1.

It was a still, summer night. Two men sat by the open window of a booklittered room overlooking a small, treeshaded courtyard, smoking and chatting. The elder-David Heron, tall, spare and erect, with a keen, dark, clean-shaven face-suggested in his appearance at once something of the soldier and the student. In reality, he was a briefless Scotch advocate, with a turn for historical research; a man of good family and small estate. In appearance, his companion was scarcely less noteworthy than himself. Tall, also, but broadly built, fair-skinned and gray-eyed, Goeffrey Thorne was an ideal young Englishman; mild, but not too mild; sturdy and graceful withal. He stood in the relation of ward to the elder man, or rather, had done so in the past, for now he was twentyfive, and newly capped M.D., while his quondam guardian was as yet barely forty-two.

In

Friendly while bound to each other in terms of law, the two men were no less friendly now that their brief term of formal relationship was at an end, and from holding somewhat the relative status of father and son, they had come to be very like brothers. truth, the extent of David Heron's guardianship of Geoffrey Thorne had been to see that young man, whom he had known from his childhood, through the troubles and temptations of University life at Edinburgh. To-night, they were smoking a farewell pipe in David Heron's chambers in Thistle Court, Edinburgh; for now, as mostly happens to intimacies between men, their old closeness of comradeship was to be broken, probably never to be reVOL. VIII. 437

LIVING AGE.

newed. After a short holiday Thorne was to take up a country practice in the west of England, and Heron had but lately been appointed to a professorship in a northern university. Thus, of many tobacco-parliaments in Thistle Court this was to be the last. Presently, from lazy chat, the two men dropped into silence, smoking and staring into the Court. The foliage of the few trees was projected in faint mass and tracery against the soft gloom of the summer sky; not a leaf stirred; there was absolute silence.

Boom! The deep pulsating note of St. Andrew's church clock, giving the first stroke of midnight, spread itself on the warm air. The two men stirred in their seats; other clocks in the town could be heard completing the hour, the sharper chime of a clock somewhere in the house took up the tale, and Heron and Thorne almost involuntarily rose from their chairs.

"Well, Goeffy, my boy, we have seen our last night here, I suppose," said Heron, with a yawn. "Tomorrow, possibly, I will finish my own share of the packing; John, downstairs, does the rest, and then everything goes away north, to St. Rule's, hah!" He sighed as he tapped his pipe on the windowledge. "Curious," he continued absently. "how loth we old fellows are to get out of the accustomed ruts, to assume responsibilities, to form

new ties-"

new

"Ties, Heron?" interjected Thorne. "What do you mean by ties?" Thorne had seated himself on the corner of Heron's writing-table. "What do you mean by ties?" he repeated. Heron smiled, rather doubtfully, as he placed his pipe in his pocket. "Suppose-suppose I were to get married; that would

"Yes, of course; but I never associated you with the idea of matrimony. Who is she?"

Heron smiled again, but with a certain wistfulness. "I can't very well tell you just yet," he said quietly.

"Ah!" said the other man, sympathetically, "I mean to get married myself, as soon as I have got things into shape a bit; at least, that is, if I can induce someone else to consider the idea favorably;" and Thorne laughed happily.

"H'm, yes, I suppose so," said Heron, with an indulgent smile. "Some one or other of your numerous Edinburgh girlfriends, eh? Gad! what a lucky young chap you are!"

"Oh, no!" said the young man, very decidedly. "No," he repeated, "it's to be Elizabeth Forster, if it is to be anyone."

Heron made no answer, and there was silence, until silence became a strain. Thorne looked up at his friend, surprised. Heron was staring dully into space; he seemed to breathe with difficulty; seemingly unconscious of what he was doing, he had taken a letter from his pocket, and was twisting it about in his fingers. For about a minute Thorne sat watching his friend. "Well?" he said at last, breaking the silence. Heron started, and appeared to wake out of a trance. He walked over to the fireplace, and stood for a moment, looking down at the empty grate; then he turned to Thorne, keen and alert again, as ever.

"And so," he said briskly, "you have fixed your affections on Miss Elizabeth Forster-Bess Forster, whom I remember as a baby when I was a lad new come from school.

Ah!"

Thorne still sat looking musingly at his friend.

"Well," he said slowly, "it's only an idea, so far, but not a new one. Still,

nor to her father, on the subject as yet. I wish I had not spoken of it to you. In any case, what is Miss Forster to you?" His mind had gone back to the strange manner in which Heron had received his first mention of the young lady, and he spoke more rapidly.

"What is Miss Forster to me," echoed Heron. "Everything," he answered quietly.

Thorne look at him for a moment, seemingly uncomprehending. Then he said dully, and almost to himself. "You! You!-Oh, my God, you!" Then, after a pause, "Have we two fools been thinking of the same woman," he laughed savagely. "Tell me," he went on, "how long has this been going on: 1 mean, how long have you been looking forward to this-this-" he broke off.

"Do you remember," said Heron, "the winter she spent in Edinburgh, four years ago?"

"I do; it was then that I got to know her. I remember meeting her-"

"Possibly," interrupted Heron, curtly. "And since then I have been working to obtain a position such as I might ask her to share. You never thought to ask me why I, a solitary bachelor, with nobody to care for, should all at once change from a bookish idler to a man anxious only to undertake every scrap of work he could get. You saw me nearly every day, and yet I suppose you never noticed any change in my life?" he said, scornfully. "And now!" He walked restlessly about the room.

Thorne picked up his hat, stick and gloves, from a chair. He had said nothing, but his face was hard.

