mine," she said to Mr. Roscorla, who would not himself have attempted that feat of skill and dexterity, "and