of relief when Miss Joan's sharp knock upon the bedroom floor overhead summoned her away.

'I have something I wish to tell you, David;' but she said this without looking at him, and her hand shook a little as she took up her candle from the table.

'It must be told quickly then, Esther. Judging from our cousin's footstep she is in one of her little tempers already.'

'Not to-night; not to-night, David, dear. To-morrow is Barnstaple fair, you know; Joan will be away all day. I will tell you then. It's a secret that only you are to be told as yet a secret that concerns me very nearly.' And then she threw her arms round his neck, as she had done every night these dozen years; and running lightly from the room and up the narrow stair, left him silently gazing after her in the dark

ness.

And Patty coming in to clear the supper a while later, found him standing there still, and-which roused Patty's softer feelings yet more-never a book in his hand. She remembered how she used to stand idling about in the dark at the cruel time when Joan had broken for her with William Tillyer. 'Am I to let Miss Esther's flowers bide, Master David? they be main withered already.'

Let them stay so, Patty; let them stay so,' answered David, gently. 'I will put them in water for Miss Esther myself. And, Patty, don't wait up for me. I am going out to smoke my pipe, and I'll be sure to see that all the doors are locked before I go to bed.'

Long after midnight Miss Joan from her maiden-bower watched the glow of David's pipe, as he passed restlessly up and down the gardenpath beneath her window. Smoke away, smoke away, David Engleheart,' she soliloquized, with many an emphatic nod of her gaunt head towards the unhappy object of her regard. Put all your loves and hopes and follies in that pipe, and burn them up for ever. So; one is not enough. Fill another, cousin, fill another. I have given you food enough for fifty pipes to-night!'

The sound of his hurried steps fell on her ears still, when, wearied out with watching him, she betook herself to bed. They lulled her pleasantly to sleep.

CHAPTER X.

POOR DAVID!

Poor

The next day dawned, sultry and glowing, as few days, even in July, ever dawn upon the misty moorland heights of North Devonshire. Quite early in the morning Miss Joan had started by the market-coach to Barnstaple, and, as was usual in her absence, a strange calm and peace seemed to hang over all the little household at Countisbury. Patty sang over her unmolested work; old Mrs. Engleheart, untroubled either by book or knitting, basked in the warm sun at the parlour window; Farmer Vellicot's pigeons picked out the green currants and gooseberries as they listed; Miss Joan's own great Cochin China fowls walked with a reprobate. air of perfect assurance and coolness about the garden-paths.

'I think we are rather unprincipled to encourage these revolutionary movements, David,' said Esther, as they paced slowly up and down the terrace in the early morning sun. 'What would Joan say if she saw all her creatures at this moment?'

'Poor wretches, let them have one happy day,' answered David. "Tis only twice a year that any of us are free, and what a freedom it is! Why, the very air is more genial than at any other time. Esther, turn your face to the east, and feel if it is not.'

'It's a lovely morning, David; this promises to be the first really hot summer's day that we have had.'

'How much of it shall you spend at home, child? how many hours will Mr. Carew spare you to me, I wonder?'

'David,' said the girl, laying her hand quickly upon his arm, don't talk like that about-about Mr. Carew any more, please. It is a jest no longer.'

'Ah!'

'I should have spoken to you last night if I could; but somehow, David, it was too difficult then, and I always feel when Joan is in the house as though she can hear me even when she is in another room. But now I feel I can tell you all.'

'I am glad you receive me into your confidence, Esther.'

'Well, I ought to tell Joan first I believe, David; but it is so difficult to tell her anything one cares much about-isn't it?'

'Very.'

'She is so matter-of-fact and hard —so unlike you, Cousin David. David' he felt her hand trembling on his arm-'can you guess my secret?'

'I am ill at guessing, Esther.'

'Mr. Carew has asked me to marry him, cousin,' and she looked up with her honest eyes straight into his. I am so happy.'

