"And leave the little sick sister to get on as well as she could, and forget a commandment which is binding, whether mothers have sharp tongues or not?"

"Well, it must be horridly disagreeable to live with Mrs. Page," Agatha answered. "It seems difficult to believe that boy can be her son; he looks quite above his class, and she is a cross-grained old washerwoman.”

"Did you never hear of people whose bark was worse than their bite ?" was the answer. "A telling proverb, which a sage of Shag's race must have had some means of communicating to ours. But, let me," he continued, after a silence, "show you the antiquities of St. Mary's. What would you think this little upright building once was, reached by that long flight of rugged steps. Take care," as Agatha sprang up them, "they are very much worn. This was a chapel, in old times, in the perpendicular style; and when St. Mary's was inhabited by the lords of Dacre, an old Roman Catholic family, prayers were said here, day by day. Now the hens use it for a roosting-place. Look at the distinct remains of the Gothic windows, and those niches at the east end."

"St. Mary's must have been a very different place then," Agatha said.

"Yes, a great part of the quadrangle was then habitable, and is fallen into ruins, on the site of which barns and cowsheds are raised. The Pages' cottage stands where tradition says there was once a religious house, which has given its name to the hill, the cove, and a large rocky mass, standing a little less than a mile out to sea, off the eastern point of the cove. But you cannot see St. Mary's Island till you reach the top of the hill on either side.”

"How long have you lived here?” Agatha asked, abruptly.

"Ten years. My father rented the farm when he came to Havensmouth for my mother's health, fifteen years ago. Our northern climate did not suit my mother, and she only came here to die. My sister, when she lost her husband, took up her abode with my father. He died nine years ago, and I came here, the year before from Oxford, as I believed, only to linger out a few months."

"From Oxford!" Agatha said, with surprise; "what made you turn into a farmer ?”

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'Necessity. I broke down in health at Oxford-what with reading, and the hard push I had to make to meet my college expenses without burdening my father. I came to St. Mary's

to find that out-of-door life in this soft air was to turn me not only, as you say, into a farmer, but into a strong man-thank God."

They had left the old chapel now, and went together up the flag path to the gate at the side of the house. Mr. Bruce opened it, and closed it behind them.

"I found that old stone arch, or rather segment of an arch, with the motto on it, buried deep in some rubbish, amongst the outbuildings, and I had it put over this wicket-gate."

Agatha looked up. "It is Latin; I cannot read it. Tell me what it is."

"They are good words," he answered:'Dominus custodiat introitum tuum, et exitum tuum,' The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in.' "

And Agatha remembered those words, and him who spoke them that day, in the years that were to come.

CHAPTER III.

SUNDAY AT ST. MARY'S.

"How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees ?"

OTHELLO.

"My dear," was Mrs. Hope's greeting, "what is to be done about your box? The omnibus has brought it, and the man charged a shilling, and by no possibility can it be got upstairs."

Poor Agatha, who had been forgetting the small rooms and dull passage, shut in by 66 narrowing nunnery walls," in the fresh sea breeze and the stories of the past, of which St. Mary's Farm seemed so full, was thus brought back to the prosaic present.

There stood the box, looking bigger than ever, by the kitchen door. There stood Elsie and old Philip, and the rosy-faced Jeanie, staring at the box and then at Agatha, with evident amazement.

"Roland," Mrs. Hope called, "what is to be

done?"

Mr. Bruce, thus appealed to, came to the scene of discussion, for it could hardly be said to be action, and Shag pattered at his heels. He also gravely surveyed the intruder, walked round it, snuffed and snorted, and then, with stately nonchalance, walked away and lay down to await his master's decision.

Agatha's cheek, flushed with exercise, grew still more rosy, and she tried to look unconcerned.

"It really is enormous," Mrs. Hope said; "inconvenient in a large house, I should think. Could you not empty it downstairs, my dear, and I will help you to carry its contents to the press in your room ?"

"I could do so," Agatha answered, "but everything I possess is in that box, and it is so well fitted up inside that I don't know where I should keep all my things without it, especially here. What shall I do ?" she asked, turning to Mr. Bruce; "it is not really a larger box than most people have. Mrs. Harrison used it for travelling, and when we went to lodgings at Shinglesea, she always took it. She had a new one for her foreign tour, and then gave this to me, as I had only that small one of my own."

There was a twinkle of amusement in Mr.