should see justice done, and that remark able things can happen in real life as well as in fiction." "Fact," I said, "is often stranger than fiction." Annabel said nothing, and we went into the house. CHAPTER IV. I DID not sleep that morning. I lay and listened, first to the retreating footsteps, and then to the pulse of the insect world which beat on in the heart of silence. I thought of the events of the night and of Annabel. I was now convinced that there was a depth of thought and feeling in her nature which I had not hitherto suspected, but both the thought and the feeling were sadly undisciplined. I had caught a glimpse of latent passion in the heart of the girl I loved how strong I did not know or how far uncontrolled and I felt bewildered like a man who, walking in a pleasant land, feels the rumble of volcanic surges beneath his feet. The dawn in swelling robes of pearly light came floating over the green earth, and the birds, after tuning their pipes for a little, sang out in full chorus. The noise of their glad overture seemed to throb through the temple of the morning and resound again from its roof and walls. In the night I had said fact was stranger than fiction, and Annabel repeated my remark to me in the morning, when at break. fast the rumor reached us that the broken skeleton which had been found had proved in the daylight to be that of a calf. Even Ernest, who had been out, could not deny the fact. The authorities had been over from St. Luc to examine the bones; but they said that Bossé would be detained some time, for further investigation. Mr. and Mrs. Thorold, it seemed, had actually spent the night undisturbed. The latter had not yet risen; the former now questioned us with interest. Annabel gave him a satirical and highly colored account of the whole affair in which Ernest's name figured. His father was extremely shocked. "Ernest!" he exclaimed, "is it possible?" The boy interrupted him. "Can't you see, sir, that Annabel is inventing every word of it?" Mr. Thorold satisfied himself by a glance at the girl, and then, because he had been angry with Ernest, chid Annabel for her nonsense. He said it was too serious a matter for a joke. Of course for a week we talked of nothing but old Bosse's affairs. Gossip averred that the calf had been a pet call. The old dames of the neighborhood, who rather pitied Bossé, suddenly remembered the story of its life and death with a minuteness and variation of detail which were most surprising. In speaking to one of them, Annabel said with a sympathetic shake of her head, "And perhaps it had been like a friend to him for many years." "Sans doute," replied the old woman, with a pious sigh. The favor of the populace was gradually turning towards old Bossé, and, suspecting themselves to have done him injustice, they tried in their rough way to expiate the sin by being now unjust to Gabriel Desbarrat. His last excited and boastful speech on the night of the riot was remembered against him. One boy, meeting Desbarrat, went so far as to point with his thumb toward the uncovered bones of the calf and exclaim, "Sa mère bien aimée." Desbarrat thrashed the boy till he roared again. The boy was the son of a widow, and one might therefore have supposed that there would be no one to take his part. Not so thought the widow, who turned a bucket of sour milk over Desbarrat the next time he passed under her window, remarking as she did so, in rich nasal patois, that she thus put it to its right purpose, for it was meant for a pig. No one sued the widow at law for damages. While the little waves of popular feeling were thus quieting themselves in the neighborhood I found myself in the last month of my visit, and I knew that if I was going to make love to Annabel it was time to begin; yet one by one the days passed in the tranquil weather and I found the purpose of my mind still unsettled with regard to her. I loved her in a certain way, it was true, and at times I could not withhold myself from striving by word and action to win her love, but my better judgment refused to sanction the impulse of my heart and remained in suspense. Her reserve of manner, however, soon broke down before the evidences of my regard, and one day she informed me with perfect candor that she had formerly disliked me, but, having gradually learned to see the good points in my character, she was now willing to become my friend. This declaration once made there was something most charming and original in the openness with which she showed her friendship for me. The pleasure of such a friendship was evidently novel and interesting to her, and, never having learned to see the safety that lies in conventionali ties, she quite frankly sought opportunities for conversation, and sometimes did so when I should have thought it wiser to have held aloof. Thus, with mutual pleasure, though not without misgivings on my side, we drifted into intimate companion. ship. I think if I had been quite certain that this friendship betokened love on her part I could not have refrained at that time from opening my heart to her, but she would not give me this assurance, and Procrastination, that monstrous thief of summer days, whispered to me to put off speaking to her yet awhile, and I listened to his advice. Ernest and I both urged that Annabei had not learned what prudence was. "I have," she said. "You should never contradict those who are wiser than yourself," said Ernest. "I never do," she replied gently, and under this concise reproof we were forced to be silent. Gabriel Desbarrat disappeared, and it was rumored that he had gone back to New York, although his business there, of which he boasted, was now supposed to be more visionary than the ghostly vision which had sent him to St. Luc. "At least," said Ernest, "he