'You have known him a short time,' said David, and she was too deeply moved herself to note the tremor in his voice. Your acquaintance, I think, dates from one fortnight ago.'

A fortnight and three days, David; but then I have seen him so often.'

'And must know so much of his character and worth-this stranger for whom you are willing to give us all up! We have loved you a dozen years, and he a dozen days, Esther. Well, it is natural.'

'David!'

He softened in a moment at the loving tone of that one word. 'I don't blame you, Esther. You are acting as every young woman has acted since the world began-rightly, no doubt, and as Providence meant you to do, only-only don't you see 'tis hard to part from you? I have but one thing on the earth to love, and it's hard to lose it.'

'And you will not lose me, David,' she cried, eagerly, 'not for years and years. We are both very young, and Oliver is only starting in his profession. It is not a question of losing me now-merely of letting me give him my promise, David.'

"You have waited to consult me before doing so, then?'

'No, cousin. Last evening, when Mr. Carew asked me if I could ever like him well enough to be his wife, I said yes. I was obliged to tell the truth, you know; and I am quite sure-I mean I think I am quite sure that I shall never like any one but Mr. Carew while I live. But I could not feel happy in my promise, Cousin David, unless I had spoken of it to you, and unless you said that you really approved of my choice.'

'And you will abide by my decision?'

'David, that's not quite a fair thing to say. I should be very miserable if you refused to consent to my engagement; but I feel that I ought to be truer to Oliver Carew now than to any one-yes, even to you. Oh, Cousin David, be friends with him, and try to like him a little for my sake.'

The expression of her pleading face stabbed David to the heart.

'I am not at all a fitting person to consult, Esther; Joan and her mother are your guardians; I am nothing to you.'

He moved as though he would have turned away from her; but Esther's kindly hand caught his arm tight. 'David, dear David, nothing to me? I thought you cared for me -I thought

She could get no further; her voice choked, the great tears struggled to her eyes. For a moment David Engleheart stood irresolute; then he turned round quickly, stooped, and kissed her lips. 'You thought of me as of your good stupid brother, Esther; no, too old for that; your uncouth, ugly old bear of a playmate, old and grey and dull enough to be your grandfather, who has just had a dozen years or so of his life made bright by a child's loving face, and now will not hesitate to give his darling (though with some natural pangs) to the first young and handsome stranger who chances to have won her heart? That was it, Esther.'

'Oh, David! how can you speak so of yourself?' But she was pale no longer, and he could see a smile coming round her lips.

'And you were right, my darling;

that is what I have always been to you, what I am now. All this has come upon us rather suddenly, Esther, you see. You are only just eighteen. I thought I had a great many more years' safe possession of you yet. However, it has come, and I am glad of it, for your sake, my poor little fatherless Esther! May Carew love you, and be faithful to you as you deserve!'

David's vacant face glowed till he looked positively handsome; the thrill at his own heart went far to reward him for all the anguish of the last fortnight. Poor David! not Philip or Alexander ever gained a greater victory than was this to him.

'I have been quite afraid of you lately, cousin,' remarked Esther, presently, and when they had taken one or two turns upon the terrace in silence.

'You have been so constrained and odd with us all that I began really to think something was going on that displeased you, and so did Joan.'

'Oh!'

'She even hinted to me, occasionally, that you did not approve of Oliver's walking with me, and I was wondering this morning whether there could possibly be any truth in it, when-ah, you kind old David! -Patty told me of your putting my flowers in water for me last night, and then I knew you could not be really angry.'

'I have never been angry with you since the day you came to us, child."

'Twelve years ago, isn't it, David ?'

'Fourteen years this autumn. You were a little soft-eyed child, dressed in black, and with a slow melancholy way of speaking and looking straight up in one's face. Esther, you crept into my heart at once, and have forgotten to leave it since."

I have never forgotten the first night that I came, David. You took me on your knee and made shadows on the parlour wall for me all the evening, and then carried me up to bed, in spite of Joan's saying I mustn't be treated like a baby.'

