him, but everyone unites to sing his praise."

"He is everything that is best and kindest," said Christina; but she spoke with an effort, and she dared not look at him again.

"So you will spend your life here; you will always be a neighbour of ours,' he said: "and when you are no longer afraid of vexing your grandfather, I hope you will not be so unwilling to come to the Park."

She was growing cold with the force she was putting upon herself, and the battle she was fighting, but yet she would not give in. But oh, if only he would talk of something else—if only he would not set her future thus before her.

"I suppose your plans are undecided as yet?" he continued. "I have not seen Mr. Warde for some days, but he is always busy with his schools or his poor people or something or other. I am afraid such things have not been much in your line?"

"Not yet," said Christina; but her voice sounded strange, and she put up her hands to her face with a sudden movement, for it seemed that the white road upon which the sun was shining dazzled her as she looked at it.

:

"Come on to the moor; the sun is too much for you," he said gently: and he followed, whilst she walked on as if in a dream. They were walking, as they had often walked before, across the heath in the sunny freshness of the morning the mist was still lying in the hollow, the grass was still wet with dew, the birds were wheeling over their heads, the lizards darting, and the grasshoppers chirruping at their feet; and in the pause which had followed his last words, Christina had once more gathered up her strength and would not be vanquished.

People can always do what has to be done," she said. "I I suppose I shall learn my duties in time; it is only that I am not accustomed to it."

There was a momentary silence; and when by an effort she turned her eyes upon him, she saw that he was smiling strangely at her.

"Is it only that you are not accustomed to it?" he said; "or is it not rather that you cannot accustom yourself to it? Oh, Christina, you do not know how to deceive! You deceive no one but yourself, and you think no one can see that you are struggling to be free-that you are restless and unhappy."

"I am happy," she said in her dread, facing him as she spoke.

"It is easier to say so than to seem So. It is a mockery to say that you are happy. Is this the first warning you have had? Has no one else seen -has no one spoken to you?"

"Why do you speak of it?" said Christina. "You should say nothing to me that he might not hear. I have promised to marry him, and now I will not talk about it with you. I have promised to be his wife, and you have nothing to do with it."

They had reached the same hollow between the hills where they had met for the first time alone. The leaves were rustling and falling about them, and lying crisp and yellow on the ground, and the bracken crackled beneath their feet. It had been early spring when they stood there first, and now it was September, and everything was changed.

Christina stood still, as if to give him his dismissal; the colour had come into her cheeks at her last words, and she had once more grasped her fate and fortified herself in her pride and independence.

"Have I nothing to do with it? Do you think that I would speak now if I had nothing more to say? Is it possible, Christina, that you do not know what it is?"

Then, in spite of everything, though she was strong, her courage deserted her. She could no longer hope to deceive him as she stood there in the flickering sunlight he saw her grow pale, and, she trembled and put out her hand, leaning against a young birch-tree to steady herself.

"There is nothing to make you afraid," he said; "it has not been your fault, and I thought only of the moment,

and did not look on till they told me you were going to be married to another man. I think you made me forget the future."

"Not now-not when it is too late," she cried, and sat down, for she could not stand, and hid her face in her hands; and a rushing sound was in her ears, and her heart beat in great throbs, and she was not even conscious of Captain Cleasby, nor, at first, of the words he said.

He was not too much agitated to plead his cause gracefully and well; and yet he was moved and carried out of himself, for he knew that she loved him, and he too loved her as he had never loved before. He sat opposite to her on a bit of broken wood, waiting patiently till she should speak to him, and his eyes were smiling, though his mouth was grave.

"What made you do it?" he said at last. "Did they all wish it so much? Why did you not trust me?"

What had there been to make her trust? Nothing; she knew it, though she did not say it. It was true, as he said, that he had not thought of the future; and perhaps he never would have thought of it in the way that he was thinking of it now, had it not been for Mr. Warde.

Christina lifted up her head, and resting her chin on her hand, she looked at him fixedly for a long time with her searching dark eyes; but he met her look with imperturbable composure.

"I did not think that you would mind," she said.

Even at this moment she knew that he did not love her as she loved him, and yet it made no difference; she would have gladly given up all for him, only she could not bear to be deceived. If he had made any protestations-if he had been vehement or impassioned, even now she might have turned from him, but he did not profess more than he felt.

"I did mind, Christina," he said; and she believed him, and answered him by one of her sudden smiles, though at the same moment the tears

"I have asked no promise," he said: and the words brought back to her a sense of what she had done and of what had yet to be accomplished.

แ

"Oh, how can I?" she cried. "He does not care for me: it was only that he was kind and generous; but how can I tell him? I make every one unhappy. I don't know how they will bear the disappointment."

