having children of his own about the same age, she had almost appeared to him as one of them, and it might be, unconsciously to himself, even more endeared, as the child of his son John, the grandchild of his beloved Madge. And in Maude's home, there had been no counteracting influences to the kindly feelings thus excited. She saw how highly he was respected, and how warmly he was loved by her father and her uncle Abel; she saw him invariably treated with affectionate deference by her own gentle mother, and never, never by any chance heard a disparaging bye-word, which might throw a doubt on the reality of that deference; and moreover, her childish mind invested him with a sort of reverence, as the husband of that grandmother, Madge Snobbins, who had been enshrined as a sort of deity in the memories of her sons, and was always represented by them to her young descendant, as a rare pattern of female excellence.

Is it any wonder that Maude loved her grand-father?

Even when he called her " Madge," she had now learnt not only to forgive him, but almost even to like the appellation from his lips. Nay, as her own mind opened, and she could better understand and more highly appreciate her grandmother's character, as displayed to her by her father and her uncle Abel, in records of their mother's trials-quiet, domestic ones, but not the less searching, and in descriptions of her conduct under them, she became inaccessible, even to the quizzing of her gay young aunts and uncles, when they spoke of their hope that "the Madge of proverbial memory might be rescuscitated in her gentle descendent."

And to-day Mr. de Snobyn smiled more fondly on Madge than ever, for her message

was,

"Dear grandpapa, I have such delightful news for you, to-day; uncle Abel is

coming home directly, and he promises that he will really now stay in England. Are you not glad?"

"Indeed I am, Madge, very, very glad -and always happy to see thee, Madge, love."

CHAPTER XIV.

In a few days Mr. de Snobyn's happiness received an addition of which he was most acutely sensible, for Abel was seated by his side. Ever and anon seizing his son's hand, and grasping it in both his own, and peering up in his face with fond enquiring looks, as if his dimmed eyes could hardly trace the beloved lineaments with sufficient distinctness, the old man sate a long morning-a long, happy morning-his wife and younger family having driven out-in

listening to his wanderer's account of himself, and in asking multitudinous and oftreiterated questions of little import, more as it seemed to awaken the tones he loved to hear than from any particular anxiety about the replies. And Abel, whom his gay young sisters called a cynic, Abel sate patient, and almost as gentle as a woman, listening to the old man's maundering; replying again and again and again to the same insignificant question, giving over and over again the same detail of some trivial occurrence in which his father seemed interested. For all Abel's kindliest feelings-and towards his father they had ever been most unswervingly affectionate-were excited and wounded by the sad falling off, the decided alteration for the worse which he in a moment detected in Mr. de Snobyn's appearance and manner. It had occurred so gradually as altogether to escape the notice of his young family, and even the more observant and affectionate John, though not altogether unconscious of