“Yet still, having once given one's affections, I suppose they could not be withdrawn?”

"I cannot tell, for I was never tried. So dreadful an alternative I well believe can never be my lot; my husband was a true Christian man when first I learned to care for him. Trust me, Margaret, there is no safeguard but that. A man may be moral, amiable, intellectual, high-minded, all that is pure and lovely, as the world counts purity and loveliness, but not to be relied on unless his principle of goodness is founded on a rock-on the Rock I should have said."

"That Rock being Christ?"

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Certainly. In His love there is a constraining power with which no other spring of action can even for a second compare. Marry a Christian man, Margaret, if you wish to be happy."

"But I am not a Christian myself."

"My poor child, how much happiness you miss! I do not wonder you are perplexed and very often sore at heart.' “I have so many things to make me so. If I were a Christian my troubles would still remain."

'They would. But then you would have an Almighty Friend, a Comforter, abiding with you always. Now you walk in darkness; then the light would shine :—if not earthly light, that which is far better, the light of your heavenly Father's countenance. What are you thinking of so intently?"

"I was thinking that if I once loved anybody, with all my heart, as I should love if I loved at all, I know I should go on loving, even if all kinds of unworthiness were proved against him. Mind, I could not begin to love without first esteeming; but if I were mistaken and I found it out, when all my heart was given, I do not think it would make any difference. I think my love would be

"Such love as quits not misery's side,

Nor drops from guilt its ivy-like embrace,

Nor turns away from death's its pale heroic face.

"I believe it, Margaret. Yours is no ordinary nature.

You will have trials and temptations that milder and weaker spirits know nothing of. May God guide you into all peace! He only can. Good bye, dear child, and let this troublesome Tom have his say at once."

CHAPTER XXX.

TOM PROPOSES.

AND SO we were comfortably located in a handsome furnished house at Cleeve-super-Mare; and it did my heart good to gaze once more upon the watery world; to see the great waves, surging high in the equinoctial spring-tides, leap upon the rocks; to hear the solemn music, the "billowy anthem," that would echo till the end of time; and to meet the sturdy blast as it came up with fresh briny odour from the broad Atlantic, and made havoc with my curls and reft my bonnet from its moorings, and carried it far away among the tide-pools of the shore.

Our house was a detached villa, commanding lovely views of sea, and coast, and hill,—the sea being, I must tell you, not the boundless waste of waters to which I had been accustomed at St. Eldred's, but a noble estuary, eight or nine miles in breadth. It was none the less lovely, that one could see on clear days a purple line of wavy hills, like shadowland, upon the other side. As for the heights about Cleeve-super-Mare, they were breezy and beautiful exceedingly; and the inland view, gazing southward, towards the Vale of Avalon, was more enchanting than words of mine can tell.

Mr. Saunderson and Gilbert had lodgings very near to us; the greater part of the day they really spent at Mendip House, our own marine residence," as my cousin Tom loved to call it.

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Tom became suddenly very steady and almost rational; indeed he spoke and acted in so sensible a style, that I began to accuse myself of having on some points misre

presented him to my friends at Maple Cottage.

He did not consort with the "fast" set of men, who, like ourselves, had come down to the shore for the sake of saline breezes, or for fashion's sake, or for whim's sake,-it was not easy to say which. A temporary yachting club had been got up; but Tom did not join it. for him," he said.

"The fellows were too rollicking "As for himself, he was tired of an idle life, and he really thought he should seriously set to work, and read for the Bar."

My uncle and Mrs. Crofton were delighted. At last their darling son and heir had sown his wild oats; henceforward, he would only cultivate the choicest wheat. And now Mrs. Crofton began to praise him whenever she had an opportunity; and whenever we were left alone together she had something to say about the future. I had not only to listen to accounts of his precocious childhood and his youthful wit, but to previsions of a day not yet arrived, when Tom, married to the girl of his choice, would prove himself a model husband-all that the most exacting and fastidious of wives could reasonably require.

"With all my heart," I thought. "If Tom becomes a good husband and a respectable paterfamilias, so much the better for him; but it is nothing, and shall be nothing to me personally."

