literature appeal to a discerning public, | King Lud that he must leave them and and not to individual patrons and patron- start by the night train. He had not esses, for support. Even if such a revival heard from the Admiralty, but there were were possible, a leader like Mrs. Montagu could hardly be found. It was Johnson himself who said of her,

THE next morning rose with such a raw, white Scotch mist or drizzling rain as to catch everybody in the throat worse than her cold had caught Lady Fermor, and to forbid preliminary strolls and seats on the border moors. The two young men tried them on several occasions, only to return thoroughly soaked, to be sent to the lower regions, where, as Marianne Dugdale declared, the pedestrians were turned before a slow fire. Even in fine weather these moors are bleak in August, for the bloom of the broom is past, and the first purple of the heather is growing brown, before the burst of September red ling which lends the final glow to the wilderness. It was hard to be assailed by the Scotch weather-fiend before the party had done more than set foot in Scotland.

letters: from the rectory, where he ought to have been weeks before. The mother had been ill; and even without that obligation his last days on shore were due to those at home. They were too kind to complain, but he should not have failed them.

No, of course not. Good little boys could not play truant for any length of she crumbled down the bit of oat cake time, Marianne told him scornfully, while with which she had provided herself but could not eat. But how any one could leave his friends in the lurch she could not understand, she went on tartly. It would have been bad enough to have deserted them before they had reached their destination, but it was mean to go in such weather.

He brightened up a little, and said earnestly, "You must be aware I have no choice, Miss Dugdale." And then the big, sandy-haired, full-faced lieutenant, the diver among sharks and the defier of polar bears, positively blushed like a girl when he went on: "But I may comfort myself-may I not?-with the selfish hope that I shall be missed a little?"

"Not unless by Iris or Lady Fermor or Sir William," Marianne assured him coolly. "I never flatter a man's vanity. We can really get on very well without you — can we not, Sir William?"

"If you like to put it so, Miss Dugdale," said Sir William a little awkwardly, and so deliberately that Marianne could have shaken him, to have roused the man into greater alacrity.

Ludovic Acton had deferred his depar ture till he should have to encounter the chill and darkness of midnight in such weather, in order-infatuated fellow — that he might have ten or twelve hours more to sun and scorch himself in the Marianne Dugdale was crusty when flame that was consuming him. Marianne she came down to breakfast in the inn proposed to repay him by rendering these parlor, where Lady Fermor sent Soames hours one prolonged period of bitterness, to pour out tea and play propriety at the till it was just possible the cruel cautertable with the young people. Nobody ization of his wound might be complete shall say that I have not looked after you. and prove effectual, and the last boon be After what I've seen and known, I trust granted to him of departing limp and spirnobody," the old lady told her nieces in-itless, but cured, if he were capable of sultingly.

Quite right, granny. We've all heard evil doers are evil dreaders," retorted Marianne recklessly, while Iris crimsoned and hurried out of hearing.

Marianne's temper was not improved by a somewhat agitated announcement from

cure, of a misplaced attachment to an unfeeling, ungrateful girl.

It was a blank, disconsolate day for belated travellers at a country inn; a day to order a smoky fire to be lit, draw the scanty curtains, and aim at the severe discharge of duty, and the acquisition of a

Marianne tried none of these plans, for she did not deign to quarrel with King Lud; it was not her cue to dispute with Sir William, except in spurts of uncontrollable exasperation; she had a notion that Iris would not wrangle with her, and Lady Fermor was not visible all the morning.

rampant sense of self-righteousness, by | by Iris's offer of eau-de-cologne for her writing off a dozen letters-long due; to headache, the more so, perhaps, that Iris collapse into calling for refreshments, to had been conversing for the last threeyawn and dawdle and tell idle stories, and quarters of an hour, in the most natural, finally to sour and ferment into quarrel- unaffected manner certainly, but still on ling with might and main, and get a little confidential terms, with Ludovic Acton, heat and vigor into life in that way. on scraps of rectory news and on his probable destination when he should get a ship. Iris had no right to such information as Marianne had not cared to seek. To sum up the sufferings of Marianne's dog-in-the-manger mood, she began to grow frightened at Sir William, whom she had only looked upon as a temporary ser vant to suit her purpose. She had raised Marianne lugged Sir William into the up a spirit with which she could not cope, passage to play battledore and shuttlecock and that she did not understand. His by means of ancient implements for the looks and tones had changed to rueful, game, which she had discovered in some unbounded forbearance and repressed tencorner; but found that he had to be taught, derness, as she had known them change and though he insisted that he was good on the morning at the Academy. Marifor rackets, he made no progress in catch-anne could not comprehend it, and her ing and returning the mounted bunch of ignorance abashed her for the moment in feathers. She sat down to backgammon her perversity. Iris believed that his with him, and found, to her disgust, that he could not only beat her to sticks, but did it without ceremony, with a woodenheaded adherence to the rules of the game, and a quiet grin of masculine superiority, which were beyond bearing. She rummaged out of her trunk silks and worsteds, and set him to wind them for her, as Lady Thwaite had once done before. But either Sir William was now a more adroit master of the situation, or Marianne was not such an adept in taking amusement out of her neighbor's blunders. Marianne asked her victim to read a guidebook aloud while she worked; but he read, according to his custom, in a stentorian voice, so that everybody in the room had the benefit of the performance. It ceased to be private, as she had intended, and the publicity did Luncheon was welcome by way of vari not suit her, since she had a little weak-ety, and still more dinner, with Lady Ferness for monopolizing men's notice a weakness which this day had become an urgent necessity to her. In the end, between worry and the noise her squire made in obeying her last behest, her head began to ache violently. Then it became evident that Marianne was in a state of nervous weariness and crossness, which, to her extreme mortification, caused her to be viewed as an object of pity, rather than of reprehension.

