Mr. Forde's sudden desertion of Hawleigh.' did that mean? Had he returned to his duties and announced the approaching termination of them? or was the desertion' of which her sister wrote an accomplished fact? Had he bidden them farewell, and departed to some new field of usefulness? Had he shifted the scene of that laborious career which Mother Church reserves for her children?

'I shall be enlightened to-night,' she said to herself, as she bade her aunt good-bye at Paddington, in the brilliant summer noontide. The departure platform was crowded with holiday travellers, people who appeared to be serene in a fixed belief that this life was intended for the pursuit of frivolous plea

sures.

She sat in the corner of the railway-carriage, with half-closed eyes, during the greater part of the journey, pretending to be asleep, as a means of escaping the benevolent officiousness of her aunt's particular friends; but she was conscious of every feature in the landscape that flashed past the window, and the journey seemed of an almost intolerable length to her weary spirit. Her father's mild face peering in at the window, when the train entered Exeter's stately terminus, struck her with an emotion that was almost pain. She had thought of him so little during the

last few months; had lived her own life-a life of pleasure and vanity—with so supreme a selfishness. She clung to him for a moment, as he kissed her, with a remorseful tenderness.

'Why, Lizzie, my dear, how ill you look!' he said, startled by the settled pallor of the face, that looked at him with such a new tenderness; 'Maria told me nothing in her last letter.'

'There was nothing to tell, papa,' said Elizabeth; 'I am not ill, only very tired.'

'That foolish theatrical performance, I'm afraid, my love; or-or-' looking at her anxiously, 'you may have been unhappy about something-some misunderstanding. I have seen Forde.'

They were alone together in a deserted waitingroom; the South Devon train having whisked Mrs. Chevenix's particular friends off to Torquay.

6

Then you know all, papa,' with a feeble attempt to appear supremely indifferent; that he and I did not suit each other, and have agreed to differ, as some one says somewhere.'

'Something to that effect, my dear. But Forde fully exonerated you. He took all the blame upon himself.'

'Very generous,' with her old scornful laugh; but the usual thing in such cases, I believe. Are

you very angry with me for coming back to you in. this forlorn condition ?'

'Angry with you, my love! How can you imagine such a thing! Forde is an excellent fellow, but could never have been a good match for you. I am not the kind of man to interfere with my children's wishes; but your aunt had inspired me with more ambitious ideas about you, and I confess I was disappointed.'

'Then you may be quite happy, papa; Mr. Forde and I have parted for ever.

CHAPTER IX.

'Can we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,

Can we to men benighted

The lamp of life deny?
Salvation! O salvation!

The joyful sound proclaim,

Till each remotest nation

Has learnt Messiah's name.'

Ir was a dismal coming home after all the glories of that London season. There was a suppressed triumph in Gertrude's manner, which Elizabeth felt, but could hardly take objection to. Diana was indifferent, shrugged her shoulders, and observed that Mrs. Chevenix's London seasons were not astounding in their results. We are like Somebody and his men,' she said; 'we all ride up the hill, and then ride down again.' The beauty of the family had not endeared herself infinitely to these elder sisters. Blanche clung about her tenderly, and sighed, and mutely sympathised, not daring to speak of her sister's woes; but evidently brimming over with

compassion. The caresses and unspoken compassion were a great deal more tiresome to Elizabeth than the spiteful exultation of the elders.

‘I almost wish I had come back engaged to Lord Paulyn,' she said to herself. It would be better to marry a man one despised than to put up with this kind of thing.'

Mr. Forde's name was evidently tabooed in the domestic circle, as a delicate attention to herself; but she had made her father tell her all he knew about her lost lover during the journey from Exeter.

'Yes, my dear, he is going to put his old idea into execution; he is going to the South-Sea Islands as a missionary. It is a kind of craze of his, poor fellow; and upon my word, Lizzie, I think you are happily released from your engagement to a man with such a notion. Rely upon it, the old idea would have got the better of him sooner or later, however comfortably settled he might have been in England; and he would have wanted to drag you off to some savage country with him.'

'Very likely,' said Elizabeth, with a little sigh.

She was thinking what happiness it would have seemed to her to have gone with him; to have shared his perils, to have lightened his labours, to have been verily the other half of his mind and soul.