The invalid lady is Mrs. Dargan herself, the mistress of the house, and all Kate's preconceived notions as to the fractiousness and general habits of self pity which are the portions of invalid ladies, vanish at sight of her. A bright-faced brunette with a smiling mouth, and eyes that match that mouth fairly, with a clear, ringing, healthy happy voice, and a hearty genial air of being glad that she herself and everybody about her is alive. Her face is a trifle pale, as is only natural considering that her only exercise for the last eight months has been to be wheeled about in this chair. But there is no suspicion of sickliness or weariness about her.

"I wonder that anything so fresh and young as you are consented to come and seclude yourself in these solitudes with a woman who might have been a poor paralytic, or a peevish hypochondriac, for anything you knew to the contrary," she says to Kate. "I'm the victim-only the temporary victim I hope-of an accident. My right arm and right leg were badly broken some months since, so I can neither walk nor write; are you relieved?

"Infinitely," Kate says promptly. Then she laughs a little confusedly and adds,

"Perhaps for me it would have been better if you had been a peevish hypochondriac, for then I shouldn't have been interested away from my work by you. I should have done irksome duty stolid ly, and gone to my business for pleasure. Now with you

"What is your work?" Mrs. Durgan interrupts with quick, curious sympathy; and when Kate tells her, she says,

"I believe I know someone who knows you, Miss Mervyn; I believe-—”

She pauses, and Kate asks, "In what?"

"In Fate, Destiny, in-in-oh! in there being something very strange in store for us all; and in turn you must believe that whatever happens to any of us, I am very glad that I have been the means of bringing you to dear Kildare.'

With all her national enthusiasm, Mrs. Durgan, now that Kate's "work" is under

"If writing is made so easy to me I shall never write a line,” Kate tells herself as she sits down in the midst of the unaccustomed comfort. "And even if I succeed in the mere writing, the matter produced will be so inferior to the conditions by which I am surrounded while producing it. It's impossible she can know any one who knows me, unless she is one of the many my poor fickle Frank alɔrel before he adored me. I'll lead up to his name by speaking of his plays."

She finds her hostess out on a terraced flat, in the rear of the house, with a dozen dogs leaping and rolling about her, and a handsome Irish chestnut mare standing by her side, eating bread and sugar from her hands, in as docile a way as if it had never gone like a wild-cat at a hedge, and nearly killed its rider.

"This lively lady is the cause of my present condition,' Mrs. Durgan says, patting her pet's glossy arched neck, “she played me false at a stone fence one day, and when we were picked up, I was found with the broken limbs I just mentioned; but we love each other, don't we, dear?

The mare responds by a caressing movement of her handsome head, and Kate asks

"What is her name? the darling! she's like a mare I had once."

"She was named by the person who gave her to me,' Mrs. Durgan says, turning her head away, "he called her Guinevere.''

A flash that makes her throb passes over Kate's face, but she resolves to make no more uncalled-for confidences, and so refrains from telling this frank new friend of hers what makes the name of Guinevere so inexpressibly interesting and dear to her. In order to turn the conversation, she says, putting her hand on a little table that is littered over with journals and magazines,

"You're fond of current literature, I see. Dɔ you happen to have read any notices of-or to have seen any of Frank Forest's plays ?"

"No-but I have heard of them often from a friend of his, my cousin Harry Bellairs, who is going to bring him here to dinner to-day!"

"Yes, dear, all except Anne Studley and Grace, and I expect Mr. Middleham, or some one from him, every minute. Now that just shows the difference. I shall be heartily sorry to lose Grace, and would even keep her on for nothing-if we could afford it."

"I am afraid that Grace, good girl that she is, would find such kindness a little misplaced, Hannah," said Miss Martha, "when we think of her expectations and her future. The niece of a rich man like Mr. Middleham, more particularly such a pretty amiable girl, with such excellent principles, is sure to make a good match. What is strange to me is, how she makes such a friend of Anne Studley."

"You never liked poor Anne, Martha," said Miss Hannah, "and I could never help liking her. Of course, I see her faults, but there is something very taking to me in that strong determined nature of hers."

"Well, at all events, her friendship has been of some use to Gracie during their school life," said Miss Martha. "I don't know what that timid and credulous child would have done, more especially when she first came here, without the love and championship of Anne, to hold the other girls in check in regard to her."

"That is just what I say," said Miss Hannah, "Anne has always been the most popular girl in the school. Poor dear, she will want all her spirit and determination now, for I believe neither she nor anyone else has the slightest idea of what is in store for her."

"Well, Hannah," said Miss Martha, who was the elder and more reticent of the two, 66 we can never say that Captain Studley was behindhand with his halfyearly account; and when Anne leaves Chapone House, which will be in a very few hours, I suppose it is not for us to meddle with her future, beyond, of course, wishing it may be a happy one. And now, dear, I think we might have a cup of tea, and look at the Bradshaw, to see what train we should take on Thursday."

The two girls who had formed the subject of the old ladies' conversation, when the last of their schoolmates had been carried off, becoming tired of wandering in the set and formal garden, had stepped out through the open gate on to the wide Heath, and seated themselves on the short, crisp turf, surrounded by clumps of that beautiful yellow gorse,

which, in those days, flourished so luxuriantly at Hampstead, but which the ravages of the roughs, or the taste of the Metropolitan Board of Works, seems to have almost improved off the face of the common.

