ever think of pitying, because their sorrow is unseen. And for her, as for them, it is over at last, and rest comes; even the rest when we can look back upon this strange story of our past lives, and say, as He does who seeth the end from the beginning, "It is well."

CHAPTER VIII.

Braeton, October 2nd.-It is October now. The sycamore leaves in Lingold Wood are tipped with gold, and the great Virginian creeper that winds round Papa's study window is beginning to blush crimson in the warm autumn sunshine. I shall watch these leaves deepen and change no more, as I have watched them so many years in my

father's house in my youth.

Before the last of

them has fallen, before we can see Glinton Manor again from the little bridge in the wood, before this white jasmine that shines in at my open window now has shed its last starry flower down upon the grass, I shall be his wife,-Philip's wife!

Very beautiful, very holy, very solemn, very full of all precious thoughts to me, my future is. I wonder now, as I have often wondered before,

how girls can laugh and joke about "getting settled," as they call it; how they can make a common jest, as Isabella Ponde used to do, of such a great, utter change. Still more I wonder how some girls, like Janet Ducie and Mrs. Herman Kaye's niece, can talk over their love, and triumph in it, and parade it about, instead of rather hiding it down, as I think all true love must wish to be hidden, far away in our inmost hearts, where no eye can look upon it but God's and our own.

Philip went away on Thursday, the morning after Maud's wedding-day. I shall see him no more now until he comes again with these red leaves and purple sunsets of October, to take me back with him.

How strange it was to wake that first August morning with the feeling that I belonged to him! To wake morning by morning with his face upon my thoughts was no new thing, but it took me long to realise that other and glorious thought, that we were one now; that no time nor distance should have power to separate us; that the whole tearful past was swept away; that my

poor, pale dreams of patience and unwearying, uncomplaining regret were taken up and melted into the bright reality of a love that would be my crown all through life. How strange all this seemed! And thinking of it all, and trying to look upon the dazzling brightness, I could but thank God for it, and give the first moments of that golden morning time to prayer.

We had a long walk that morning, Philip and I, before he went away, to Lingold Lake and the bridge, and then home by the watercourse, through Marbrook dale; very early, before any one was abroad to watch us, or to come after us to Braeton with petty gossip about the strange gentleman who had been seen walking with Miss Harcourt. How beautiful the wood looked in the dew and sunshine of that first August morning! How bright the white clouds' mirrored beauty in the lake, how musical the flicker of the little Mar brook through the fern, how soft the pearly haze which lay upon the distant hills and wooded slopes! Was it because we were so glad that all else shone upon us and took the tinge of our own thoughts? We both paused when we

came to the bridge, and fell unconsciously into our old positions; Philip leaning over the wooden rail, looking down into the clear glancing lake, and I beside him-just as we two had stood there nearly a year ago, only that now my hand was fast held in his, and we could say, instead of thinking it, all that lay in our hearts.

But of what we said then, and of the thoughts, both bright and solemn, which came thronging over us, why should I stay to write the story here? Are they not held truly, faithfully, in my memory, as all words of his have ever been-as all words must be, spoken for us by those we love? And so on through the wood, where rays of sunlight were tangled among the thick green leaves; bright, flashing sunlight everywhere, save where cool little bits of shadow, as though lingering from last night's grey twilight, lay among the trees, and under the broad fern leaves, and within the long aisles of copse and overarching boughs,—soft, tender shadows, making the sunlight more bright, just as those other shadows that were left in our hearts from bygone months of gloom lingered quietly upon the track of present joy. And then