will break "She has an excellent constitution," said Annabel, "which is the main point in a love affair. I fear she will not even look pale and thin." The next morning, as we passed on the road, we saw pretty Thèrese again tending her flowers alone. If she was sad, as she told us with simplicity she was, there was no trace of it upon her beautiful face. About three weeks after our old neigh-pretty Thèrese's heart." bor had been driven handcuffed to gaol in the dead of night, he walked quietly back one sunny morning with a small blue bundle slung, French fashion, over his shoulder. It was a comfortless enough home-coming, for his house had stood open to wind and weather since he had left it, and if it contained any recesses to him sacred, they had been profaned by the common gaze. His dog was dead, his I finished the portrait, and the time of chickens could hardly welcome him, and my visit was drawing to a close. All humanity, when forced to walk upon the around us the harvest was gathered in; road on which he lived, passed by on the the blue-winged bird that heralds the other side. This old man was neither Canadian autumn was flitting, flitting justified nor condemned, for, while the everywhere about the land, and the azure authorities could find no proof of the aster blossomed round the yellow stubble murder, all their enquiries had failed to fields. Those last weeks were all pure bring testimony with regard to the miss-joy when I could be at Annabel's side, and ing woman. But, although the neighbors yet I never asked her to be my wife. It still feared and disliked him, the reaction is hard for me to explain why I did not. of feeling which had set in against Des- She was a girl of earnest thought and barrat caused many to proclaim their heavenly desires. I admire wit in a belief in his innocence. woman and I admired Annabel; but for a "It is extraordinary," said Annabel, wife I should be content with a more ordi"how averse the ordinary mind is to say-nary mind, perhaps even with more huming, 'I do not know.' If it cannot hold one opinion it will hold another, and the one is usually as groundless as the other. Opinion is a sort of corset in which foolishness props itself up; wisdom has enough backbone to stand without it." ble aspirations. No man wishes to be constantly surprised by his wife's theories or to feel that at any moment he may become the victim of her love of fun. If I could have had proof that she loved me I should have married her, but it was as hard to bring Annabel's feeling to the test as it is to catch a butterfly; as often as I tried to lead her to show me her heart her That day I met Annabel on the road with a loaf of buckwheat bread in her hand and her own terrier pup in her arms. She would not tell me where she was go-light wit would flash from that subject to ing, but I knew well enough, and thinking such visits hardly safe, I purposely mentioned it at the dinner-table. Mr. Thorold said, "Do you mean to say, Annabel, that you are so imprudent as to visit that ill-favored old villain ? " "No, dear uncle, I did not mean to say anything about it." "You must be prudent," he said more mildly. some other, like those gleams of color that glance from the flower on which you hope they will rest to alight and glitter upon some happy blossom half a field away. At last, weary of the attempt, I tried to give her some warning of my own cold-heartedness. One afternoon, when the heat of the day was over, I went out of the drawing-room to enjoy the cool air that came with the sunset. I found Annabel standing outside the front door, leaning against its stonework and idly surveying the beauty of the evening. The sun had gone down behind the house, so that the lawn at our feet was in shadow. The flowers about us were closing their petals, and the creeper upon the house shook out its long tendrils in the evening breeze. One of them blew over Annabel's shoulder as she stood, and she put up her hand to caress its leaves, holding it there upon her breast. The trees were thick and heavy at our right, but across the lawn in front we saw the fields and sky, and on the other side a single row of feathery poplar-trees made a light, fluttering screen between us and the bending river. We never grew tired of looking at the fields; the house stood upon a slight hillock and we could see them for miles around with their rows of pollard poplar here and there along the fences, and sometimes a piece of bosky pasture land. They were all hues of gold and russet now in the evening light, and beyond them was the forest, and all about the edge of the flat world pink air lay still in level folds under the cloudless blue. who was urging me to walk with him; so 1 remarked, a little crossly, I suppose in Rome we must do as the Romans do.' He looked at me inquiringly for a minute and then said earnestly, 'How do the Romans do?' And therein was my igno rance exposed, not his; for I am sure I do not know how the Romans do. I have regretted ever since that I did not reply, Very well, I thank you.' That would have so completely confused the poor young man." Her pretty lips curled over these last words with a smile of inward delight at the picture they suggested, and my face grew suddenly hot at the thought of my first adventure in conversation with her at the dinner-table. "You ought not to enjoy making people uncomfortable in that way," I said. "Why did you not walk with him pleasantly? What was he like?" "Something like you," said Annabel idly; "not very tall, with a rather wellcut chin. They had some glees afterwards, and he sang a little out of tune, just as you do." I saw that she was in her most perverse I had something to say to Annabel, but mood. I believe by some subtle symI did not find it at all easy to