their consciences felt duty to be a bond as strong as love.

And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten heavy strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time -too swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon.

My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time has not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any of us. Let Agatha decide."

The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will which any father, looking into Nathanael's face, could see was not to be threatened into concession.

"Pas aux dames," said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air. Then more seriously: "My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you stand between your husband and his father."

Agatha, thrust into so new and important & position, felt a rush of temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain desperation.

"He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of what I shall say."

And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and a better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward and forward the still unfamilar weddingring, until in accidently feeling the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality.

"I am a wife," she thought. Under all circumstances I will do a wife's duty." And with that determination all the pleasant little follies and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left her as one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing else-resolute and at ease.

She said, very simply-almost childishlytaking her father-in-law's hand the while, "If you please, and if you would not be angry, I would rather do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best."

In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire had walked off, not angrily but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss Valery's arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with Nathanael.

of a precise household to sit waiting breakfast for a whole hour."

"Mary, be charitable! We did not know you were ready, and we were so busy in my room. No laziness, was it, Agatha ?"

"I think, Miss Valery, you are the very busiest women I ever knew. How can you get through it all?"

"Only by first making up my mind, and then acting upon it at once. Your husband's plan, too, I see. We shall get on as if we had worked together all our lives. Shall we not, my right-hand' Nathanael?"

·

He answered pleasantly; he looked quite a new man this morning. "You are right: I seem to understand your ways as if they were my own. My first half hour's business in the memorable Anne's room' at Kingcombe Holm has been sensible, like a return of old times. What a woman you are! You might have been brought up as I was by Uncle Brian. You have just his ways."

Anne smiled, but faintly; and with a jest about the treble compliment he had contrived to pay, let the conversation slip past to other things.

Mary and Eulalie talked excessively. They were both much scandalised by their brother's new position and intended course of life, to be put in practice immediately. Both the Miss Harpers' were that sort of feminine minds which are like some kinds of flower-bells-the less fair the wider they open. Agatha wondered to see how very patient Miss Valery was over Mary's mild platitudes and Eulalie's weak follies. But Anne's good heart seemed to cast a shield of tenderness over everybody that bore the name of Harper.

At length the young wife got tired of the after-breakfast discussion, which consisted of about a dozen different plans for the dayseverally put up and knocked down againeach contradicting the other. The mild laissezfaire of country life in a large family was quite too much for her patience; she longed to get up and shake everybody into common-sense and decision. But her husband and Miss Valery took everything easily-they were used to the ways at Kingcombe Holm.

"Oh, if your sister Harriet would but come in, or Mr. Dugdale!" she whispered to her husband, " surely they would settle something."

Not at all; they would only make matters worse. And look!-speaking of angels, one often sees their wings.'-ls that you, Marmaduke?"

66

Ay."

CHAPTER XVI.

with peeping at the title of the book-some abstruse work on mechanical science-and then watched the reader, thinking what great

Agatha was amused to find classic lore in Harrie Dugdale, and she gave most cordial admiration to Duke. "He is a magnificent rider; he sits the horse just as if he were born to it.'

White-star had become rather obstreperous, showing his spirit; his master carelessly leant down, giving him a box on each ear, just as if the stately blood horse had been a naughty child; then composedly rode him back to the two ladies.

"Harrie! Missus! do'ee come on! Nathanael is behind, all right. Come along!"

He gave his wife's pony a switch, and off they dashed, she laughing merrily, and he galloping away with such ease and grace that Agatha could not take her eyes off him.

She looked after them with a vague sense of envy-this odd married pair, in whose union so many things appeared unequal and peculiar, except for one thing-the love which hallowed and perfected all. When her own husband came up, she, unwilling to talk, and dreading above all that his quick eye should detect anything amiss in her, pushed her horse forward, and calling to Nathanael to follow, rode on after the Dugdales.

Ere they had ridden far, all her wild spirits came back again, and all her wifely feelings too, for her husband seemed as happy as herself, and entered into all her frolics. They swept along like two children, across the breezy moors, purple and fragrant, down by the hilly sheep-paths, lying bare in autumn sunshine. Nathanael proved himself almost as good a horseman as Duke Dugdale-a great pleasure to Agatha, for of all things women do like a man to be manly. Nay, once in the descent of a hill so steep that a Cockney equestrian would have been frightened out of his seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he snatched little Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been awakened towards him. She hinted this, and said how pleasant it was to feel that one's husband was, as she expressed it, a man that could take care of one."

"And how very foolish and helpless townfolk-drawing-room gentlemen, appear in the country! I wonder," and she could not help telling him the comical idea, though not very complimentary to her husband's brother-"I wonder how Major Harper would look on horseback?"

"What did you say? The wind blew that sentence away.

She hardly liked to repeat it exactly, but said something about Major Harper and his coming down to Dorset.

Nathanael spurred his horse forward without replying. A minute afterwards he re

maduke's door was a sight that the worthy inhabitants of that sleepy street could not get over for a week. Everybody gathered at doors and windows, and a small group of farmers at the market quadrangle stared with all their eyes. The sensation created was enormous, and likewise the crowd-almost as dense as a wandering juggler gathers in a quiet suburban London street! Agatha, passing through it, laughed till she could laugh no longer.

Her husband pleased at her gaiety, came to lift her off the horse.

"Not a bit of it!" Mrs. Dugdale cried. "Keep your seat, Agatha; no time to loose; on we go in a minute, when Duke has been to get his letters. Here Brian my pet."-There had rushed out round her horse a cluster of infantine Dugdales." Lift Brian up here. Uncle Nathanael, and I'll give him a canter. Bravo! He's Pa's own boy, born for a rider! Come along, Auntie Agatha."