heart was melting and thrilling because he was thinking of his dead wife, poor, wild Honor, to whom, in the person of this capricious, captious, yet withal generous and warm-hearted girl, he might be called on in some sort to atone for his errors.

And all the time Iris was as sure as she could be of the result of any human act, that if Sir William Thwaite were led on and suffered, by the contrivance of Lady Fermor and the folly of Marianne Dug. dale, to accomplish the reparation which had more than once flashed across his mind, it would not only be a repetition of his former grievous blunder, it would be the consummation of the misfortunes of his chequered life.

66

mor declaring herself recruited in spite of the weather. Appearances brightened still more with coffee. Lady Fermor was at her best, chatty, with a rasping goodhumor, inclined to encourage the young people in any form of diversion, though she still declared herself unfit for her usual game of cards. But you boys and girls may set a-going games for yourselves. What games we had long ago, when we were not too wise or grand or goody-goody There was more sorrow than anger in to play games! Old-fashioned, homely King Lud's kind eyes, and the sorrow riddles and forfeits, when I was a very smote Marianne Dugdale, so that she was small child, charades, tableaux, not to barely able to persist in the line of bespeak of private theatricals for our own havior she had adopted towards him and other people. She was extremely offended

benefit, without any shoddy pretence of helping charities or entertaining paupers.

Why, Marianne, are you so down in the mouth with one day's rain that you cannot even get up a sham penny reading?" There had been a reaction from Marianne's exhaustion before this speech, a return to the restless excitement of the morning, deepened, as in the case of all relapses. But it was Lady Fermor's goad which sent the girl beyond all bounds of discretion and delicacy.

"Thank you, granny, for the suggestion, which I'll take leave to improve upon," cried Marianne with flaming cheeks and flashing eyes. "Ladies and gentlemen, we shall act one of the runaway marriages, for which this place was once famous. It will be a play in a single scene, and the words are so few that no. body need pretend not to be equal to learning his or her part.'

"Bravo!" exclaimed Lady Fermor, with the baleful fires in her sunken eyes leaping up for an instant; "if you are able to carry out the idea. But who will bell the cat? Who will assume the principal parts, and play bride and bridegroom?"

"I, said the sparrow," quoted Marianne, with an assumption of sparrow-like pertness, "I will play the bride, and I choose Sir William for my bridegroom."

Sir William glanced at her with a quick, disturbed inquiry; but he could not read her face or her heart. "Acton - Lady Fermor turned ruthlessly to the lieutenant-"you are glum enough to play the owl or the parson; you'll dig the grave — no, I did not mean that you'll perform the ceremony." Thanks, Lady Fermor" -he choked down his feelings - "but I am not qualified to take my father's place."

"I'll teach you," insisted Marianne flippantly; "you have only to utter three simple sentences. You ask whether the man will take the woman and the woman the man for husband and wife; you bid them join hands, and then declare no power in heaven or on earth is ever to part them. Surely you can remember that."

"Don't spoil sport, Acton," enjoined Lady Fermor in her deep gutturals. "We have no substitute, unless we call in the innkeeper honest man! as they say

It was a bold speech, and seemed to take the person most concerned by storm. "How am I to thank you for your condescension, Miss Dugdale?" he said within his country—and he may not be able an agitation and seriousness which were to see a joke. You know you have to startling, and caused even Marianne to punch a hole in a Scotchman's head belook put out and to pause for a moment in fore you can get a joke into it. Never her recklessness. shirk what you've got to do, however much against the grain. I thought that was part of a sailor's creed."

"Oh, by acting as well as you can," she said hastily. "I ask nothing further. I can coach you; I can coach everybody. I heard all about it from the maid. Somebody has to ask the bride and bridegroom if Barkis is willin',' and then we have only to say yes or boo,' which seems to be letting us off by an easier method than speaking—even in a monosyllable. But what can 'boo' mean? I understand, and am able to say, 'bo' to a goose with a fleeting, impatient glance at King Lud, sitting back in a corner, with a sudden lividness of cheek and lip, yet with the self-control of a gentleman and an officer. "But I confess boo' beats me."

""

"It means nod, Marianne. Couldn't you guess it by the corresponding word curtshey?" said Iris, speaking with an effort, as if she were forcing herself to join in the conversation. "But if I were you I would not bow to such a bad jest. I think you might find a better game.'

