derstood the impression she was making. | for she thinks the old lady has vanished "I shall be glad when he returns. He into space. She came to me yesterday.

ago, but you were out, and she was glad of it when she discovered that Mrs. Baines was your aunt, for she doesn't want to offend you. She came to me again to-day. She is very miserable. I believe it will turn her hair grey. Oh, it is too funny!" "I don't think it is at all funny."

will rule me then. I took Mrs. Baines It seems that she went to you a few days because he wished me to have an old lady about me; but I wanted my own way. I liked her to have hers when it amused me to see her have it; when it didn't I wanted to have mine." And Mrs. North looked up with two blue eyes that fascinated and repelled, and laughed a merry, uncontrolled laugh like a child's. "Oh, she was very droll."

66

Perhaps it is very rude of me to say it," Florence said primly, for deep in her heart there was a great deal of primness, “but I can understand Mr. North wishing you to have a chaperon, you are very young to be left alone."

"Oh yes, and very careless, I know that. And Mrs. Baines used to provoke me into shocking her. I could shock her so easily, and did - don't you know how one loves power for good or ill over a human being?" "No, I don't," Florence answered a little stiffly.

"But indeed it is, for I don't believe Mrs. Baines will ever be able to pay the fifteen pounds; in fact, we know that she won't. Probably it is worrying her a good deal. I have been wondering whether something could not be done; if you and I, for instance, were to pay it between

us."

"You are very good, Mrs. North," Florence said against her will.

oneself, or the getting rid of an unpleas ant one. There is little really unselfish goodness in the world, and when one meets it, as a rule, it isn't charming, it isn't fascinating, when one feels that one would rather be without it." She rose as she spoke. "Well," she asked, "what shall we do? I'll pay one half of the old lady's bill if you will pay the other half.”

"Oh no, but I am sorry for her, and it vexes and worries me to think of her being annoyed. I want to get rid of that vexation, and will pay something to do so. That is what most generosity comes to," "I do, I love it best of all things in the Mrs. North went on, with mock cynicism, world, whether it leads me uphill or down-"the purchase of a pleasant feeling for hill. But I am intruding," for she saw a set, cold look coming over Florence's face. "Let me tell you why I asked for you. I have been so embarrassed about Mrs. Baines. She gave us presents and she bought all sorts of things; but she didn't pay for them. These bills came, and the people wanted their money." She pulled a little roll out of her pocket. "She probably forgot them, and I thought it would be better to pay them, especially as I owed her some money when she left which she would not take;" and she laughed out again, but this time there was an odd sound in her voice. "They are from florists and all sorts of people."

Florence looked over the bills quickly and almost guiltily. There were the pots of fern and the flowers that had been sent to her and the children after Aunt Anne's first visit; and there were the roses with which she had triumphantly entered on the night of the dinner-party. "Oh, poor old lady!" she exclaimed sadly.

They are paid," Mrs. North said. "Don't be distressed about them and many others lace-handkerchiefs, shoes, all sorts of things. Don't tell her. She would think I had taken a liberty or committed a solecism," and she made a little wry face. "But what I really wanted to see you about, Mrs. Hibbert, was Madame Celestine's bill. I am afraid I can't pay that all by myself; it is too long. Madame Celestine, of course, is sweetly miserable,

"You are very good," Florence repeated wonderingly.

"No; but I expect you are,” and Mrs. North showed two rows of little white teeth. "I should think you are a model of virtue," she added, with an almost childlike air of frankness, which made it impos. sible to take offence at her words, though Florence felt that at best she was only regarded as the possessor of a quality that just before her visitor had denounced.

Why," she asked, smiling against her will, "do I look like a model of virtue?"

"Oh yes, you are almost Madonna-like," Mrs. North said, with a sigh. “I wish I were like you, only only I think I should get very tired of myself. I get tired now; but a reaction comes. But a reaction to the purely good must be tame at best."

"You are very clever," Florence said, almost without knowing it, and shrinking from her again.

"How do you know? My husband says I am clever, but I don't think I am. I am alive. So many people are merely in the preface to being alive, and never get any

farther. I am well in the middle of the | do-good and bad. Madonnas never book; and am eager, so eager that some- know the world very well. Give my love times I long to eat up the whole world so to the old lady, and say I hope she has that I may know the taste of everything. forgiven me. I am going to Monte Carlo Do you understand that?" next week, tell her that too. It will shock her. Say that I should like to have taken her," and with a last little laugh she went into the darkness it seemed to

"No. I am content with my slice."

