Hilda will always look back with a shudder to that short walk to the station. The refiner's fire was indeed heated to the uttermost, and her soul was burning therein. She made her way mechanically to the platform, and as the train steamed in, and the bustle of the porters and passengers commenced, she wondered if she were indeed the Hilda of old, or only her outward semblance. She looked around; it seemed a thing that must be done; and even when she stepped forward, and bent to kiss an eager, upturned face, this feeling was still strong upon her.

"Hilda," exclaimed Daisy's clear, childish voice, in startled accents, "how ill you look!"

The words were like a stab to her ; but the voice had its effect. She began to remember, as she herself had implied a little while ago, that there was other love on earth, although the love of man might fail her. She gave Daisy's hand a grateful little squeeze.

"Where is mother?" enquired Daisy, as her eyes scanned the figures on the platform.

Hilda explained.

"Poor Kate! So that is it, is it?" "Hush!" murmured Hilda, involuntarily.

Daisy opened her eyes. "Why?" she enquired.

"I am sorry for Kate," Hilda felt bound to explain; "and I do think such things are hard enough to bear without any one sneering at them."

Daisy examined narrowly for a moment.

her cousin's face

"I dare say you are right," she said, a trifle impatiently.. "But are you sure that Kate's is the real thing?"

Hilda turned away. The porter was waiting for directions; and by the time they were given, the subject had dropped. Still, Daisy felt that in some way Hilda was changed.

"What is it?" she asked herself. Meantime, as a headache was the one thing apparent, she insisted on seeing her to bed at an early hour; and Daisy's was a loving peremptoriness well-nigh impossible to resist.

CHAPTER IV.

THE next morning the sun shone forth in all its splendour-clear blue sky above, clear green sea below.

Hilda felt better under its influence.

After all, she told herself, she had mach to live for.

She finished dressing quickly, and went into the dining room, where the French window stood open. From the garden

floated in the sound of voices happy, light-hearted voices.

merry,

There was Daisy's laugh; she recognised that. She recognised, too, a deeper, fuller voice. She stepped through the window. Yes, surely enough it was Daisy and George Carlmore. She was laughing at something he was saying. What a sweet little thing she was! Hardly a woman-yet not a child, certainly, with her blue eyes, her golden hair, and her captivating little ways.

George evidently approved of her; he was leaning over the hedge, an unusually alert expression on his face.

She had never seen that expression there before. Just for one moment her heart throbbed madly; then her womanliness came to her aid. She walked on, her light footstep hardly sounding on the soft grass.

"You? Ob, Hilda!" Daisy exclaimed. "Yes, dear, I am here," she answered, quietly, as she took one of the girl's hands in hers.

"

"How cold you are!" Daisy went on; your hand is like ice."

Hilda drew it away.

I am always a chilly mortal," she said; and she shivered a little. Then, for the first time, she raised her eyes to Carlmore's face. "You two have introduced yourselves, I think?" she said, gravely.

"Yes," he answered, briefly, almost sullenly.

He felt a curious resentment against poor Hilda. This Daisy was so different from the picture he had drawn of her in his mind's eye, and it suited him better to lay the blame on her faulty description than on his own perversity.

Daisy held up a kitten.

“Oh, we have introduced ourselves!” she said; "and Kitty here is answerable for it. I wanted Kitty, but Kitty did not want me; so she put the hedge between us. But Mr. Carlmore came and represented Fate. So Kitty is now trying to make herself comfortable in my arms instead of on the long grass."

Hilda looked down at the girl, and her face gained that expression of protecting tenderness with which older women watch the younger ones spread their wings and prepare to fly.

"And then," Daisy went on, "Mr. Carl

more said he knew mother, and that you had told him I was coming. He is going to take us in his boat. Won't it be fun, Hilda!"

For the last time the tempter knocked at the door of Hilda's heart. Was this blue-eyed baby going to take him from her? She jumped at the conclusion with a quickness born of jealousy. Would she love him as she would have done, give him intelligent appreciation as she Nay, he never was hers. The fight was over. She raised her pale, unruffled face to his with a gesture of enquiry.

"Miss Daisy says she likes the sea," he explained, stiffly. "Will you come, too?" "I will come and take care of you, Daisy!" she cried, with such a sudden increase of animation, that the girl looked up quickly.

"You dear old thing!" she exclaimed, joyously. "Why, I declare you are quite excited. And when Hilda is excited," she rattled on, turning to Carlmore, "you may expect the heavens to fall."”

He looked up to the sky above them with a gesture of mock alarm.

Daisy laughed.

"Did you often go out? Who went with you, Hilda? Kate does not like the sea, I know," she went on, quite innocently.

For a moment George looked embarrassed; then Hilda, womanlike, came to the rescue.

"No one, Miss Inquisitive," she said, lightly. "This will be my first sail." "And you used to be so fond of the water?"

"Was I?" she said, quietly. you know yesterday is not to-day."

"Well,

There was more gravity in her voice than the subject warranted.

Mr. Carlmore, who had entirely re

ments by the right of long custom. Mrs. Slingsby asked nothing better. Hilda, as a rule, was quite willing, only Kate sometimes demurred; but it must be admitted that when the two wills clashed hers was generally the defeated one. "Hilda,”

"Au revoir," she said to him. the breakfast having suddenly come into her mind, "you can't think how cold everything will be."

She linked her arm into her cousin's, and pulled her gently away.

"Good-bye," called Carlmore after them. "Three, please remember."

But he felt pretty sure that he should manage to see this "dainty maiden "-as he mentally christened her-long before then.

Daisy nodded her head to him; but it was Hilda who answered:

"Good-bye," she said, in a curiously hollow voice,

She gave one long glance at him, then she turned resolutely away.

She bade good-bye to her dream, afterwards, in the solitude of her own room, and she confessed it all-confessed that it had been a brief delirium, that her soul had been sent into the fire. How would it come forth? As gold, or dross?

My friends, if any of you meet Hilda Boyle, with her intellectual face softened and refined, and her coldness merged into helpfulness, her discontent into activity, you will feel answered.

make some arrangements. Insensibly his voice took a softer key as he addressed

Daisy. Hilda drew back a little; her part

in the matter was so small.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS,

Consisting of a Complete Story, entitled

"Yes, at three. You won't disappoint me?" he asked, almost eagerly.

"Certainly not," she replied.

Miss Daisy made the family's arrange

BY

MARY ANGELA DICKENS,

Author of "Cross Currents," "A Mist of Error," "Her
Inheritance,"
""A Social Success," "Kitty's Victim,"
Etc., etc.