"Well," he said, deliberately, "we may each have had his dream, but it remains to be seen whose dream comes true and I fancy it won't be yours. You are her father's friend, as you were my father's; you have known her since she was a child, and you have now a better position to offer her than

I can hope for, for years to come. Those are your advantages, and you may make the most of them; but I don't think that they will count for much. You may have her father's favor, but I feel certain that I shall have her's. You will make an elderly wooer, Heron, and not an effective one, I am afraid. Girls don't marry at the bidding of their fathers nowadays, and 'Auld Robin Gray' is completely out of date."

Thorne spoke with increasing bitterness, and his tone, as he finished, was brutally contemptuous.

Heron, however, scarcely seemed to hear him, SO quietly did he stand, hands deep thrust in his pockets. He had ceased his restless walk to and fro, when Thorne began to speak, and now that he had finished, he still stood gazing sombrely, mournfully almost, at the younger man.

Thorne opened the door, then turned again. "Heron," he said, roughly, "I feel almost crazy, and-and I've spoken like a brute, but I can't give up my hope of the girl I love. Good-bye." And he was gone.

Heron stood listening to the retreating footsteps. A door banged, the footsteps sounded on the pavement of the court, there was the clash of a gate, and then silence. Heron sat down at his writing-table, drew some paper towards him, and commenced a letter, tore it up, and commenced another; tore that up also, then sat for a while, frowning slightly and drumming abstractedly with his fingers on the edge of the table. "I'll go," he said, at length, and half aloud. He rose from his chair, and began to arrange his books and papers, from time to time pausing to jot down something on a sheet of foolscap headed "Directions for Packing." Soon, every chair was burdened with a gaping deed-box, into one or other of which he kept continually tossing papers, singly, or in

bundles. Books, similarly, were quickly returned to their proper places. The court was full of sunshine before Heron had finished his preparations for departure. Locking the deed-boxes, and after taking a last general survey of the now well-ordered bookshelves, and a passing glance at the vast pile of torn-up papers on the floor, he dropped into an easy chair, and was almost immediately in a deep sleep.

II.

a

"And this," said Mr. Forster, cheery-looking, elderly gentleman, "and this is what brought you down here two days before we expected you. I wondered, when I saw you come walking up the avenue last night. Delighted, though, that you were able to get away from Edinburgh sooner than you expected. Ah!"

He smoked reflectively for a few moments in silence. David Heron and Mr. Forster were seated on a bench in front of the latter's house, a creeperclad, dark stone building on the outskirts of Alnwick.

"Honestly, David," resumed Mr. Forster, leaning back, and half closing his eyes against the strong morning sunlight, "I had scarcely realized that those two motherless girls of mine were no longer children, least of all Bess, strapping lass though she be. Also, friend David, I never expected to find you contemplating matrimony; but I suppose this new professorship alters many things, although that's no business of mine. But as regards Bess, I could not wish a better husband even for my Bess, than yourself; but-and this is very important, David-you must fight your own battle. If the girl will have you, and I hope she will, well and good. Now, I have to go into the town, and there's Bess sitting over there, reading. Perhaps you had better go and get it over."

And the old gentleman, whistling up two dogs, who had been basking luxuriously in the sunshine, strolled away, with a rather disturbed expression on his usually good-humored face.

There had been no need to inform Heron, or "the Professor," as his friends the Forsters already more or less accurately styled him, of the presence of Miss Forster. In point of fact, he had been watching her from under the shade of his hat-brim for the last twenty minutes. Now, he sauntered across the garden towards where she sat, under the shade of a large tree. As he approached, she looked up, with a frank, ready smile. It was a pretty face, although with the wholesome beauty of health and good temper, rather than with that born of excellence of feature. Still, without one really good feature to her face, saving her friendly brown eyes, she would have been singled out of a crowd as being emphatically a pretty girl; better still, as being a likable girl.

"Well," she said gaily, "what are you going to do this glorious morning?"

"Talk to you, in the first place," he said soberly, as he sat down beside her.

"What's this?" taking up her book. ""The Princess Aline.' Ah, I have read that myself. It's pretty, is it not? And then it is true, you know." the book down again.

He laid

"True? Do you mean that there was really a Princess Aline?"

"My dear young lady, there is always a Princess Aline."

"I don't think I quite understand you, Professor."

"Ah, well! fortunately it doesn't very much matter, and I will explain it all to you-some day." He was silent for a moment. "Do you know," he resumed, "I have been finding out quite a lot of things, lately."

Miss Forster resigned herself goodnaturedly to the exposition of some

new 'fad.' "Things about myself," be went on; and she became more interested. "When I was a boy, left early in charge of an uncle who was not specially pleased, and there was little reason why he should be, at having the charge of an orphan added to his already numerous family responsibilities, I was a studious kind of fellow with few friends, and all a studious boy's narrow contempt for anything outside his own particular pursuits. The only intimate friends I had were your father and Geoffrey Thorne, the father of young Geoffrey who now is, and, as you may imagine, it was scarcely possible for any very real intimacy to exist between two who were already men, and one who was still a boy. However, they were very kind to me, when I met with little kindness elsewhere.

"Your father married, and settled down here; Geoffrey Thorne went out to India, and he also married shortly afterwards. Our intimacy, however, continued, and on more equal terms, as I grew up into manhood. From associating, through correspondence or actual fellowship, with two men so much older than myself, I had grown to feel older than my years, and when I was called to the Bar, I found myself out of sympathy with the men of my own standing, while my elders ignored me as a raw, and rather priggish youngster. So I was let alone, and lived alone, a poor, briefless advocate, struggling and for a long time unsuccessfully, to gain a footing in literature.

"Then young Geoffrey was sent home from India, like all AngloIndian children, separated from his mother while little more than a baby. and I played Uncle David to him, looking after him in a general kind of way, and later, when, within the space of a few weeks, he lost both father and mother, becoming his guardian. Firmly set in my bachelor ways, and