"Why did they wish it? Was it that you might be safely provided for? I must persuade them that I am to be trusted. I will not give you up, Christina; and I am not afraid that you I will desert me. Shall I come with you now?"

But she said not now-she would tell Mr. Warde first.

"Could not your cousin do something for you?"

"Bernard? Oh no!" she said, with a pang at her heart; and he asked nothing more. And so they parted.

:

"I wish I could spare you all this," he said and Christina looked at him with a troubled joy, and a gladness which was strangely intermixed with pain. She had yielded herself up to him for now and for ever; she knew that she could take back nothing of what she had given; she trusted him and she loved him; and yet she knew that, though he cared for it, he would never understand, he could never know what she had given him.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHRISTINA was triumphant and penitent, strangely happy and yet regretful, more than content with what she had gained, yet with a natural shrinking from the consequences of that gain; sometimes she was all these things by turns, sometimes it seemed that she was all these things at once.

She came out from her grandfather's

presence on that evening with a white, set face. He was powerless now, and he knew it, and did not attempt to exercise authority; but he was bitter and fierce in his disappointment; for he could not without a mortal wound to his pride accept from Captain Cleasby the help he had looked for from Mr. Warde; and though Christina had held her own against him, there had been a struggle, and the victory had not brought her peace. Then her mother's first impulse of incredulity had to be overcome, and her weak lamentations heard, not once, but many times.

"You will not be happy with him, Christina," she had said. "Of course you can do as you please, but do not think you will be happy. He loves you now, perhaps; but all that passes away, and some day you will look back and regret what you might have been. He has a fancy for the moment; perhaps he would never have had it but for the obstacles raised in his path. All his friends will look down upon you, and some day he may learn to see with their eyes.

It may seem cruel now,

but I must warn you before it is too late."

"It is too late," said Christina: and she too looked on, as she spoke, to the future which her mother had pictured, but yet she smiled, as if she did not know what it was to be afraid. "It is too late. I can never go back again. I have been very wrong, but not in this, and I will not give this up; I could not; he would not let me.'

"You are doing it on your own responsibility then, Christina. Do not say that you were not warned. But of what use are warnings? I had had warnings, but I would not listen until the time for them was passed. You must see Mr. Warde, of course, and I think you ought to let him know at once."

"He does know," said Christina; "I wrote to him."

Yes, that afternoon she had written to tell him that it must all be over between them. She knew that she had behaved badly to him, but it seemed to her that she was behaving

better now to him than she had done before. She was grateful to him; she was ashamed of the past, and she was ashamed of breaking her engagement; but yet she felt that she was doing him a service. He had been very kind; her mother had said he had been kinder than she knew, because she did not as yet understand the burthens of married life; and from these burthens she was now about to release him. In one way she had never deceived him; he had not asked for more than she could give and thus it was that though she wrote her letter gravely, and a little mournfully, she did not feel overpowered by shame for what she had done, nor by pity for what she was about to do; and yet it was hard to her to write the letter; and though it was short, it was a long time before she could put her meaning into words:

:

"DEAR MR. WARDE,-This morning, Captain Cleasby has asked me to marry him. It was very sudden, and I was taken by surprise; but if it had not been sudden, I could have given him no other answer; and after he had spoken I could not have married anyone else. I know that I was engaged to you, and that I have broken my engagement very suddenly, and when I had given you no reason to think that there was any change. But until this morning there was no change. I think that I ought never to have promised to marry you. You were kind and generous in wishing it, and now I believe that you will forgive me, because you are kind and generous always.

"Yours very gratefully,

"CHRISTINA NORTH."

66

Only I must say that I am sorry." "No, Christina, you need not say that. It all rests between you and me; and if I do not blame you, no one else has a right to do so."

There was something so simple, and yet so generous, in the entire absence of reproach or self-pity; there was something so honest and true in his thought for her, that Christina looked up at him with a feeling of reverence as well as admiration. And yet he was no saint, but an unintellectual man, without sensitive perceptions, or perhaps the highest aspirations.

"I am afraid that you have difficulties before you, and you know you may always count upon my friendship; but first, Christina, I am going to preach a little. Do not think that you can choose your trials for yourself. They are all sent, as well as your blessings, and you must take them as they come, and make the best of them. You ran with the footmen, and you failed, and yet you would have thrust yourself into the swelling of Jordan. You were dissatisfied and unhappy, and so you thought yourself capable of a great sacrifice; and in its accomplishment you hoped to find an escape. Perhaps I should have thought of this, but I did not until I got your letter. I thought that if it had been so you would have spoken. If you are doing right now,-and remember, Christina, I do not blame you because of to-day,-if you are doing right in promising to marry Captain Cleasby, do not think that you will have nothing more that will be hard to bear; yet do not despair because there are lions in your path."