'And you held me close (a vast

deal closer than you would hold me now, Miss Fleming), and said you never meant to go away from me again. Do you remember that?'

'Yes, I remember,' said Esther, laughing, and as yet I have not broken my word. Very likely I shall stay at Countisbury till you have had quite enough of me, after all. Joan was talking to me very seriously the other evening of the lot that awaits me when I shall be an elderly woman of eight-andthirty-twenty years hence. Oh, David!' she broke off abruptly, 'what sane human being would look for twenty years, or look forward at all, on such a morning as this? Even to feel the air blow on one's face is enough to make one in love with the present and with life.'

'Let us come away to the thorn tree and our books, Esther, and enjoy our one day of liberty thoroughly. The sun is too hot here-that is,'-he corrected himself quickly if Miss Fleming has no prior engagement elsewhere.'

Miss Fleming has no engagement whatever until five o'clock this afternoon, cousin.'

'And then?'

And then is to meet Mr. Carew upon the moor, and take her cousin with her, if he will condescend to come. You see everything is settled for you,' she added, turning to him with her fond smile as they walked slowly towards the house: 'even if you had wished to be a stern, implacable relation, we would not have let you carry out your own intentions. There is only one character in the world fitted for my cousin David-the one he filled on that first evening that I ever saw him, thirteen years ago.'

"When he held you in his arms, and had you for his own,' thought poor David, as his hungering eyes took in all the beauty of her upturned face. 'Ah, if shadows on the wall could make you happy now!'

But he had sense enough, poor wretch, not to put his thoughts into words; and with lingering steps, and Esther singing as she went, they passed along the shaded gardenpath towards the house.

CHAPTER XI.

OLIVER AS A HERO.

Patty met them at the threshold of the house-place, and put a note into Esther's hand. Mr. Carew had given it her a minute ago as she was standing at the orchard gate. He had gone down along the path towards the Riven Oak very quick, and had waited for no answer.

Esther glanced over the three lines that the note contained, and her heart turned sick. 'I can't read with you as I promised-I can't stay with you to-day, David; I am going out at once.'

'Is there anything wrong, child? can I help you?' David asked, as he followed her back into the garden. 'Shall I take any answer from you to Mr. Carew?'

'There is no answer wanted. His regiment is ordered suddenly He is going to leave Lyn

away. 'mouth.' 'When?'

Tell

'To-day; in a few hours. Aunt Engleheart not to wait for me, please. I don't know when I shall be back.'

'Mr. Carew going?-child, shall I walk any of the way with you?'

'No, no, no! Oh! David, I can't talk even to you. This is harder than I can bear.' And very quick and resolute, as had been her wont from a child when anything moved her strongly, she passed out through the wicket-gate into the orchard, and left David Engleheart standing, helplessly bewildered, and alone.

Oliver Carew going to-day-in a few hours! What was David's sympathy, what was David's existence to her now? What should she remember of the wistful, kindly face looking after her as she went, or of anything in the whole universe, save the one cruel fact of Oliver's leaving? Since last night all her world-never very wide before-had narrowed into one desire -Oliver's presence, the flattery of Oliver's eyes-and he was going. It was the first time in her life that anything approaching to a real blow had fallen upon her, and, as she had said to David, it was harder than

she could bear. So she never tried to strengthen herself by reasoning on her misery, by thinking how many hundreds of lovers part and meet and part again without dying, or how likely it was that Mr. Carew might have got a summons to return to his regiment, and would yet be back with her again in a month or two. She just felt (as a good many of us have felt at Esther Fleming's age) that a crueller fate had come to her than she could by possibility live through; succumbed to her first trial much as she would have done if no Joan Engleheart had ever trained her to strength of mind and self-reliance; walked white and trembling and broken-hearted along the path where Oliver in his note had asked her to meet him; and when an abrupt turning in the woods brought him suddenly to her side, held both her hands out in all simplicity to meet him, and burst into tears.

'You are going! Oliver, you are going to leave me!'

