number of the letter in milk, and also anything particular I may have to tell you. You, with your letters, can do the same.'

"That will be capital," replied Ella, who entered into the romance of the idea; "but I do not quite understand."

"It is simple enough," said Seymour, “you merely use milk as you would ink, and the writing is invisible until you put it near the fire, when it becomes quite black.”

"Oh, Seymour! how naughty you are. I did not think you would teach me to deceive my guardian," she said, in her pretty demure fashion.

"You little hypocrite!" said he; and yielding to the witching hour and his own deeplymoved feelings, he caught her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.

How dare you?"-cried she, without,

however, attempting to get free.

"Oh, Ella! I am going away to-morrow -said Seymour, reproachfully.

Ella, woman-like, yielded to the impulse of the moment, threw her arms round his neck and tearfully embraced him.

"Darling child!" murmured Seymour.

They turned and regained the house, where they found Mr. Stanley asleep in his arm chair; but he presently awoke, the candle shade having fallen down, and (most emphatically) told Seymour and Ella that he had heard all they had said. Ella thought it advisable to drop her pocket-handkerchief and to dive after it under the table, while Seymour ejaculated something which Mr. Stanley construed into some remark about whist, and telling him he should not think so much about cards, declared it was time they all went to bed.

CHAPTER III.

A SEA VOYAGE.

"Sea! of Almightiness itself the immense
And glorious mirror; how thy azure face
Renews the heavens in their magnificence!
What awful grandeur rounds thy heavy space;
Thy surge thro' worlds' eternal warring sweeps,
And God's throne rests on thy majestic deeps."
CHENEDOLLE.

STROLLING in the Strange Hall garden early next morning, Seymour met the old gardener, Russell, who had known Ella from her childhood.

"It can do no harm if I put him on his guard"-thought Seymour; and without compromising himself, he charged the old servant not to lose sight of Ella.

Walking on, he met her looking very lovely and very pensive, her fair curls falling almost down to her waist, as she gathered a nosegay for a parting gift to him.

"What was it you were so earnest about the day before yesterday?" said she, trying to smile.

"I wanted to speak to you about the religion you follow"-he replied. "I cannot bear to think you value your 'Manual,' the 'Glories of Mary,' and other Roman Catholic books, more than your Bible."

"Percy," she answered, almost trembling beneath his searching glance, "Father Bellew told me not to read the Bible. He He says I am of too inquiring a turn of mind, and it will do me harm rather than good."

May God forgive his fearful sin," murmured Seymour. But, Ella," he said aloud, "don't you remember your dear mother read it, and told you how much comfort she found in its teachings?"

Ella's tears flowed fast when Seymour spoke of her mother; for, though the fact had been carefully hidden from her, Lady Sinclair had died in the faith and fear of her Saviour, and had on her death-bed refused the last offices by which the Church of Rome, even to death, asserts supremacy over her flock.