"Please don't say so," cried the ensign's wife, who was an unmanageable eighteenyear-old, half-Irish creature. "I am sure she has twenty thousand times more feeling than you and than both of us put together. It's because she is real good; and the Major is an old dear. He is a fidget and he's awfully aggravating, and he puts one in a passion; but he's an old dear, and so you would say if you knew him as well as I do."

Mrs Kirkman regarded the creature by her side, as may be supposed, with the calm content which her utterance merited. She looked at her, out of those "down-dropt," half-veiled eyes, with that look which everybody in the station knew so well, as if she was looking down from an infinite distance with a serene surprise which was too far off and elevated to partake of the nature of disgust. If she knew him as well as this baby did! But the Colonel's wife did not take any notice of the audacious suggestion. It was her duty, instead of resenting the impertinence to herself, to improve the occasion for the offender's own sake.

"My dear, there is nobody really good," said Mrs. Kirkman. "We have the highest authority for that. I wish I could think dear Mary was possessed of the true secret of a higher life; but she has so much of that natural amiability, you know, which is, of all things, the most dangerous for the soul. I would rather, for my part, she was not so 'good' as you say. It is all filthy rags," said Mrs. Kirkman, with a sigh. "It might be for the good of her soul to be brought low, and forced to abandon these refuges of lies".

Upon which the little Irish wild-Indian blazed up with natural fury.

"I don't believe she ever told a lie in her life. I'll swear to all the lies she tells," cried the foolish little woman; "and as for rags-it's horrible to talk so. If you only knew if you only could think how kind she was to me!

For this absurd little hapless child had had a baby, as might have been expected. and would have been in rags indeed, and everything that is miserable, but for Mary, who had taken her in hand; and being not much more than a baby herself, and not strong yet, and having her heart in her

This was a result which her companion had not in the least calculated upon, for Mrs. Kirkman, notwithstanding her belief in Mary's insensibility, had not very lively feelings, and was not quick at divining other people. But she was a good woman notwithstanding all her talk. She came down off her mountain top, and soothed her little visitor, and gave her a glass of wine, and even kissed her, to make matters up.

"I know she has a way, when people are sick" said the Colonel's wife; and then, after that confession, she sighed again. "If only she does not put her trust in her own works," Mrs. Kirkman added.

For, to tell the truth, the Chaplain of the regiment was not (as she thought) a spiritual-minded man, and the Colonel's wife was troubled by an abiding consciousness that it was into her hands that Providence had committed the souls of the station—“Which was an awful responsibility for a sinful creature," she said in her letters home ; "and one that required constant watch over herself."

Perhaps, in a slightly different way, Mrs. Ochterlony would have been similarly put down and defended in the other two centres of society at the station. "She is intelligent," Miss Sorbette said; "I don't deny that she is intelligent; but I would not say she was superior. She is fond of reading, but then most people are fond of reading, when it's amusing, you know. She is a little too like Amelia in Vanity Fair.' She is one of the sweet women. In a general way, I can't bear sweet women; but I must confess she is the very best specimen I ever saw."

As for Mrs. Hesketh, her opinion was not much worth stating in words. If she had any fault to find with Mrs. Ochterlony, it was because Mary had sometimes a good deal of trouble in making the two ends meet. "I cannot endure people that are always having anxieties," said the rich woman of the station, who had an idea that everybody could be comfortable if they liked, and that it was an offence to all his neighbours when a man insisted on being poor; but at the same time everybody knew that she was very fond of Mary. This had been the general opinion of her for all these years, and naturally Mrs. Ochterlony was used to it, and, without being at all vain on the subject, had that sense of the atmosphere of general esteem and regard which surrounded her, which has a