One afternoon, scarcely a week after our arrival at Cleeve, there was a discussion about the various expeditions we wished to make. There was to be a riding party, and a walking party, and a boating party. Dinner was just over; for we kept early hours, and had given ourselves up to a generally free and easy style of living. We had running meals, so to speak; nobody who was hungry was to wait for anybody, and Mr. Saunderson and Gilbert were in and out the whole day long. You and I will go botanizing," said Gussie to me, coaxingly. "We will take our specimen-case, and go miles along the shore. You know Mr. North said we should find the samphire if we explored the rocks towards Woodport. Ah, I wish we had Mr. North here and Hetty!" I wished so too, but I said nothing; for just then Gilbert

came up to the window where I was standing. It was the first time for weeks that he had voluntarily approached me, indeed, for the last fortnight we had said very little to each other. I saw that he avoided me, and I, too, could be proud, and hold myself purposely aloof. He had heard Gussie speaking of the samphire, and he came forward now to say something to her, not to me.

"The samphire grows on those rocks below the old castle, Gussie; but you and Miss Torrington will scarcely be able to gather it. It is quite above your reach, and climbing would be dangerous, if not impracticable."

"Come with us then," replied Gussie, with that comfortable disregard of the proprieties in which young ladies of her age may blamelessly indulge. "You might scramble where we could not; and I must have some samphire,—the veritable crithmum maritimum. Come with us now, Gilbert. Can't you leave Sib for a single evening?"

Gilbert coloured furiously. "Miss Crofton and Mr. Saunderson chiefly make arrangements," he said, still addressing Gussie; "and, of course, I accompany Mr. Saunderson; they are going out in a boat this evening."

"And you with them? You might come with us for once, Gilbert. And Margaret your old friend too. If I were Margaret I should be offended; and I think she is not pleased."

He looked at me quickly then; and with burning cheeks' I hastened to reply, "Gussie is very silly, Mr. Tredgold; she lets her tongue run too fast, and I must lecture her about it. She is getting into a bad habit of saying all she thinks, and a great deal that she does not think."

"Oh, Margaret !" remonstrated Gussie; "that is not kind, -you know never tell stories."

"I know you do not, dear; but you say things that come uppermost, without thinking about them.”

"But are you offended, Miss Torrington," inquired Gilbert, hesitatingly.

"I have nothing to be offended about," I replied, coldly. "I beg you will not take literally anything Gussie says, Mr. Tredgold?"

"Why do you call me Mr. Tredgold?"

"Why do you call me Miss Torrington ? "

"Because I left you a little girl, and I find you grown into a young lady; and I would not dare to presume on old privileges."

"The same reasons will apply to myself; we are not amusing ourselves now, with the 'Little Gipsy' curtseying in the shallows of the creek."

"No, indeed. Poor 'Little Gipsy!' Those were happy days." "Your days have been happier since, surely?”

"I think not. I had much to contend with in those days, and, for a mere boy, as I was, I had undue anxieties. But my wants were few, my pleasures, though simple, were perfect in their kind, and I thoroughly enjoyed my life. No; I have never been quite so happy as then I was. It might have been better for me if I had been left to struggle upwards in the career I was trying to mark out for myself. I am not certain, Margaret, that what people esteem my rare 'good fortune' is really such. But Mr. Saunderson is very kind; I have no cause to complain. I only mean that if I

had had to make my way it might have strengthened me more-it might have taught me more. You will think I am a foolish fellow, quarrelling with my own destiny like a hero of romance. What is it, Master Cuddie?"

"Sibyl and Mr. Saunderson are waiting for you. They are on the beach."

"One moment. Run away, Cuddie. You see to-night I cannot accept Gussie's invitation; they expect me: else—" "Pray go at once; you should not keep Sibyl waiting. Gussie and I love our solitary rambles."

"We get so few now," said Gussie, discontentedly. "Tom is always coming with us. He never used to care about walking with us till lately. Only this morning I told him I thought that he thought that you were his sister as much as Sib and I. But he said, 'No, Gussie, not my sister-something far better than that; but your sister, I hope, always.' I don't see exactly what he meant; for if you were my sister, you must be his, you know."