"So it is," said the badgered man, raising his head and pulling himself together. "I'll do what you want. Don't fear that I shall spoil sport, Miss Dugdale — Lady Fermor."

"Are you all mad?" implored Iris; but she spoke in a low tone, and nobody, unless Sir William, heard her.

"Be off, Marianne," urged Lady Fermor, entering into the spirit of the unseemly frolic, as she had entered into many another of the same description.

It won't be hard for you to dress in character, since there are no white silks or satins, or veils or orange-blossoms, required here. Your travelling-dress will do, and Thwaite need not change his coat. Your cousin Iris will not object to bring you in, and stay as a spectator, unless she holds that the bride's shoes are hers by prior right is she so many months the

senior or the junior of the two? I forget | ing kindness for Sir William, or rather which and ought not to be filled by for his place and title, I dare say. other feet. I'll arrange where the men going to sell myself for a little rank and shall stand." wealth, as thousands of girls have done before me. That is the way of it is it? Will you tell me just one thing, Iris? What business has Mr. Acton to go away in such detestable weather, as if to face the elements - in the rhetorical phrase,

Iris was altogether taken aback, though she had not been without her suspicions. She protested that Marianne would punish at least one other person as well as herself, the innocent with the guilty. And Iris pleaded, "Won't you say, or let me say, that you have thought better of it, and cannot carry out this absurd, unbecoming mimicry of a marriage? That will be some compensation to Ludovic before he goes, and he may understand may suspect."

dismay at the effect of her words, the big | faction. It was a game in the beginning, drops ceased to rattle down, the chest left though it has ended in earnest. Oh dear! off heaving with sobs, while Marianne be- I liked it so much while it lasted — to gan to accuse herself piteously, passion- feel my power, and know I could make ately, laughingly, for extremes are always everything bright or dark to him by a meeting. "I am a wretch of a girl, and word, a look. It was dreadfully inconsidhe's the dearest, best of fellows, as gallant erate and selfish to him, no doubt, and I a man as ever stepped, as true as steel, as shall be punished as I deserve." tender as only the best men can be. And what did you take me for, that you could think I preferred Sir William Thwaite, who has risen in the world, and been wild, and is reformed, and is well enough in his way? But what drowning women did he save? What shipwrecked crew did he rescue? What torpedoes did he help to launch at the peril of his precious life likelike Jove scattering thunderbolts?" Iris looked up in sheer bewilderment at this extravagant laudation. She was tempted to put in the reservation: "Where had he the opportunity, though he, too, fought and bled for his country? And are there not spiritual conflicts and conquests harder and nobler by far than any physical warfare and victory?" But she had not the chance, for it was Marianne's turn to speak, and she was making abundant use of the privilege.

"There is one good deed I have done him, I have saved him from the consequences of an unworthy choice," she said, her voice, which had sounded shrilly eager and exultant an instant before, suddenly sinking in despair.

No, Marianne. He does not think so; he never will. I have known him since we were children. I know how hard it is to offend Ludovic Acton, how lenient he is to offenders, how sure to forgive," represented Iris earnestly.

"Yes, he will think he has made a fortunate escape, after to-day," persisted Marianne dolefully. “No man could bear what he has had to bear and forget it."

"But you mean to make it up with him before he goes? You won't go on now with this stupid, coarse play, surely, sure ly, Marianne?" besought Iris.

Marianne shook her head in wilful determination to suffer the worst penalty she had brought upon herself, and with a perverse doggedness which was characteristic of the girl: "I cannot; it is too late. It would make no difference now. Besides, we are not on terms to admit of an explanation, and I dare say he will be thankful in years to come that there never has been a ghost of an engagement, or even of a mutual understanding between us," she said sadly. "I would not let him speak, or grant him the least satis-,

"No, no," cried Marianne, starting up in a fresh access of wilfulness and waywardness, “I am not going to crave mercy from any man, or seek to call him back. Besides, I am certain that granny would begin to jeer and taunt me till I became possessed, and then my last error would be worse than my first. Let us act the marriage and have done with the whole thing. I believe he has renounced me already in his heart; let him have the comfort- the sop to his pride, poor fellow, of doing it in so many words. After I have treated him as I have done, and gone so far, I owe him his revenge, and do you think I'll stint him in it?"

Marianne in perfect sincerity doubled in the argument, and twisted it round to make herself and everybody miserable in an ingenious fashion of her own, which is yet not altogether uncommon.

In any imminent danger in which Iris had ever seen a fellow-creature, her immediate instinct had always been to save the threatened victim to save at Iris's expense if need were - as when she controlled her natural recoil and held close the severed artery in her servant's wrist, as when she walked back to Whitehills with Lady Thwaite dressed in a groom's clothes and faced a man whom she had reason to know she had deeply offended, and whom all her friends and neighbors were then denouncing as a drunken ruf fian. The instinct did not fail to assert itself at this juncture. "Let me act the bride," she said with quiet determination. "It will be all the same who takes the part in a piece of child's play that neither Sir William nor I need mind, and it will save you and Ludovic Acton from a last misunderstanding, which, though it is only