CHAPTER XIX.

"To love to-day and to breathe and see-
To-morrow perhaps to die→

But if all loved as the few can love,
The world would seldom go well,
And who need wish, if he dwells above,
For a deep, a long death knell ?"

JEAN INGELOW.

NDREW NORMAN left the carpenter's house that evening in a less peaceful frame of mind than he had felt for a

long time. Of late he had accustomed himself to the idea of seeing Margie the wife of another, and flattered himself that he was entirely cured of his old passion. But those few minutes with her in the little parlour had made all the difference. It was vain to persuade himself that he had ceased to care for her, that she had become like other women to him; and what increased his trouble was the feeling that she was sad, and that, however much he might long to comfort her, he

could not tal

those ever.

with their ser

With ins ..

where it me

till he

ground

The Berry

field wa a

a few rare seen there b Norma

brigin giss

Taket #

birds

dawi c

heard bolle.

rabbits. They're the greatest nuisance out, and I'm bent on getting a shot at them. You don't care to take a walk round with me?"

"Thank you, I must be going home," said Norman coldly, not feeling by any means disposed for a friendly chat with Cornelius at this moment.

Somehow he felt convinced that he was the cause of Margie's unhappiness, and could not forgive him for bearing so gay and smiling a face when she was breaking her heart for him.

The schoolmaster watched him go down the Lady-ground, and lingered on a few minutes, lost in thought.

Then he heard the report of a gun, and looked round to see if Cornelius had hit one of the rabbits he was in search of. But nothing was visible excepting a thin cloud of smoke curling upwards through the trees of the ash spinny.

Some indefinable impulse prompted Norman to walk across the meadow in the direction Cornelius had taken, and before he had gone far he met the young farmer's black retriever wandering towards him, sniffing the air with a puzzled look.

At the sight of the schoolmaster, the dog wagged his tail, and turning back, ran on in front of him, along a path leading up to a stile at the edge of the spinny.

Norman saw at once by the dog's air that there