and which did a great deal to give her that sweet composure and serenity for which she was famed. But from the time of that first conversation with her husband, a change came upon the Madonna of the station. It was not perceptible to the general vision, yet there were individual eyes which found out that something was the matter, though nobody could tell what. Mrs. Hesketh thought it was an attack of fever coming on, and Mrs. Kirkman hoped that Mrs. Ochterlony was beginning to occupy herself about her spiritual state; and the one recommended quinine to Mary, and the other sent her sermons, which, to tell the truth, were not much more suitable to her case. But Mary did not take any of the charitable friends about her into her confidence. She went about among them as a prince might have gone about in his court, or a chief among his vassals, after hearing in secret that it was possible that one day he may be discovered to be an impostor. Or, if not that, for Mary knew that she never could be found out an impostor,at least, that such a change was hanging over her head, and that somebody might believe it; and that her history would be discussed and her name get into people's mouths and her claims to their regard be questioned. It was very hard upon her to think that such a thing was possible with composure, or to contemplate her husband's restless ways, and to recollect the indiscreet confidences which he was in the habit of making. He had spoken to Colonel Kirkman about it, and even quoted his advice about the marriage lines; and Mary could not but think (though in this point she did the Colonel injustice) that Mrs. Kirkman too must know; and then, with a man of Major Ochterlony's temperament, nobody could make sure that he would not take young Askell, the ensign, or any other boy in the station, into his confidence, if he should happen to be in the way. All this was very galling to Mary, who had so high an appreciation of the credit and honour which, up to this moment, she had enjoyed; and who felt that she would rather die than come down to be discussed and pitied and talked about among all these people. She thought in her disturbed and uneasy mind, that she could already hear all the different tones in which they would say "Poor Mary!" and all the wonders, and doubts, and inquiries that would rise up round her. Mrs. Kirkman would have said that all these were signs that her pride wanted humbling, and that the thing her friends should

Perhaps, however, it was partly true about the pride. Mrs. Ochterlony did not say anything about it, but she locked the door of her own room the next morning after that talk with the Major, and searched through all her repositories for those "marriage lines," which no doubt she had put away somewhere, and which she had_naturally forgotten all about for years. It was equally natural, and to be expected, that she should not find them. She looked through all her papers and letters and little sacred corners, and found many things that filled her heart with sadness and her eyes with tears - for she had not come through those ten years without leaving traces behind her where her heart had been wounded and had bled by the way - - but she did not find what she was in search of. She tried hard to look back and think, and to go over in her mind the contents of her little school-girl desk, which she had left at Aunt Agatha's cottage, and the little work-table, and the secretary with all its drawers. But she could not recollect anything about it, nor where she had put it, nor what could have become of it; and the effect of her examination was to give her, this time in reality, a headache, and to make her eyes heavy and her heart sore. But she did not say a syllable about her search to the Major, who was (as, indeed, he always was) as anxiously affectionate as a man could be, and became (as he always did), when he found his wife suffering, so elaborately noiseless and still, that Mary ended by a good fit of laughing, which was of the greatest possible service to her.

"When you are so quiet, you worry me, Hugh," she said. "I am used to hear you moving about."

"My dear, I hope I am not such a brute as to move about when you are suffering," her husband replied. And though his mind had again begun to fill with the dark thoughts that had been the occasion of all Mary's annoyance, he restrained himself with an heroic effort, and did not say a syllable about it all that night.

But this was a height of virtue which it was quite impossible any merely mortal powers could keep up to. He began to make mysterious little broken speeches next day, and to stop short and to say, " My darling, I mustn't worry you," and to sigh like fur

"You remember, perhaps, Mary, what we were talking of the other day," he said, in an insidiously gentle way, on an early morning-when they had still the long, long day before them to be miserable in. I thought it very important, but perhaps you may have forgot about old Sommerville who died?"

"Forgot!" said Mary. She felt it was coming now, and was rather glad to have it over. "I don't know how I could forget, Hugh. What you said would have made one recollect anything; but you cannot make old Sommerville come alive again, whatever you do."

"My dear, I spoke to you about some about a - paper," said the Major. "Lines that is what the Scotch call them though, I daresay, they're very far from being poetry. Perhaps you have found them, Mary," said Major Ochterlony, looking into her face in a pleading way, as if he prayed her to answer yes. And it was with difficulty that she kept as calm as she wished to do, and answered without letting him see the agitation and excitement in her mind.

"I don't know where I have put them, Hugh," she said, with a natural evasion, and in a low voice. She did not acknowledge having looked for them, and having failed to find them; but in spite of herself, she answered with a certain humility as of a woman culpable. For, after all, it was her fault.

"You don't know where you have put them," said the Major, with rising horror. "Have you the least idea how important they are? They may be the saving of you and of your children, and you don't know where you have put them! Then it is all as I feared," Major Ochterlony added with .a groan, "and everything is lost."

"What is lost?" said Mary. "You speak to me in riddles, Hugh. I know I put them somewhere I must have put them somewhere safe. They are most likely in my old desk at home, or in one of the

"If I could hope that that was the case," he said; "but it can't be the case, Mary. You never were at home after we were married-you forget that. We went to Earlston for a day, and we went to your guardian's; but never to Aunt Agatha. You are making a mistake, my dear; and God bless me, to think of it, what would become of you if anything were to happen to me?"

