longer-Oh, no! I knew yesterday we could not live like that many more days. I thought,' turning again to Roddice, 'I should come and tell you and beg you to help us. You looked so kind that morning when I passed you on the stairs.'

'I am glad you thought that,' the girl answered, in a low voice. If she had looked up, she would have seen how kindly Miles was looking at her.

All this time it had got dark without their noticing it. They could hardly see each other's faces.

'Do you know,' said Miles, starting up, 'you have got to come and see my mother now? Does that frighten you? O no! Come, sweetest heart.'

'One thing,' said she to him, quite in a whisper. Will you? I want to show you'

room.

She took his hand, and led him away to the other end of the And then she lifted up the lid of a trunk and set it open. In the darkness he saw a white shimmer lying there. And she took his hand, and guided it over something soft and rustling.

'Do you know?' she said, with her pretty French idiom. 'O Molly!' he cried, softly.

ready.'

'And I was to come before it was

'Yes,' she said, drawing closer. 'I thought then you would never come again. But I brought it with me. I would not leave it, because I promised you-do you remember? And I thought if you never, never came, it would do then to bury me in.'

'O sweet, hush!' said he, and then the words recalling Nancy's story. 'There goes the last of it! Somebody has said already it was a shroud. Have you looked at it, like this, before to-night?'

'Oh! yes-I come and look at it often-and think of all the things you used to say to me-and, O love! you are here,' she broke off suddenly, turning to him with a little burst of irrepressible gladness, 'and you will begin saying them all to me again. It used to make me cry when I remembered. And then I thought when the Last Day came, I should rise up all ready for you in my wedding-gown, and we should surely find each other then.'

He stooped down to kiss her, and could not speak just directly. 'My dearest love,' then he said, and stood for a minute with his lips upon hers, -as he had thought never to stand again!

Is it lavender I smell so sweet? I will have every bit of it kept, Molly, for the love of that dear little garden with the lilies,―mind! And now away with you, pretty! I will not wait a minute longer. How do you get out of this little dark hole of a place?'

'I climb up by a chair,' said Molly, demurely. You should have seen how far I jumped when you were running after me this evening!'

'Well, now you shall neither climb nor jump, for I am going to carry

you,' said he, and taking her up in his arms, stepped on to the chair, and set her down in the gallery beside Roddice.

There they stood for a minute, side by side, these two women who loved him so well. They looked at each other silently, then with a sudden impulse, took hands and kissed.

And then Miles, having half-dragged, half-lifted Reginald out into the gallery, held out his hand for Molly, and led the way back.

They hardly noticed that Roddice did not follow, but stayed behind to re-assure and persuade the old man, trying to make him understand the new turn the affair had taken, which was the more difficult, as she hardly understood it herself.

Miles and Molly, hand in hand, came along the gallery, a young fair couple, as gay and handsome as the daylight.

'Ah! think, Molly,' he exclaimed to her, with yet a fresh rush of exultant gladness, as they came out at the head of the wide shallow stairs, where a window looked out upon long moon-lit lawns, and the park sweeping beyond; think! there is nothing more to wait for. You and I are going to live here, and be happy, all our lives.'

She looked up into his face, and then in a sort of lovely dream, stepped down beside him, into the river of moonlight that lay along the staircase.

'See, there,' said he, stopping midway. Look up! There is the very Blue Lady.'

The girl gazed into the sad face for a minute, then dropped a serious curtsey to it.

'Am I like her?' said she, as they passed on.

'Like her? If you ever look so unhappy, as she does,-sweet, it will break my heart.'

'Ah! love,' she murmured, clinging closer to his hand, 'shall I ever be unhappy again?'

Lady Compton was still out on the lawn, standing at the other end, by the swing in the horse-chestnut tree. The three girls were there too; John was giving Katherine a swing before they came in.

The mother stood by silently, pondering on her son, with a sense of relief that her daughters, at least, were safe under her wing yet a while.

She was standing so, in a stillness hardly broken by the rush of the leaves, as the swing flew to and fro, and the ripple of the girls' clear laughter, when Miles came across the moonlight, holding Molly by the hand.

The girls saw them first, and cried out all at once. Lady Compton grew very pale.

John, what is this?' she said, in a low voice, beginning to tremble, feeling that a crisis was come.

He started a step forward, peering across the uncertain light. 'Great heaven!' he exclaimed, startled for once into an expletive. ''Tis Mademoiselle de Laval! What plot has he laid hold of now?'

'Mother, I have found the Blue Lady,' Miles called out, and brought you another daughter.'

And on that there followed a clamour of exclamations and perplexed questionings, and a rush of rapid explanation from Miles, that was more confusing at first than convincing.

John stood by grimly, his head full of dark suspicions of treasonable plots, a secret, illegal marriage, and I know not what beside.