begin, partic-pathy she divined what I had come to say. ularly as she seemed much more interested I said, "I suppose I must take your words in looking about her than in talking to as a proof of your sisterly friendship for me. I had thought that the best way to me, otherwise they are hardly polite." word my warning would be to express the hope that she would one day be happily married, but it was necessary to find some preface for the expression of such a wish. At last I said, "What sort of society you have here in the winter? There are some English people in St. Luc, I hear. Do you never meet any men that you like?" "Oh, I beg your pardon," she said, turning her wonderful eyes to me with a look of innocent pleading. "I did not mean to be rude; I really was not thinkdoing what I said, I was only telling you what he was like." With her head leaning backward against the stone and her eyes still upon the fields she answered me with lazy unconcern. "Oh, yes, there are some English families in St. Luc in winter. They are very good sort of people, sensible, and well educated as far as lesson books go. What they chiefly need is a soupçon of general information which might perhaps take away from the utter dulness of their conversation. For instance, this spring Ernest and I went to a picnic there. After luncheon I perceived that the_damsels and swains had been equally matched in numbers, and that it was their conception of happiness that each couple should walk about together. Ernest deserted me for a girl in blue, and I found myself sitting by the broken fragments with a man Had this been true it certainly would not have detracted from the sting of her words, but I knew too well that the innocence was feigned. "If he was at all like me, he must have been uninteresting indeed," I said dryly; "perhaps you will kindly favor me with a list of your requirements in a young man." "Six feet two- and a beard - musical and a Christian," replied Annabel, telling off the four items upon her fingers with a moment's pause for reflection before each. If I had expected any answer to my question it was a further apology, and I was so much astonished by her prompt category that I stood silent. Annabel again leaned lazily back against the stone and watched the changes of the evening light. If I had been certain that by making a declaration of love I could have caused her to stand there abashed before me with eyes cast down, I think I would have risked my life's happiness to have had the power at that moment to put her to confusion; but I felt impotent to touch her perfect self-command. I could not even fancy Annabel blushing with down cast looks. It was one of her faults that she constantly looked before her out of her big grey eyes, and I sometimes suspected that when she least appeared to be observing what she saw she was observing most. It was some time before I spoke again, and in the silence my anger grew more calm. "Even though I do not possess your list of virtues, Annabel, except perhaps the last, I know that you have allowed me to regard you with brotherly interest, and dinner that night she was not there. She had gone to her room with a headache, they said. It was the only evening in the three months that we spent without her, and it was, as she had said of the society of St. Luc, unutterably dull. It was the shooting season and it had become Annabel's business to go with Ernest up the river before breakfast and paddle his canoe for him. One morning I went with them, and I have a happy recollection of a reedy river and a crimson dawn, of wild duck seen for a moment against the sky and then lost in the noise and smoke of the gun. It was real work this canoeing, requiring quickness of perception and control of nerve; yet Er. nest would not let me touch the paddle when he could get Annabel to work for him. It required absolute silence, too; and Annabel could perceive and be silent. I did not go with them often, and it was after they had been out together one morning that I said good-bye and started for my home-bound ship. In the last days the thought of the parting scene with Annabel haunted me like a nightmare. I felt that when our eyes should meet for the last time I could not fail to read her inmost soul, and, like a veritable coward, "Do look at that cow in our meadow!" she interrupted. "Did you ever see anything so funny as the way it and its shadow are walking along? I beg your pardon, go on with what you were saying." "I was only going to say that I may not have a chance of talking to you alone again, and when I am gone I shall hope soon to hear that you are comfortably settled in a home of your own. I hope you will always look back to our friendship with pleasure, and believe that although II feared I knew not what. Oddly enough, may sometimes have seemed to you inconsiderate I have not consulted my own pleasure so much as I have endeavored earnestly to consider both your highest welfare and my own." She looked at me with eyes wide open in unaffected astonishment. I am sure that this time her surprise was real, although I cannot tell exactly what caused it. She was startled at last out of her indifference and stood facing me, apparently thinking of what I had said. Then suddenly, as some thought struck her, the flame of an internal fire leaped to her cheeks and she turned to me with earnest eyes. "Richard, believe me, the human power of thought and calculation is a very fallible thing, while when a man is a good man and trying to do right, his impulses are often sent from God." When she had said this she left me and went into the house. Dear girl! There was a sort of divine pity in her eyes as she spoke. Was it for me, or for herself, or both? If she loved me this was the one protest which she made against the course I had taken, the one word of pleading that she uttered for her own happiness. Neither by look nor sign did she refer to the subject again, but when I went in to I nearly started without saying good-bye to her at all, for she and Ernest did not return to breakfast. I had taken leave of Mrs. Thorold and the trap was at the door with my portmanteau upon it before they came from the river. I stood upon the threshold talking to a young gardener who was working among the flowers when they came racing over the lawn, Ernest with his gun, and Annabel in her loose boating frock. 