Last night she had been shy and stately even after she had accepted his suit; but all restraint, all girlish pride, was swept away from her heart now. She dared be the first to speak; she dared let him see the full extent of her love-for she was to lose him.

'It is very sudden, Esther, but when you know what it is that calls me, you will see that I must go.' 'Not to-day?'

'Yes, to-day; in a few hours. Be strong for my sake, Esther. Don't look so white and piteous, or I can never bear to leave you.'

Mr. Carew, as I have before remarked, was accustomed to a very different walk of life to Esther's; a walk where sudden and startling emotions do not so much obtain as among the middle classes of humble country people. He had often seen young women faint in crowded assemblies, had witnessed, perhaps, some scenes of another class, in which tears had been called in as an effective auxiliary weapon. He had never seen anything at all like this stricken childish face, with its passion of sudden grief, and I think it frightened him a little. He was as

much in love with Esther as it was in his nature to be; but, really, if love at its onset entailed such dreadfully violent scenes as these, love must be a much less pleasant thing than he had taken it for.

'You will listen to reason, Esther, will you not? You won't look so miserable when you hear that it is absolutely, imperatively necessary for me to go?'

'No, Oliver' (the unerring tact of her sex telling her, not exactly what he had thought, but what he would best like her to do)-' no, Oliver, I will try all I can not to look miserable any more.' And then she did try hard to keep her lips from quivering, and stammered something about the note having been given to her too suddenly, and how she had run very fast through the heat, and she was a little sick and faint, she thought, and—and all this foolishness would be over directly.

'Sit down by me here, and recover yourself, you poor little silly Esther,' cried Oliver, drawing her kindly to his side. 'Why, your hands are as cold as ice! How will you ever do for a soldier's wife, if you are so sensitive, my foolish child?'

As the colour came back into her face he began to remember how wonderfully handsome she was, and how much she loved him, poor thing! After all, this sudden parting was very hard: it overcame him with quite a thrill of pain to think that months, that years might pass before his lips should touch that fair young cheek again; and so he told her, in language you and I, reader, would not think surpassingly eloquent, but which was to Esther the sweetest and finest music she had ever heard.

'I thought, for a minute, you did not feel it as much as I did,' she said, presently. When I came up first you looked as calm and indifferent as though nothing had happened.'

'Do you think so now?'

'Oh, no, no, no!' with all the bright blood in her face. I know now you would not go unless you were obliged.'

'And can you guess what it

is that really forces me to leavethe only thing in the world that could make me go away from you like this?'

'You are going back to the army, I suppose.' Esther's ideas of military obligations were somewhat vague and superficial. 'Your colonel won't allow you to stay away any longer.'

'Esther, my regiment goes abroad the day, after to-morrow, and I go with it.'

'Abroad? not, not'-the whiteness spread around her mouth again in an instant-not to India, Oliver?' (This was at the time when the news of mutiny had just reached home.) 'Say only that you are not ordered to India.'

'We are ordered to Malta first, Esther,' Carew answered quietly. 'And then?'

'Then, of course, we shall wait for further orders.'

'Oliver'-and she caught hold of his hand in both of hers-' tell me the truth, please. I can bear that far better than any preparation. Shall you be sent to India?”

'I hope so, Esther.'

Ah! I understand.'

You promised to be strong,' he whispered, drawing her closer to his side; and you give way again already. I am not in India yet, remember. I may not go there at all if the rebellion is put down quicker than we think for.'

'But you hope to go! That is the 'cruellest to me.'

'Esther, should you love me better if I did not?'

She was silent. She only clasped his hands closer; looked up intently with her great imploring eyes into his face.

'Should you love me better if I had not the feelings of every other man in England? if I did not long for my own personal share in dealing out judgment upon those cowardly wretches who have betrayed us?'

'Oh, Oliver!'

'Esther'-and here Carew really spoke with emotion- God knows that I love you truly-better far than I ever thought myself that I could love. Let me feel that my