"I hope there is nothing going to happen to you; but I don't think in that case it would matter what became of me," said Mary in utter depression; for by this time she was worn out.

"You think so now, my love; but you would be obliged to think otherwise," said Major Ochterlony. "I hope I'm all right for many a year; but a man can never tell. And the insurance, and pension, and everything—and Earlston, if my brother should leave it to us-all your future, my darling. I think it will drive me distracted," said the Major, "not a witness, nor a proof left!"

Mary could make no answer. She was quite overwhelmed by the images thus called before her: for her part the pension and the insurance money had no meaning to her ears; but it is difficult not to put a certain faith in it when a man speaks in such a circumstantial way of things that can only happen after his death.

"You have been talking to the doctor, and he has been putting things into your head," she said faintly. "It is cruel to torture me so. We know very well how we were married, and all about it, and so do our friends, and it is cruel to try to make me think of anything happening. There is nobody in the regiment so strong and well as you are," she continued, taking courage a little. She thought to herself he looked, as people say, the picture of health as he sat beside her, and she began to recover out of her prostration. As for spleen or liver, or any of those uncomfortable attributes, Major Octorloney, up to this moment, had not known whether he possessed them—which was a most re-assuring thought, naturally, for his anxious wife.

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Thank God," said the Major, with a little solemnity. It was not that he had any presentiment, or thought himself likely to die early; but simply that he was in the pathetic way, and had a naïf and innocent

"Mary," he said, "I know it's an idea that you don't like; but for my peace of mind. - Suppose just suppose for the sake of supposing that I was to die now, and leave you without a word to prove your claims. It would be ten times worse than death, Mary; but I could die at peace if you would only make one little sacrifice to my peace of mind."

"Oh, Hugh, don't kill me — you are not going to die," was all Mary could say.

"No, my darling, not if I can help it; but if it were only for my peace of mind. There's no harm in it, that I can see. It's ridiculous, you know; but that's all, Mary," said the Major, looking anxiously in her face. "Why, it is what hosts of people do every day. It is the easiest thing to do-a mere joke for that matter. They will say, you know, that it is like Ochterlony, and a piece of his nonsense. know how they talk; but never mind. I know very well there is nothing else that you would not do for my peace of mind. It will set your future above all casualties, and it will be all over in half an hour. For instance, Churchill says '

"You have spoken to Mr. Churchill, too?" said Mary, with a thrill of despair.

"A man can never do any harm speaking to his clergyman, I hope," the Major said, peevishly. "What do you mean by too? I've only mentioned it to Kirkman besides -I wanted his advise and to Sorbette, to explain that bad headache of yours. And they all think I am perfectly right."

terlony. "You know very well it is not myself, but you I am thinking of; that you may have everything in order, and your future provided for, whatever may happen. It may be absurd, you know; but a woman mustn't mind being absurd to please her husband. We'll ask our friends to step over with us to church in the morning, and in half an hour it will be all over. Don't cover your face, Mary. It worries me not to see your face. God bless me, it is nothing to make such a fuss about," said the Major, getting excited. "I would do a great deal more, any day, to please you."

"I would cut off my hand to please you," said Mary, with perhaps a momentary extravagance in the height of her passion. "You know there is no sacrifice I would not make for you; but oh, Hugh, not this, not this," she said, with a sob that startled him- one of those sobs that tear and rend the breast they come from, and have no accompaniment of tears.

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Mary put her hands up to her face, and gave a low but bitter cry. She said nothing more. - not a syllable. She had already been dragged down without knowing it, and set low among all these people. She who deserved nothing but honour, who had done nothing to be ashamed of, who was the same Madonna Mary whom they had all regarded as the" wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best" By this time they had all begun to discuss her story, and to wonder if all had been quite right at the beginning, and to say, "Poor Mary!" She knew it as well as if she had heard the buzz of talk in those three houses to which her husband had confided his difficulty. It was a horrible torture, if you will but think of it, for an in

nocent woman to bear.

"It is not like you to make such a fuss about so simple a thing," said Major Och

CHAPTER IV.

