retired corner on the terrace after everybody had gone away. Though it was late, there was still light in the skies, partly the lingering northern daylight, partly the moon, and he shut his eyes while he smoked his cigar and pondered. He could see her before him, that girl, in a dark dress made (he thought-but then he did not know much about it) like a lady's -certainly with a face like a lady's, or how could she have resembled- -? Of course, it was only association, and the recollections that came back to him with those Lowland voices. The Highland ones had never affected him in the same way. The fact was, he said to himself, he was never half a man when Elizabeth was not with him. She would have understood the sequences of ideas at once. She would have found out in five minutes who the girl was and all about her, and set him at rest. He was interrupted in those thoughts by the sudden irruption of the band of young men with their cigars into the balmy quiet of the night. It was warm, and they had found the smoking-room hot. "And there is old Hayward gone to sleep in a corner," he heard one of them say.

"He must not sleep," said Mr Bellendean; "wake him up, NorThe air here is too keen for

man.

that."

"I am no more asleep than any one of you young fellows," the Colonel said, jumping up. "But as old Hayward has more sense than a set of boys, he kept outside here in the cool while you were all heating yourselves in the smokingroom. I don't think they've got the best of it this time, Mr. Bellendean, eh?”

"They don't half so often as they think," said the other old gentleman. They were neither of

them very old, but they drew together with a natural sympathy amid that band of youth.

Next day was the concluding day of the Bellendean festivities, and it was chiefly to be devoted to the children. In the afternoon the park was turned into an immense playground. Every kind of game and entertainment that could be thought of was provided. There was a conjurer, there was Punch, there was a man with marionnettes, and what the children liked still better, there were games of all kinds, in which they could themselves perform, which is always more agreeable than seeing other people do so. And finally, there was tea a wonderful tea, in which mountains of cake and cookies innumerable disappeared like magic. The ladies were all there, serving actively the flushed and happy crowds of children, throwing themselves into it with much more sympathy than they had shown with the substantial feasts of the previous days. The young men were set free, they were not required to help in the entertainment of the boys and girls; and except Norman, who had bravely determined to do his duty to the end, the male portion of the company was represented only by Mr Bellendean and the Colonel, who looked on from the terrace, and finally took a walk round the tent where the meal was going on, and partook, as the newspapers say, of a cup of tea at a little separate table in a corner, where Mrs Bellendean was taking that refreshment. It was when the Colonel (who liked his tea) was standing with a cup in his hand, just outside the great tent, which was steaming with the entertainment, that he suddenly stopped once more in the midst of a little speech he was making about the

pleasure of seeing children enjoy themselves. He stopped with a little start, and then he set down his cup and turned back to watch something. It was afternoon, but the sun was still high in the skies, and even under the tent there was full daylight, impaired by no shadows or uncertainty. The shade within gave a suppressed and yellow glow to everything, something like the air of a theatre: and in the midst there she stood once more, the girl of last night! The Colonel gazed at her with an absorption, an abstraction, which was extraordinary. He saw nothing but only her alone. She had been seated by the old ploughman on the previous night as if she belonged to him; but now she was moving about among the children as the young ladies were doing, serving and encouraging: her dress was very simple, but so was theirs, and there was not one of them more graceful, more at her ease. Everybody knew her. She seemed to be referred to on all hands; by the children, who came clinging about her-by the visitors, who seemed to consult her upon everything. Who could she be? The clergyman's daughter perhaps; but then, how had she come to be seated last night between the old couple, who were clearly labouring people, at the cottagers' supper? And how had she come by that face? Whoever she might be, gentlewoman or rustic maiden, how had she come by that face? That was the wonder. The Colonel stood fascinated, immovable, at the tent-door, looking in, seeing all the moving crowd of faces only as a background to this one, which seemed, in his fancy, to reign over them all. Her face was not still and attentive, as on the previous night, but full of animation and life. He watched the

children come round her as they finished their meal, which was pretty to see; he watched the ladies coming and going, always circling more or less about this one figure. He watched Norman going up to her, holding out his hand, which she took, showing for the first time a little rustic shyness, curtseying as if he had been a prince. Then he saw a quite different sort of man from Norman, one of the schoolmasters, go to her in his turn and say something in her ear, with an evident claim upon her attention and a lingering touch on her arm, which spoke much, which made the Colonel angry, as if the fellow had presumed. But the girl evidently did not think he presumed. smile lighted up her face, which she turned to him looking up in his. Colonel Hayward felt a movement of intolerable impatience take possession of him; and then a still stronger feeling swept across his mind. As she turned her face with that look of tender attention to the man who addressed her, she turned it also to the spectator looking at her from the tent door. The line of the uplifted head, the soft chin, the white throat, the eyes raised with their long eyelashes—“Good God! who is she?" he said aloud.

Mrs Bellendean saw the absorbed expression in his face, and came and stood beside him to see what he was looking at. Her own face relaxed into smiles when she found out the object of his gaze. "Oh, I don't wonder now at your interest, Colonel. I am sure she has had no tea; she would never think of looking after herself. Now, come, you shall see her nearer; she is worth looking at: Joyce!' she cried.

