hands looked at him very differently to what she had done two hours before.

"It's a picture now," said Max. "That's all, instead of a book of beauty-" pot boiler was the thought in his own mind.

face does mean something.

call it?" he added aloud.

"The

What do you

The name sprang as by an inspiration to Roland's lips, brought there by the thought which had guided his hand during the morning.

"Castara."

It was the right name for the tender, deep-eyed maiden, with the pure lips and serious sweetness of face.

"She looks like it; but who was the lady?”

"The heroine of Habington's poems. You think it will wash, then?"

Yes, I like it, though I don't think it's

up to some of your work." Then he looked

at it again. "Do you know," he said at last, "you've made it awfully like Miss Goring? The eyes are hers to the life."

He spoke in a curious, musing tone, grave and simple. Roland, who had turned away, looked round; but Max was gazing at Castara's clear eyes; and suddenly a thought came to Roland, born of Max's last words and his intent, quiet look.

He pooh-poohed it as a fancy. If he had analyzed his own mind, he might have found there an irrational distaste to the idea of Max being in love with Evelyn; but he did not probe as deep as that, and contented himself by considering his fancy as absurd.

CHAPTER XVII.

"La mediocrité qui ne comprend rien qu'elle." ALFRED DE MUSSET, Sur la Paresse.

"EVELYN!"

Eve turned round. She was in rather a perilous position on the top of a high flight of steps, employed in arranging some china on a high shelf in Fainton Cottage. She had devoted the morning to rearranging her newly disinterred household treasures after their year's burial in cupboards, and making her room return to its former self.

A real, quick thrill of pleasure, mingled with some subtler feeling, shot through her

as she heard Gertrude Trench's voice, and saw her standing at the doorway. There was still a pain at Evelyn's heart, but it was that of a wound which is healing healthily, not festering in secret.

"Gertrude! How good of you to come so soon," she said, quickly dismounting, and returning Mrs. Trench's embrace almost as warmly as it was given, as Gertrude said affectionately, "It is so nice to see you again."

"You cannot have wanted me much," said Evelyn, with a sweet laugh and slight flush.

Why not?" asked Gertrude: a vague, graceful shyness seeming to Evelyn's fancy to hang on her like the bloom on the peach. The girl could see from her look and smile that Roland's wife was happy, most happy in him, and something made her for a moment cling to Gertrude

with a nervous, tense affection, which, quiet as it was, puzzled Mrs. Trench; it was so unlike Evelyn's usual manner.

"You will stay to lunch, won't you, Gertrude?" said Evelyn, when greetings and inquiries had been exchanged, and the life of the last year had been reviewed in brief. "It will be a picnic, bread and honey and a melon. Father is out.”

"But I shall be in your way."

"Do you think we have seen too much of each other of late? It's so warm ; we will have lunch in the garden, if you don't mind."

"Oh, charming! I wish we could be as Arcadian as you are, Evelyn. We have a square plot of green at the back, but it's only use is to clear the crowd at an afternoon tea."

Evelyn left the room for a moment, to wash her hands, her morning's labours