"I AM going with you, Mary," said Mrs. Kirkman, coming suddenly in upon the morning of the day which was to give peace to Major Ochterlony's mind, and cloud over with something like a shadow of shame (or at least she thought so) his wife's fair matron fame. The Colonel's wife had put on her last white bonnet, which was not so fresh as it had been at the beginning of the season, and white gloves which were also a little the worse for wear. To be sure the marriage was not like a real marriage, and nobody knew how the unwilling bride would think proper to dress. Mrs. Kirkman came in at a quicker pace than ordinary, with her hair hanging half out of curl

on either side of her face, as was always the case. She was fair, but of a greyish complexion, with light blue eyes à fleur de la tête, which generally she kept half veiled within their lids a habit which was particularly aggravating to some of the livelier spirits. She came in hastily (for her), and found Mary seated disconsolately enough, with an entire want of occupation, which is, in such a woman, one of the saddest signs of a mind disturbed. Mrs. Ochterlony sat, dropped down upon a chair, with her hands listlessly clasped in her lap, and a hot flush upon her cheek. She was lost in a dreary contemplation of the sacrifice which was about to be exacted from her, and of the possible harm it might do. She was thinking of her children, what effect it might have on them—and she was thinking bitterly, that for good or evil she could not help it; that again, as on many a previous occasion, her husband's restless mind had carried the day over her calmer judgment, and that there was no way of changing it. To say that she consented with personal pain of the most acute kind, would not be to say all. She gave in, at the same time with a foreboding utterly indistinct, and which she would not have given utterance to, yet which was strong enough to heighten into actual misery the pain and shame of her position. When Mrs. Kirkman came in, with her eyes full of observation, and making the keenest scrutiny from beneath the downcast lids, Mrs. Ochterlony was not in a position to hide her emotions. She was not crying, it is true, for the circumstances were too serious for crying; but it was not difficult to form an idea of her state of mind from her strangely listless attitude, and the expression of her face.

"I have come to go with you," said Mrs. Kirkman. "I thought you would like to have somebody to countenance you. It will make no difference to me, I assure you, Mary; and both the Colonel and I think if there is any doubt, you know, that it is by far the wisest thing you could do. And I only hope

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"Doubt!" said Mary, lighting up for the moment. "There is no more doubt than there is of all the marriages made in Scotland. The people who go there to be married are not married again afterwards that I ever heard of. There is no doubt whatever -none in the world. I beg your pardon. I am terribly vexed and annoyed, and I don't know what I am saying. To hear any one talk of doubt!"

man. "You may depend upon it he has reason for what he is doing; and I do hope you will see a higher hand in it all, and feel that you are being humbled for your good.

"I wish you would tell me how it can be for my good," said Mrs. Ochterlony, "when even you, who ought to know better, talk of doubt-you who have known us all along from the very first. Hugh has taken it into his head-that is the whole matter; and you, all of you know, when he takes a thing into his head"

She had been hurried on to say this, by the rush of her disturbed thoughts; but Mary was not a woman to complain of her husband. She came to a sudden standstill, and rose up, and looked at her watch.

"It is about time to go," she said, "and I am sorry to give you the trouble of going with me. It is not worth while for so short a distance; but, at least, don't say anything more about it, please."

Mrs Kirkman had already made the remark that Mary was not at all "dressed." She had on her brown muslin, which was the plainest morning dress in her possession, as everybody knew; and instead of going to her room to make herself a little nice, she took up her bonnet, which was on the table, and tied it on without even so much as looking into the glass. "I am quite ready," she said, when she had made this simple addition to her dress, and stood there, looking everything that was most unlike the Madonna of former days-flushed and clouded over, with lines in her forehead, and the corners of her mouth dropped, and her fair large serene beauty hidden beneath the thunder-cloud. And the Colonel's wife was very sorry to see her friend in such a state of mind, as may be supposed.

'My dear Mary," Mrs Kirkman said, taking her arm as they went out, and holding it fast. "I should much wish to see you in a better frame of mind. Man is only the instrument in our troubles. It must have been that Providence saw you stood in need of it, my dear. He knows best. It would not have been sent if it had not been for your good."

"In that way, if I were to stand in the sun till I got a sunstroke, it would still be for my good," said Mary in her anger. "You would say, it was God's fault, and not mine. But I know it is my fault; I ought to have stood out and resisted, and I have not had the strength; and it is not for good, but evil. It is not God's fault, but ours. It can be for nobody's good."

But after this, she would not say any more. Not though Mrs. Kirkman

was