Agatha would willingly have followed down the street. She was amused by the daring of the mother and the boy, and amused especially by her new title of " Auntie Agatha."

"Do let me go, Mr. Harper; I don't want to dismount, indeed."

"But I have something to say to you-just a few words. We must decide to day about the house you know."

"Never mind the house; I had rather not think of it." And the mere shadow of past vexation still vexed her. "Ah!" she added, entreatingly, “do be good to me—do let me enjoy myself!"

"I would not prevent you for the world." He dropped her bridle with a sigh, and turned back among his little nephews.

Fred had coaxed the horse from the groom, and Gus was bent on mounting; there was a dreadful struggle, and angry cries for Uncle Nathanael. In the midst of it Uncle Nathanael appeared, like an angel of peace, and setting the boys one behind the other on his horse's back, led the animal up and down carefully.

Agatha looked after them, thinking how kind and good her husband was She wished she had not refused so hastily such a simple request; she began to think herself a wretch for ever contradicting him in anything.

The little party started again increased by the arrival of the family carriage from Kingcombe Holm, wherein sat Mary and Eulalie. To these were speedily added the three young Dugdales, all in high glee. And it spoke well for the Miss Harpers, whom Agatha was disposed to like least of her husband's relatives, that they made very lenient and kindly aunts to those obstreperous boys.

Agatha was crossing the bridge which

Oh, no-no!" His extreme seriousness of manner jarred with her youthful spirits. She did not think or care about what he did, so that for this day only he let her be gay and happy. From some incomprehensible cause, his very love seemed to hang over her like a cloud, and so it had been from the beginning. She did so long to dash out into the sunshine of her careless, girlish life, and scamper over the beautiful country with Harrie Dugdale.

"Oh, no!" she repeated, only wishing to satisfy him. "Do just as you like, and come onward soon; and oh, do let us be cheerful and merry!"

"We will!" His bright look as she patted his shoulder-a very venturesome act-gave her much cheer; and when, after she had cantered a good way down the road, she turned and saw him still leaning on the bridge looking after her, her heart throbbed with pleasure. Despite of all his reserves and peculiarities, and her own conscious failings, there was one thing to which she clung as to a root of comfort that would never be taken away, and would surely bear blossom and fruit afterwards-the belief that her husband truly loved her.

"If so," she thought, "I suppose all will come right in time, and Agatha Harper will be as happy as, or happier than Agatha Bowen." So on she went, yielding to the delicious excitement of being on horseback. She was also much interested by the country round about, which appeared to her as old, desolate, and strange as if she had been a Thane's daughter riding across the moors to the gates of that renowned castle which, as Harrie declared, putting on a physiognomy of some school-child drawling out a history lesson," was celebrated for being the residence of the ancient Saxon Kings.'

"And this was the place," continued she in the same tone, pointing to an old gate post"this was the place where His Majesty's most illustrious horse did stop when His Majesty's most sainted body was dragged along by the leg in the stirrup, on account of the wound given him when he was a-drinking at the castle-door, by his stepmother, Queen Elfrida. All of which is to be seen to the present day." Agatha first laughed at this comical view of the subject, then she felt a little repugnance at hearing that stern old tragedy so lightly treated.. As she walked her horse along the road, which might have been, and probably was, the very same Saxon highway

as in those times, she thought of the wounded horseman dashing out from between those green hills, and of the murdered body dropping slowly, slowly from the saddle, dragged in dust, and beat against stones, until the woman that loved him-for even a king might have had some woman that loved him-would not have known the face she thought so fair.

It was an idle fancy, but beneath it her tears were rising; chiefly for thinking, not of "The Martyr," but of the woman-whoever she was-(Agatha had not historical erudition enough to remember if King Edward had a wife) to whom that day's tragedy might have brought a lifetime's doom. She began to shudder-to feel that she too was a wifeto understand dimly what a wife's love might come to be-also something of a wife's terrors. She wished-it was foolish enough, but she did wish that Nathanael had not been riding on horseback, or else that, in picturing to herself the dead head of the Martyr dragged along the road, she did not always see it with long fair hair. And then she wondered if these horrible fancies indicated the dawning of that feeling which she had deceived herself into believing she already possessed. Was she beginning to find out the difference between that quiet response to secured affec tion, that pleasant knowledge of being loved, and the strong, engrossing, self-existent attachment which Anne Valery described-the passion which has but one object, one interest, one joy, in the whole wide world?

Was she beginning really to love her hushand?

The answer to that question involved so much, both of what had been, and what was yet to come, that Agatha dared not ponder over it.

"Mrs. Harper! Mrs. Harper!" She mused no longer, but hurried on after the Dugdales.

It was not to point out the Castle that Harrie had been so vociferous, but to show a place which she evidently deemed far more interesting.

"Do you see that white house far among the trees? That's where my Duke was born. He lived there in peace and quietness_till he got acquainted with Uncle Brian, and came to Kingcombe Holm and fell in love with me."

"How did he do it? I want to know what is the fashion of such things in Dorset."

"How did Duke fall in love with me? Really I can't tell. I was fifteen or so—a mere baby! He first gave me a doll, and then he wanted to marry me!

"But how did he make love, or 'propose,' as they call it?" persisted Agatha, to whom the idea of Marmaduke Dugdale in that character was irresistibly funny.

"Make love? Propose? Bless you, my dear, he never did either! Somehow it all came quite naturally. We belonged to one another."

The very phrase Anne Valery had used! It made Nathanael's wife rather thonghtful. She wondered what was the feeling like, when people "belonged to one another."

But she had no time for meditation; for now the great grey ruin loomed in sight, and everybody, including the shouting boys in the