66

Ah, that is it. I am not content with mine. You have your husband and chil-out dren."

"But you have a husband."

"Yes, I have a husband, too; a funny old husband, a long way off "- Florence hated her" and no children. I amused myself with the old lady. Mrs. Baines -till she fled from me. Now I try other things. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," Florence said.

As Mrs. North was going out of the door she turned and asked, "Have you many friends women friends?"

"Yes, a great many, thank you," Mrs. Hibbert said, with a little haughty inclination of the head. The haughtiness seemed to amuse Mrs. North, for the merry look came over her face again, but only for a moment.

"I thought you had," she answered. "I have none; I don't want them. Goodbye."

It was nearly dark, and the one servant left to help Florence get the house ready had neglected to light the gas on the staircase. Mrs. North groped her way down.

Florence.

But the next minute there were two flashing lamps before the house; there was the banging of a door, and Mrs. North was driven away.

Florence went slowly back to the diningroom and the inventory. Ethel Dunlop had gone. She was glad of it, for she wanted to think over her strange visitor.

"I don't understand her," she said to herself. "She is unlike any one I ever met; she fascinated and repelled me. I felt as if I wanted to kiss her, and yet the touch of her hand made me shiver." Then she thought of Madame Celestine's bill, and of Aunt Anne, and wished that the dress had not been bought, especially for the dinner-party; it made her feel as if she had been the unwitting cause of Mrs. Baines's extravagance. She looked into the fire, and remembered the events of that wonderful evening, and thought of Walter away, and the bills at home that would have to be paid at Christmas. And she thought of her winter cloak that was three years old and shabby, and of the things she had longed to buy for the children. Above all she thought of the visions she had had of saving little by little, and putting her savings away in a very safe place, until she had a cosy sum with which some day to give Walter a pleasant surprise, and suggest that they should go off together for "a little spree," as he would call it, to Paris or Switzerland. The fire burnt low, the red coals grew dull, the light from the street lamp outside seemed to come searching into the room as though it were looking for some one who was not there. She thought of Walter's letter safe in her pocket. He himself was probably at Malta by this time-getting stronger and stronger in the sunshine. Dear Walter, how generous he was; he, too, was a little bit reckless sometimes. She won

"I want to tell you something," she said. "You said just now that I was clever. I don't think I am, but I can divine people's thoughts pretty easily. You are very good, I think; but consider this, your goodness is of no use if you are not good to others; good to women especially. The good of goodness is that you can wrap others inside it. It ought to be like a big cloak that you have on a cold night, while the shivering person next to you has none. If you don't make use of your goodness," she went on with a catch in her breath, "what is the good of it? I seem to be talking paradoxes-you prove how beautiful it is perhaps, but that is all-you make it like the swan that sings its own death-song. One listens and watches, and goes away to think of things more comprehensible, and to do them.dered if he inherited this last quality from Good-bye, Mrs. Hibbert," she said gently, Aunt Anne. She thought of her children and almost as if she were afraid she held at Witley having tea, most likely with out her hand. Florence took it, a little cakes and jam in abundance; and of Aunt wonder-struck. "You are like a Madonna, Anne in her glory. She wondered if Mr. very like one, as I said just now, but Wimple had turned up. "Poor Aunt though you are older than I am, I think I Anne," she sighed, and there was a long know more about some things than you bill in her mind. Presently she rose, VOL. LXXIX. 4070

LIVING AGE.

"I know, Mr. Fisher told me," Mrs. Burnett replied in her sweet and rather intense voice, "and we are so sorry that your visit takes place just while we are away. I am going to Devonshire to morrow morning to stay with my mother while "It will be such a pleasure to lend it my husband goes to Scotland. I am so-o them. It's a dear little donkey, so good sorry," she had a way of drawing out and gentle. It doesn't go well," Mrs. her words as if to give them emphasis. Burnett added, in an apologetic tone; Florence liked to look at Mrs. Burnett's" but it's a dear little donkey, and does eyes while she spoke, they always seemed to attest that every word she said expressed the absolute meaning and intention

"it's another present," and regretfully her fingers undid the string. Inside the white paper was a little pin-cushion covered with blue velvet, and having round it a rim of silver filigree work. Attached to it was a little note which ran thus:—

