Her youngest sister, who had married the Burgomaster of Dilburg, Mr Welters, died after a long illness, during which she had been nursed by Aunt Emmy with unexampled care, leaving one son of eighteen, Otto, and a daughter of twelve, Emmy. Amongst the crowd of nephews and nieces in whose possession she rejoiced, little Emmy was Aunt Emmy's pet child. It seemed to the old aunt that she had attained the summit of happiness when she was able to take Emmy to live with her; when, with all the warmth of her loving heart, she could dedicate her life to the care and education of her favourite niece; and when at last she had a duty which bound her to her own home, and she would no longer be the common property of her relatives.

And Emmy loved her good old aunt as a mother; and indeed, during the last two years, when her aunt was weak and ill, Emmy had nursed her with the hearty affection of a daughter, and as a daughter had wept at her death-bed, when, a few weeks ago, Aunt Emmy had gone to her rest.

But in those six years great changes had taken place in her father's house. Emmy had been two years with her aunt when the news came that her father was about to marry widow De Graaff.

The widow had three children, two daughters and a son. Elizabeth de Graaff, the youngest, in former times had been a playfellow of Emmy's, and was only a year or two younger than herself; the son had been a schoolfellow of Emmy's brother, Otto, with whom he had formerly lived in obstinate enmity, as Emmy still clearly remembered. Of the eldest daughter, who was then quite grown-up, she had only a faint recollection.

Thus they were now all brothers and sisters, at least in name-Mina, William, and Elizabeth de Graaff, and

Otto Welters and his sister Emmy. Of the new members of the family, Emmy had since seen nothing. Her father came twice a year to Amsterdam on business, and at the same time paid a visit to his sister-in-law and his little daughter; and her brother Otto, who had studied at Leyden with a view to becoming an advocate, gave up a few days of each vacation as an offering to his little sister, for the quiet home of the old aunt had very little further attraction for him.

Every year, on New Year's Day, Emmy sent her stepmother her good wishes, accompanied by a piece of needlework as a present; and every year her letter was courteously answered by Mrs Welters, with the addition of the greetings of Mina and William, and a short note from the little Elizabeth in school-girl language.

Four years previous to Emmy's actual return, a plan had been formed for Emmy to pay a visit to her father; but, from various causes, nothing came of this plan for the first two years, and in the last two the illness and helplessness of her aunt made Emmy's going from home impossible. She called it going from home, for in Emmy's thoughts the house of her aunt was the home to which she was attached by the strong bonds of gratitude and love. Latterly, when her aunt was bedridden, she had frequently, in the long, silent, solitary evenings, thought, in spite of herself, with longing interest of her parental home. She endeavoured to picture to herself home-life in the midst of her brothers and sisters-a life which she embellished in her mind with all the glow of youth and imagination, and where the shadow-side found no place. She was not the less grieved, however, when her aunt died; but when her first tears were dried, she turned her thoughts

hopefully to her real home, her father's house, where was her natural position. Emmy thought over all these things whilst she was sitting in the corner of the railway carriage. It was an old servant of her aunt who had brought her to the train, and had uttered the heartfelt adieu which we have heard him speak.

'Is mademoiselle also going to Arnheim?'

With these words, Emmy was disturbed in her meditations by a stout lady who sat opposite her, and who, for fear of not having time enough at Arnheim to get all her things together, kept tightly grasped in her hands her umbrella, parasol, and travelling-bag.

'Are you quite certain that this is the train to Arnheim?' she suddenly added, with an expression of much anxiety in her countenance. Emmy tranquillised her, and at the same time met the amused glance of a young man who was looking at her with rude persistence. The Englishman, also, in the other corner, with red whiskers and the inevitable Murray in his hand, let his book fall, and stuck his eyeglass in the corner of his left eye, that he might look at her at his ease when she should turn towards him.

And true enough Emmy Welters was well worth looking at, as she sat there in her simple but tasteful dress. A beauty in the strict sense of the word she was not. She had clear blue eyes and pretty fair hair, which, cropped short, waved in natural curls all over her head, on which her little round black hat sat most becomingly.

The dark mourning dress which she wore, and which set off still more the delicate whiteness of her complexion, gave her so attractive an appearance that one forgot to remark that her mouth was large, and that her nose, which was intended to be Grecian, had grown in a

different direction. But the dimple in her cheek, and the bloom of youth which was spread over her countenance, compensated for the irregularity of her features. Yes, if a good exterior is a letter of recommendation to the world, Emmy Welters entered it well recommended. But the world she was about to enter was not a great one-the world of the provincial town of Dilburg, of which her father was burgomaster; a little town-like most little towns-where all human passions whirl round in a small circle; where the young doctor is the deadly enemy of the old doctor; where the orthodox preacher does not think his more modern fellow-clergyman worthy of a bow; a little town where an engagement, a marriage, or a death is an interesting event which keeps all minds for whole days in a state of conjecture; where any accident is treated as an animated subject of conversation; a little town where much good is done to the poor and suffering, but where a great deal of evil is spoken, and where every inhabitant is inspired with the conviction that one might look through the world in vain for a more perfect town than the said little town of Dilburg.

At Arnheim, Emmy helped the stout lady and her possessions out of the train, not sorry to be quit of one who seemed to carry with her the conviction that she should be somehow or other lost between Amsterdam and Arnheim; that the train, instead of pursuing its way straight to Arnheim, as was its duty, would allow itself to make a little excursion to Rotterdam or elsewhere; or that the station to which she was bound would, in an unguarded moment, escape her observation. At each stoppage she put her head out to ask this or that person within reach of her voice whether this was Arnheim, or whether the train was really going to Aruheim, at which

town she at last arrived safely, not a little fatigued and heated by the anxiety she had endured.

Here, too, both the gentlemen left the carriage, so that Emmy was alone and could indulge in her own thoughts undisturbed during the rest of her journey to Dilburg. The nearer she came, the more cheerfully her heart beat. In vain, however, she looked out for any place which she had known in the days of her childhood. Where the canal-boat and diligence had held their undisturbed sway, the railway train, with its seven-leagued boots, now rushed through the country. Here it had cut an estate in two; here it had felled half a wood; here it had swallowed up an old castle; here it had separated a meadow or corn-field from the farm-sacrifices all made more or less willingly to swift locomotion. All these changes quite broke off the chain of Emmy's recollections, so that the town of her destination was in sight when she fancied it was still distant by half an hour. The train had hardly stopped when she jumped lightly out of the carriage and gave a searching look round.

On the platform there were very few persons, and hardly a single passenger got out of the train except herself, so that Otto Welters had very little difficulty in finding his sister.

And Emmy had immediately caught sight of him, for Otto was one of those men whom you could recognise out of a thousand. He was more than ordinarily tall, and the spareness of his figure made his height more striking. He had, moreover, a long thin neck, on which rested a small, almost too small, head. He had light brown curly hair and the same blue eyes as his sister Emmy, but his were shaded by spectacles, which still further increased the peculiarity of his exterior; and