As for the young sisters, they, girl-like, were ready to dance for delight at this new dénoûment in the family mystery.

'It was like a fairy-story-It was like a romance-And how Miles kept looking at her, just like a real lover in a picture!'

They were the first to break in with their joyous responses

'Oh! Miles, we are so glad;' and 'Brother, we shall be so fond of her.'

And at that he turned to them and cried out

'Thanks, thanks !' and wrung their hands, as if they had been grown

women.

Then he turned back to Lady Compton, appealingly

'Mother, do you accept the explanation, and my wife with it?'

But he need not have been afraid. All her woman's heart was melted at the sight of Molly, fair, and girlish, still holding by her lover's hand, and glancing up, shy and half-scared, from one strange face to another. That this young girl should find herself turned a-drift in a strange country, with a feeble, half-foolish old man, under penalty of the law !

'Poor child !' she said, growing as soft and pitiful over it as if it had been one of her own daughters, and, taking her from Miles's hands, held her for a minute while she kissed her. 'I am so thankful you

found your way to us, and not among strangers.' And then, her mother's love stepping in and taking the place of congratulations, 'Oh! my dear, you have got a good husband !'

'Ah! madam,' the girl said, with the look that Miles likened to starlight, coming into her sweet, dark eyes, could you think I do not know it?'

And then she turned, a little fearfully, and looked up at John, the only one who had not spoken to her yet. She thought he did not like her. And was it not he who, in a measure, had brought all their trouble upon them?

But his suspicions about her had melted as he heard how it all had fallen out. And he changed his mind, 'It had evidently been brought about by Providence; who, therefore, might go against it?'

He stepped forward and took Molly by the hand.

'So you are really in England at last?' said he; 'I wish you very well.'

And then he turned to Miles, and grasped his hand in even heartier friendship than ever before. And now he really felt for the young VOL. 29.

39

PART 174.

man's gladness. For he was thinking, if Muriel had once looked at him as Molly was looking up at Miles, what would life have been like to him?

And with it all, not one of them gave a thought to Roddice, until by and by, when they came in again, and found her standing up, tall and beautiful, by the side of old Reginald, still re-assuring and persuading.

Miles and Molly were touched to the heart. But not for the same

reason.

That is all, I think.

One warm, hazy morning, in the beginning of September, the bells clashed out again, with a real wedding-peal.

And Molly put off her gown of maiden blue, and was married to Miles in her mother's egg-shell brocade, powdered at bosom and elbow with the Compton diamonds, and clouded with the Compton lace.

The bridesmaids' flowers were young half-blown white roses, set in rosemary.

And the bridegroom, too, caring very little, this time, whether it stamped him court- or country-bred, carried in his button-hole a white rosebud and a spray of ROSEMARY.

(Concluded.)

THE ANGEL OF VIAREGGIO.

A TALE OF CHILD-LIFE IN ITALY.

BY LINDA VILLARI, AUTHOR OF 'IN THE GOLDEN SHELL,' 'IN CHANGE
UNCHANGED,' ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CLOUDS PASS AWAY.

ALL the evening and throughout the night the storm raged fiercer and fiercer, its violent gusts frequently startling the silent watchers by the bed where poor little Gigia lay tossing in a burning fever. For many hours she was delirious: sometimes raving about the vase, sometimes reproaching Alexis with his cowardice, now shrieking that the boats would be lost, and then wailing piteously that she could not fly away because her wings were burned. She repeated this last cry so often that Rosina, unused to delirium, thought to soothe her by fetching the winged robe, and holding it up to attract her attention.

It was of no use, the poor little thing went on raving as before, and there seemed every reason to fear that she was only at the beginning of a long and dangerous illness. But in the early morning, when the light was stealing in through the chinks of the shutters, the fever rapidly abated, and Mrs. Ashton, creeping on tip-toe to the door, had the satisfaction of telling the anxious grandmother in the next room that there was a decided change for the better, and that at last the child was resting in a quiet natural sleep.

A couple of hours later, when the artist's wife and Rosina, worn out by their long vigil, had dropped into a doze on either side of the bed, they were awakened by hearing a feeble voice inquire why Zia Rosina was not in bed.

There was little Gigia wide awake and quite sensible, though very pale and with black circles round her great dark eyes.

In a moment Rosina's arms were round her neck, and she was showering warm kisses on her dear little niece, and cooing all sorts of loving words over her.

Mrs. Aston made signs that the child must not be excited, and leaving the corner in which she had been sitting she too kissed and caressed Gigia, saying

'Now Gigia must lie still and go to sleep again, or she will be as ill as she was yesterday.'

Gigia stared at her with a puzzled expression.

'I thought you were away!' she said. And oh! I'm so tired and so hungry!'

'Was it all a dream then?