As she caught sight of the house she wondered if she had been absent more than half an hour, or at all. She had left it in the afternoon more than a week ago, and the children had stood out in the roadway dancing and waving their handkerchiefs till she was out of sight. As she came back, there they stood dancing and token of my love and gratitude. I feel "MY DARLING, Accept this little waving their handkerchiefs again. They that there is no way in which I can better shouted for joy as she got out of the fly. "Welcome, my darling, welcome," Aunt prove how much I appreciated your genAnne, who was behind them, exclaimed. erous gift to me than by spending a por"These dear children and I have been tion of it on a token of my affection to watching more than an hour for you. En-you. I trust you will honor my little gift ter your house, my love. It is indeed a privilege to be here to receive you."

"It is a privilege to come back to so warm a welcome," Florence said when, having embraced her children and Aunt Anne, she was allowed to enter the cottage; "and how comfortable and nice it' looks!" she exclaimed, as she stopped at the dining-room doorway. There was a wood fire blazing, and the tea set out, and the water in the silver kettle singing, and hot cakes in a covered dish in the fender. Flowers set off the table and in the pots about the room were boughs of autumn leaves. It all looked cosy and inviting, and wore a festival air-festival that Florence knew had been made for her. She turned and kissed the old lady gratefully. "Dear Aunt Anne," she said, and that was thanks enough.

"I thought, my love, that you would like to partake of a substantial tea with your dear children on your return. Your later evening meal I have arranged to be a very slender one."

"But you are too good, Aunt Anne."

It is you who have been too good to me," the old lady answered tenderly. "And now, my darling, let me take you up to your chamber; it is ready for your reception."

There was a triumphant note in her voice that prepared Florence for the fire in her grate and the bouquet on the dress ing-table, and all the little arrangements that Mrs. Baines had devised to add to her comfort. It was very cheery, she thought; Aunt Anne had a knack of making one enjoy a home-coming. She pulled out Walter's letter and sat for a few moments alone over the bedroom fire, and read it and kissed it and put it back into her pocket. Then she looked round the cosy room again, and noticed a little packet on the corner of the drawers. Aunt Anne must have placed it there when she went out of the room. On it was written, For my darling Florence. "Oh," she said,

with

your acceptance."

"Oh," said Florence again, in despair, "I wonder if she has once thought of Madame Celestine's bill or the others. What is the good of giving her money if one gets it back in the shape of presents ? "

But she could not bear to treat the old lady's generosity with coldness. So Aunt Anne was thanked, and the cushion admired, and a happy little party gathered round the tea-table.

"And have you had any visitors except Mrs. Burnett?" Florence asked artfully, when the meal was over.

"We have had Mr. Wimple," Aunt Anne said; "he is far from well, my love, and is trying to recruit at Liphook."

"Oh yes, he has friends there." "No, my love, not now. He is at present lodging with an old retainer."

"And have you been to see him?” "No, dear Florence, he preferred that I should not do so."

"We took him lots of rides," said Monty.

"And Aunt Anne gave him a present," said Catty, "and he put it into his pocket and never looked at it. He didn't know what was inside the paper, we did, didn't we, auntie?"

My dear children," Mrs. Baines said, "if your mother will give you permission you had better go to the nursery. It is past your hour for bed, my dear ones."

The children looked a little dismayed, but they never dreamt of disobeying

"Was it wrong to say you gave him a present?" asked Catty, with the odd perception of childhood, as she put up her face to be kissed.

"My dears," answered Aunt Anne sweetly, "in my day children did not talk with their elders unless they were invited to do so."

"We didn't know," said Catty ruefully. "No, my darlings, I know that. Bless you," continued the old lady sweetly; "and good-night, my dear ones. Under

your pillows you will each find a chocolate | haughtily. "I repeat that it was most which auntie placed there for you this presumptuous of her to call upon you -a morning." liberty, a Florence," she went on with sudden alarm in her voice, "I hope you did not promise to go to see her." "She never asked me."

"And did you enjoy the drives?" Florence asked, when the children had gone. "Yes, my dear, thank you." Mrs. Baines was silent for a moment. she raised her head, and, as if she had had. My dear, you must trust to my more gathered courage, went on in a slightly louder tone," I thought it would do your dear children good, Florence, to see the country, and, therefore, I ventured to take them some drives. Occasionally Mr. Wimple was so kind as to accompany us." "And I hope they did him good, too," Florence said, trying not to betray her