Then he left her, and went across the

passage to see her grandfather. When Mr. North spoke to her again, he no longer refused to see Captain Cleasby, and his tone, though querulous, was no longer bitter. Then Christina knew that Mr. Warde had already put himself upon her side, and that at least she would have one powerful ally.

The day after, Captain Cleasby called for her; and she saw him again for the first time since their meeting and their engagement. One day she had said that she must be free to make the announcement to her grandfather and her mother, and to write to Mr. Warde. Now these things had been done, done with less difficulty and pain than she had a right to expect, done comparatively so easily that she was remorseful and sorry, far more sorry than she would have been if the opposition she had had to encounter had been more violent and more sustained; and she was softened and humbled, feeling as if she had much to atone for. But yet she knew, in spite of it all, that at last she had found that for which unconsciously she had longed. It was not that she did not feel that there might be dangers to be met; only now they had no power to make her retrace her steps. She had thought herself strong, but he had conquered her.

She could not go down to meet him, as she had gone down to meet Mr. Warde. At the sound of his step on the gravelwalk the colour came flushing into her face, and she got up quickly, and went to him half shyly, with her eyes glancing about in all directions, as they had a habit of doing when she was excited, and with a flitting smile hovering round her mouth.

"At last, Christina," he said, and he too smiled; "and how is it to be? It is too late for anyone to say no, but still for your sake I hope that I am to be forgiven."

"Grandpapa will see you," said Christina; but they did not go at once to the old man, but sat together in the front parlour, in that dingy little room into which the sunshine was used to creep slowly and stealthily, as into an unaccustomed place; but to-day it was filled

with the sunshine of happiness, and Hope was standing at the door.

And the hour passed, as our happiest and saddest hours pass, so quickly that we can hardly understand their sweetness or their bitterness till it is gone, and we shall know it no more; and then Mrs. North brought word that her father would see Captain Cleasby before he left the house.

"Yes, he is coming," said Christina: and she rose at once, and led the way across the passage, and knocked at the study door.

She wished that there might be no outward show of anger and reproach, and yet the meeting struck her as more melancholy than if there had been some sign of real feeling; for what is sadder than a form from which the spirit has for ever departed? A smile which would be friendly if it might, words of gratitude and kindness veiling the coldness of a heart.

Christina felt it instinctively as she stood in the doorway and watched the meeting, her grandfather rising stiffly from his chair, and holding out his hand with apparent cordiality; the young man's graceful and indifferent bearing,— she understood it all, and turned away with a feeling of pain that it must be so always.

Yet before Captain Cleasby left the house he had done much to smooth away the difficulties in their path; and Mr. North had consented to the marriage taking place so soon as Walter should have got his affairs into order.

"I ought to have been straight before now," he said; "but these lawyers are for ever making difficulties, and as a matter of fact, though I have been six months at the Park, I have not come into my property yet. I think I shall have to run up to London to see about things, and in the meantime Christina can be making her preparations, so that we can be married, when I return, at I never saw the use of making such a fuss over weddings, and bothering oneself with a whole heap of aunts and uncles. We mean to do it in our own way, don't we, Christina?"

once.

at all to the wedding. It was all so new, and she was wrapt up in her present happiness, and she had never imagined it would be so soon. But when he appealed to her, she did not hesitate a moment.

"Yes, of course," she said; "but why must you go away now? Can't the lawyers do without you? I am sure they don't want you."

"You don't understand, Christina," said Mr. North. "Captain Cleasby is quite right; a man should always look after his affairs for himself, and then perhaps there wouldn't be so many poor fools ruined in this world. Trust yourself, and depend on yourself, and look about you, that's my advice: and there's many a young fellow would have been glad had he followed it instead of taking his ease, whilst his money was being thrown to the dogs:-yes, and his good name too, if he had only known it, and all through some one he trusted as a friend,-lucky for him if it wasn't his own flesh and blood."

It was a long speech for Mr. North, and he ended in a low mournful cadence, so that they hardly caught his last words. Christina knew that he was thinking of his son, and of his own misfortunes; she was softened and pitiful, and encouraged by his taking Captain Cleasby's part even upon a trifling subject.

"You must not think so much of old times," she said gently; "I think the world has grown better. And we are all going to be good and happy, like the people at the end of a fairy tale; and you must forget about the past, and be fond of him for my sake,-won't you, grandpapa?"

She was sitting on the arm of her grandfather's chair, and Captain Cleasby was close to her on the other side, leaning against the low chimney-piece, and as she spoke she reached out her hand for one of his, and put it in the old

man's.

Say something nice to him, grand

papa!'

,,