"Ah! I shall never murder anybody. I am not naturally vindictive, and I should not like the consequences. Besides, it would be in such horrible bad taste."

And so Sir Julian went out for his saunter, and looked into the print-shops, and contemplated the Town Hall, and was reminded of course of the Parthenon, and the Madeleine, and came back to find Lady Camersfield getting ready for her visit. This time the coachman found no difficulty in the journey, and he took a shorter cut, and brought them in less time than they had expected to Lichfield Terrace, without so much as giving them a peep at the small façade of Little Bethel.

Ivy Cottage looked as trim and nice as before; but Lady Camersfield perceived an air of "company" about the little parlour which rather amused her, when she considered of what heterogeneous materials the company was composed. The preparations, however, were very simple, and consisted principally of fresh flowers, that, late as the season was, bloomed plentifully about the room.

Sir Julian felt himself obliged to confess that the minister's wife was a very charming woman, but he looked in vain for Ethel. Surely Mr. Dixon had not changed his mind, and concluded not to let them meet, at least with his own sanction!

But presently Mrs. Dixon drew her guests to a side window, which looked on a little lawn at the back of the house, and there they saw a young girl, very plainly dressed, leaning against an old stone vase, reading a book, in the last red rays of the setting sun.

There was Ethel-more beautiful than Lady Camersfield had imagined her, more beautiful even than Sir Julian had pictured her in his retentive memory! Her rich bright hair was simply wreathed round her well-formed head; her long lashes swept a cheek as pure in its most lovely tinting as the lining of a rosy ocean-shell; her exquisite profile was perfectly delineated against a background of thick dark ivy leaves (here was the ivy, after all). Her attitude was grace itself, and her sweet face beamed with interest and animation as she bent over the page that seemed to be thrilling her whole soul as she drank in its contents.

"A pretty picture," said Mrs. Dixon, pleasantly.

"A most lovely creature," was Lady Camersfield's rejoinder. "Julian, I begin to understand the infatuation. You have found a peerless wild flower, I must say; fairer, I think, than many an exotic in her home of luxury and culture."

"Stand back a little," said Mrs. Dixon, "and I will speak to her. I should like you to hear her natural tone of voice while she is perfectly unembarrassed. When she comes in presently she will not say much; she is particularly retiring in the presence of strangers, and perhaps a little awkward in her shyness."

Mrs. Dixon opened the window and called "Ethel!"

She raised her head, and came at once, saying, "Yes! dear Mrs. Dixon; do you want me-shall I help Rachel to make the toast?"

The tones were sweet, and blithe as those of a young bird carolling his joyous lay on a sunny summer morning; the accent almost purethere was just a little provincial taint, a little broadening of the vowels, but that would vanish quickly under the refining process of further cultivation and different surroundings. Julian remembered Susan Cattell's broad, drawling, strong accentuation, her murdered "h's" and her gurring "g's," and wondered greatly how Ethel had contrived, in the midst of so much impropriety of language, to keep her speech so tolerably fair. Mrs. Dixon told her protegée that Rachel did not need her help, since both Ellen Lacey and Anna Stevens were in the kitchen. but it was getting too late to stay out longer on the grass, and she had better come in-doors.

Without a word she instantly obeyed, closing her book, and taking down a cage from the ivied wall, as if she were perfectly at home, calling to Mrs. Dixon, whom she thought alone, "I will bring Dicky in, ma'am; it is quite his time;" and again the sweet silvery voice came over the beds of withering mignonette like strains of lovely music. It was several minutes before she entered the parlour, and Lady Camersfield watched to see if her plebeian nature would evince itself in gestures of unmistakeable astonishment, for she did not expect to find any person in the room beside the pastor and his wife.

But she watched in vain. A faint gleam of surprise dawned in the lovely violet eyes and passed away again, but no violent wonder declared itself in any shape or form. A rather quieter movement, a faint, fair flush on cheek and brow, a drooping of the long dark lashes-those were all the tokens of an unexpected rencontre-all at least at that time visible in face, or figure, or expression.

A sort of introduction took place. "This is one of the young friends of whom I was speaking to you-Ethel Mary Erle; and Ethel, these are some new friends, Lady Camersfield and Sir Julian Armstrong." Ellen and Anna were also named as they came in, but they were not specially presented to Lady Camersfield or to her nephew. They were respectable-looking, ordinary girls of moderate intelligence and quiet good manners. They would, by-and-bye, make excellent nursemaids or lady's maids, and they evidently were sincerely and deferentially attached to Mrs. Dixon, to whose excellent training, indeed, they owed nearly all the knowledge and all the qualifications they possessed. They were painfully and awkwardly shy, and, as people say, they seemed "to know, their place" and keep it, treating Mrs. Dixon very much as if she were their lawful mistress, to whom they were bound to render all real submission and profound respect.

With Ethel it was otherwise. She never presumed, and her every

tone and look showed reverence and affection; but to Mr. and Mrs. Dixon she spoke more freely, and might have passed to strangers uninformed for the daughter of the house. Keenly she was watched by Lady Camersfield. Sir Julian was so overpowered by the vision of loveliness beaming on him from the other side of the table that he scarcely thought at all about her demeanour or her words, though he would have been annoyed at once had any vulgarity of action or speech pained his vision or jarred upon his ear. There was not one single roughness in her movements while the meal continued. Ellen Lacey set down her cup with a clatter, and Anna Stevens was not so particular in the matter of crumbs as she might have been; but Ethel's tea was taken, and the whole repast was made simply and quietly, and with a certain grace that showed instinctive good breeding and quiet imitation of the manners of superior people. Mrs. Dixon was evidently Ethel's model; and Lady Camersfield acknowledged to herself she scarcely could have found a better; for the pastor's wife, though ignorant of fashions and innocent of etiquette, was a thorough gentlewoman, exemplifying in her every deed and word the loveliness of Christian courtesy.

Lady Camersfield tried to talk to all the girls indifferently, but Ellen and Anna were evidently frightened, and answered her abruptly and to little purpose. She pitied their manifest restraint, and determined in some way to make up to them for the martyrdom they were unconsciously enduring for sweet Ethel's sake. And so at last she turned alone to Ethel Erle, who spoke with modest ease, and a little hesitatingly, as was natural enough, but sensibly and to the point.

"So you all do work at home," Lady Camersfield was saying. At this juncture the pastor wisely carried away Sir Julian to his study, to see his special treasures-some ancient tomes he had disinterred from a heap of rubbish in a second-hand, or, as he jokingly said, a third or fourth-hand book-shop in the town.

Ellen and Anna looked up from their sewing, but did not speak. Ethel alone replied—

"Yes, my lady; we find it more agreeable, and we can be more respectable doing work at home."

I should imagine so; for I have seen some very disreputable young women going home in groups from the factories: at least they looked disreputable, and certainly were so, if one might judge by their loud talk, their flaunting manners, and their dirty, tawdry finery. You have some half-brothers and sisters, Mrs. Dixon tells me ?"

"Yes, my lady-that is to say, I count them as such-five of them ; three boys and two girls-one a baby. They keep us very busy."

"I should think so; I wonder that you find time to prepare your lessons for your kind friend here, who instructs you, as she tells me, two evenings in the week."

"I have some difficulty sometimes, but I generally contrive to snatchi