They are to play leading parts in this story, and it will be best for us to study them physically and mentally. They are both handsome, but of distinct types. This is Anne Studley, the tall, strongly made girl, with dark hair and complexion, and resolute, earnest eyes; distinguished and intellectual looking though, rather than pretty, with a long low forehead, a short, curling upper-lip, and a round, firm chin; her manner is quick and excited, and she illustrates her conversation with abundant gesture. Not that she speaks very much, for nature, and the small experience she has already had of the world, have combined to make her a thinker, and when with her constant companion, Grace Middleham, she is not called upon to put in many words, for Grace is a determined prattle. One of those pretty, fair-haired girls, with soft regular features, and timid manners, and gentle voices, who are perpetually cooing about everything, and who, though almost always in want of support, or advice, or assistance, render it almost impossible for one to help, owing to their multiplicity of words, and their paucity of sense. Even at that moment, though she knew that her time with Anne was precious, and was most anxious to hear details of her friend's future plans, she scarcely gave her an opportunity of replying to her own innumerable questions.

"Yes, dear, the day which we have so long looked forward to, has come at last," Grace was saying, "and there is an end of our stopping in this hateful place; which would have been more hateful still, to me at least, if I had not had you for my companion; and now what we have to decide is, what we are going to do in our future, and how we are to manage to see each other constantly, or to write when we are separated; and, in fact, to take care that that intimacy which has existed between us for so long is not given up in any way.'

"Stop, Gracie, stop!" said Anne, with a grave smile, or you will faint for sheer want of breath! My pet, don't you think that I too have been thinking that this is the last day we shall be here? though my feelings towards what you

call this hateful place, are very different to your's."

"You always liked it, I know," murmured Grace, as though the fact of her friend's having done so, was rather a personal affront to herself, "you always spoke well of it, and of those two dreadful old Griggses."

"I spoke well of it, because I have been very happy here; quietly happy, as I understand it, you know, Gracie; no delirium, no ecstacy, none of the terrible delights which are reserved for the heroines of romance, I imagine; but with you I have been happier than I shall probably ever be again; and as for those poor old ladies whom you call dreadful, I have had nothing but kindness from them."

"But they are such false old things," said Grace, "and all the time they are praising you for your prettiness, or your cleverness, or any of those absurd things, you know it is all put on, and that they don't really mean it!"

"There is no reason why they should 'put on any show of affection for me," said Anne. "I am not the daughter or niece of a rich man, to be petted and made much of. Simple as they are, they have enough knowledge of life to appreciate that fact. I am only Anne Studley, with all the world just opening before me!" She said these last words more to herself than to her companion, and as she uttered them her hands dropped into her lap, and there was a strange light in her fixed eyes, as though she were striving to gaze into futurity.

"You are the dearest, sweetest darling that ever lived!" exclaimed Grace, putting her arm round her friend's neck, and softly kissing her cheek. "How dare you talk about rich men's nieces, as though you wern't better than me in every possible way! what should I have done in-yes, I will call it so, this hateful place, if it had not been for you? and how can I ever do enough in the future to show my gratitude? As to having the world before you, it seems to me quite delightful, after having been limited to that dull garden, or this dreary heath. I suppose, that in reality my uncle's place at Loddonford is dull, but after this I shall look upon it as Paradise."

"And so you ought," said Anne, "I have heard you say it is very pretty."

Oh, pretty, yes-lawn and river, and flowers, and all that kind of thing-pretty

enough if I recollect rightly, for I've not been there since Aunt Helen died, as uncle does not like children, and, as you know, I have been here holidays and all until now, when I am supposed to be sufficiently old to keep house at Loddonford, or, as uncle writes in his oldfashioned way, 'to preside over his establishment.' But one wants something more than prettiness in one's future home, dear!"

"Does one?" said Anne, abstractedly, her eyes still fixed upon space. "Does one? Yes! I suppose so, comfort—and peace!"

"Comfort and peace-company and parties!" said Grace, with a laugh. "Loddonford is just the place for a fête, garden-party and water-party combined, don't you know; and I believe uncle occasionally gives entertainments of that kind. He has never said anything to me about it, for up to the present moment he has looked upon me merely as a child, but I saw, in an old Morning Post, which Miss Martha bought to read about the wedding of one of the old pupils, an elaborate account of the fête at Loddonford, and a list of the guests, who seemed to be very great people. I am sure I could persuade uncle into giving more of these parties--or you could, you have a wonderful power of making people do as you wish, and I shall leave him to youand then we shall enjoy ourselves, shall we not?"

“You will, I have no doubt dear, but I question whether it would be much enjoyment to me, even if I were there with you. But, my sweet Gracie," continued Anne, taking her friend's hand between her own, and gently smoothing it as she spoke, "You seem to forget that the life which we have been leading is on the point of ending! After to-day, our paths will be in very different directions."

"You have mentioned that fact more than once before, Anne," said Grace, giving in to the petting, but still assuming a somewhat hurt tone, "and though I have each time asked you a plain straightforward question, I have as yet been unable to get it answered.'

"Try once more, dear," said Anne, playing with her friend's fair curls, "and I promise you that this time you shall succeed!"

"Well then, I want to know," said Grace, speaking with as much decision as she could summon into her voice, and into