cess to anyone, however moderately bright. I know, of course "-humbly-"that I am not more than very moderately bright."

"You have a good average intelligence," he answers drily; "it would be flattery to imply that you have more!"

"Of course, of course!" she rejoins, meekly acquiescing in this lover-like expression of partiality; and then there is silence again.

It is broken by Professor Forth. It would not have been broken by Belinda. She is dreamily walking again along Hobbema's straight Dutch road. Would the village be at all like Wesenstein when you reached it?

"I suppose,' he says ceremoniously, "that there will be no objection to my calling to-morrow morning in Street,

to announce to your grandmother the step that we propose taking. I am, of course, not aware whether or no she will be likely to oppose it."

"Not she" answers Belinda, leaping

back from dreamland, and breaking into a

hard laugh; "she will be delighted to be rid of me."

"And-and your sister?" says he, with that same slight resentful difficulty which he always finds in mentioning Sarah; "will she, too, be delighted to be rid of you?"

"No-o, I think not!" answers Belinda slowly. "She would be perfectly justified if she were, for I have done my best of late to embitter her life; but no, I think not. By-the-bye," looking up and speaking with a quick animation that contrasts with her late sarcastic indifference, "I must stipulate that you will allow her to visit me. You do not bear malice to her," she adds naïvely, "for-for what happened formerly?"

"I am not likely to bear malice," he answers with an arid smile, "for a course of action for which I at least, as it turns out, have so much reason to be thankful."

"That is right," she answers carelessly, passing by his stiff politesse; "then I

VOL. II.

22

think that is all.

I think there is nothing

more to say, is there?"

She speaks with the same unemotional business air as if she were concluding the purchase of a piece of land, or of some yards of cloth. The room is, at the moment, empty of anyone but themselves. It is near closing-time, and the sparse visitors are trailing off. There is nothing to hinder a lover-like parting embrace between the two persons who have just engaged to pass their lives together. But the possibility of this never once crosses Belinda's mind, not even when her newlybetrothed steps a pace nearer to her, and says, in a voice through which rather more of human emotion than she has ever before heard in it pierces :

"You must allow me to repeat the expression of my gratification-of my thanks !"

"It

"What for?" she asks, piercing him with the direct look of her icy eyes. is a mere matter of business that we have

been transacting. You want a secretary,

housekeeper, nurse for your mother; I want a home of my own, and a ‘guide, philosopher, and friend," laughing harshly. "I see no room for thanks on either side!"

To such a speech, what rejoinder is there to make?

He makes none.

go

"I may as well home now," she says, in the same cool, matter-of-fact tone as before; "any further arrangements that there are to make may be made when you come to-morrow. You ask at what hour? At whatever hour best suits your convenience; early or late, it is indifferent to me which. I must ask you to call à hansom for me.'

As they emerge from the building they find that rain is falling, a sleety rain to which the undecided snow has turned. It beats in her face as she walks down the steps; she does not take the trouble to run in order to escape it; she would as soon be wet as dry. It drives in upon her even in the hansom, where she has refused to allow the glass to be lowered.

One can get very fairly well soaked in a hansom if one goes the right way to work. And all along sleety Pall Mall, all the sleety way home, she is pestered with the sight, the smell, almost the feel, of the wood at Wesenstein!

*

"Granny," says Belinda, entering the drawing-room, walking straight up to Mrs. Churchill and standing before her, not allowing her attention to be distracted even by the wagging of three kind tails, distinctly addressed to her. "You and Sarah may begin to pack your boxes at once; you may be off to Monaco as soon as you please; I shall be 'out of the way'!"

Mrs. Churchill lifts her eyes, in which is none of their usual frisky light, and fixes them coldly on her tall young granddaughter, standing pale and severe before her. She has always thought Belinda too tall; it strikes her more forcibly than ever now, as she sees her towering majestically