66 said. You have missed your breakfast," I "Never mind," said Annabel, “you only had duck. We are so tired of eating duck." And this indeed I felt to be the sentiment of us all. "I hope you have a parting blessing for me, now you have come?" I said. "We are so sorry you are going," she said, still breathless. "We ran all the way from the river to be in time to say good-bye to you. I hope you will have a very pleasant voyage.' Yes, while we were out we decided that on the whole you were a thoroughly good fellow," said Ernest. "We shouldn't mind if you came back." "Indeed, we shall miss you," said Annabel, clasping her hands. "I shall miss you very much indeed. I hope you will come back to see us." I was a little overwhelmed by this unexpected expression of regard from them both. "No," I said gravely, "I do not expect to be able to come back." "Have you some luncheon?" asked Annabel instantly. "We should not mind in the slightest giving you half-a-dozen couple of roast duck." She flew off for some luncheon for me and, with the pertinacity which women have about such matters, insisted on putting it into my hand-bag. I did not want it, but I enjoyed her care and attention. "Good-bye, Annabel," I said, pressing her hand. "Good-bye," she said, returning my glance with her sweetest smile. When we drove away they waved their hands to us. When we looked back from the gate they were pretending to weep. The horses walked up the road, and I watched this dramatic performance for a little way, then some trees hid the house from us. When we saw them again they were occupied with something else. Ernest and the gardener were stooping down to examine something on the ground. Annabel was tiptoe upon an inverted flower-pot, uplifting a small watering-can which she was carefully upsetting over Ernest as she held back her skirts with the other hand. Among her flowers, with the old house for a background, for a moment we saw her, graceful in every line, a very mischief incarnate. Then we drove out of sight. "You see they have forgotten our very existence already," said Mr. Thorold. But I was not so sure. I think Annabel knew very well that we should see them from that gap in the trees, and I could not but confess that she had baffled my solicitude to the last. Sweet Annabel! I often think of her. I think a man in this life is at certain times given opportunities by which, if he grasp them, he may rise to be something higher than he has been before. In some moments I feel sadly that in slighting Annabel's affection and friendship, I have slighted such an opportunity which the heavenly power will not hold out to me again. For the most part, however, I believe I did wisely in leaving her. I sometimes doubt if I ever really understood her character, and it may be that she never once thought of me in the way of love. As to that perhaps I am not the best judge. L. DOUGALL. From The Speaker. PUNCH'S UNDERSTUDY. THE first-class smoking carriage was the emptiest in the whole train, and even this was hot to suffocation, because my only companion denied me more than an inch of open window. His chest, he explained curtly, was "susceptible." As we crawled westward through the glaring country, the sun's rays beat on the carriage roof till I seemed to be crushed under an anvil, counting the strokes. I had dropped my book and was staring listlessly out of window. At the other end of the compartment my fellow-passenger had pulled down all the blinds and hidden his face behind the Western Morning News. He was a red-faced, choleric little man of about sixty, with a salient stomach, a prodigious nose to which he carried snuff about once in two minutes, and a marked deformity of the shoulders. For comfort and also, perhaps, to hide this humphe rested his back in the angle by the window. He wore a black alpaca coat, a high stock, white waistcoat, and trousers of shepherd's plaid. On no definite grounds I guessed him to be a lawyer and unmarried. Just before entering the station at Lostwithiel, our train passed between the white gates of a level crossing. A moment before I had caught sight of the "George "drooping from the church spire, and at the crossing I saw it was regattaday in the little town. The road was full of people and lined with sweet-standings; and by the near end of the bridge a Punch and Judy show was just closing a perform. ance. The orchestra had unloosed his drum and fallen to mopping the back of his neck with the red handkerchief that had previously bound the panpipes to his chin. A crowd hung around, and among it I noted several men and women in black, hideous blots in the pervading sunshine. The station platform was thronged as we drew up, and it was clear at once that all the carriages in the train would be besieged without regard to class. By some chance, however, we were disregarded, and escape seemed likely till the very last moment. The guard's whistle was between his lips when I heard a shout, then one or two feminine screams, and a party of seven or eight came tearing out of the booking office. Every one of them was dressed in complete black; they were, in fact, the people I had seen staring at the Punch and Judy show. A moment after, the door of our com |