"Joyce! Good God!"

Colonel Hayward sank down upon a bench which stood close to the tent-door. The light swam in his eyes. He saw only as through a mist the light figure advancing, standing docile and obedient by the side of the great lady. The name completed the extraordinary impression which the looks had made; he kept saying it over to himself under his breath in his bewilderment. "Joyce! Good Lord!" But presently the urgency of the circumstances brought him to himself. He breathed in his soul a secret desire for Elizabeth. Then manned himself to act on his own behalf, since no better could be.

"This is the very best girl in the world, Colonel Hayward," said Mrs Bellendean, with a hand upon Joyce's shoulder. "I don't wonder she interested you. She has taught herself every sort of thing Latin and mathematics, and I don't know all what. Our school is always at the head in all the examinations, and she really raises quite an enthusiasm among the children. I don't know what we should do without her. When ever we come here, Joyce is my right hand, and has been since she was quite a child."

If it was condescension, it was of the most gracious kind. Mrs Bellendean kept patting Joyce on the shoulder as she spoke, with a caressing touch and her eyes and her voice were both soft. The girl responded with a look full of tenderness and pleasure. 'Oh, mem, it is you who are always so good to me," she said.

66

The schoolmistress then! That was how the ploughman's daughter had got her superior look. When he saw her closer, he thought

he saw (enlightened by this knowledge) that it was only a superior look, not the aspect of a lady as he had supposed. Her dress had not the dainty perfection of the young ladies' dresses; her hands were not delicate like theirs and she said "mem" to her patroness with an accent which- Ah! but what did that accent remind him of? and the face? and, good heavens! the name? These criticisms passed like a cloud across his mind; the bewilderment and anxiety remained. He rose up from the bench, nobody having thought anything of his sudden subsidence, except that perhaps the old Colonel was tired with standing about. Oh that Elizabeth had been here! but in her absence he must do what he could for himself.

"Young lady," he said, "would you tell me how you got your name? It is a very uncommon name: and your face is not a common face," he added, with nervous haste. "I knew some one once

His voice seemed to go away from him into his throat. It was curious to see him, at his age, so unsteady and agitated, swaying from one foot to another, stammering, flushing under the limpid modest eyes of this country girl, who, on her part, coloured suddenly, looked at him, and then ́at Mrs Bellendean, with a faint cry, "Oh, sir!"

"Where she got her name?" said Mrs Bellendean. "It is not so easily answered as perhaps you think. I will tell you afterwards. It is a very uncommon name. Joyce, my dear, what is the little secret you have been plotting, and when is it to be made known?"

The young woman stood for a moment without replying. "How can I help wondering?" she said, with a long-drawn breath. "How can I think of common things? Nobody has ever asked me that question before." Then, with a sudden effort, she fell into her usual tone. "It will be nothing,'

she said quickly, as if to herself; "it will be some fancy: I'll go back to my work. It was no secret worth calling a secret, Mrs Bellendean-only some poems they learned to please me-to say to you and the other ladies, mem, if you will take your seats."

"Where would you like us to take our seats, Joyce?

"Yonder, under the big ash-tree. It's very bonnie there. You can see the Firth, and the ships sailing, and St. Margaret's Hope; and you will look like the Queen herself, with her ladies, under the green canopy. Will I put the chair for you?" cried the girl, in the Scotch confusion of verbs. She gave the Colonel one glance, and then hurried off, as if determined to distract her own attention. There were a few garden-chairs already scattered about under a clump of trees, which crowned a little platform of green-a very slight eminence, just enough to serve as a dais. She drew them into place with a rapid and cunning hand, and caught quickly at a Turkish rug of brilliant colour, which lay beside the tea-table, placing it in front of the presiding chair. Her movements were very swift and certain, and full of the grace of activity and capacity. Meantime the Colonel stood by the side of Mrs Bellendean, surveying all.

"She is excited," said the lady. "She is a strange girl: your question-which I have no doubt is a very simple question-has set her imagination going. See what a

And she

picture she has made! could sketch it, too, if there was time. She is a sort of universal genius. And now she is all on fire, hoping to find out something." "Hoping to find out--what?" "Oh, my dear Colonel, it is a long story. I will tell you afterwards -not a word more now, please. I don't want her to form expectations, poor girl- Well, Joyce

is that where I am to sit ? I shall feel quite like the Queen

"With the young ladies behind,” said Joyce, breathless. Her eyes were full of impatient light, her sensitive lips quivering even while they smiled-a rapid coming and going of expression, of movement and colour, in her usually pale face. The Colonel stood gazing at her, his mouth slightly open, his eyes fixed. Oh, if Elizabeth were but here, who would know what to do!

The scene that followed was very pretty, if his mind had been sufficiently free to take it in. The little girls, in their bright summer frocks, subdued by the darker costumes of the boys, poured forth from their eclipse under the tent, and gathered in perpetually moving groups round the little slope. The ladies took their places, smiling and benignant—Mrs Bellendean in the centre, two of the prettiest girls behind her chair, the others seated about. They all submitted to Joyce, asking, "Shall I sit here?" "Shall I stand?" "What am I to do?" with gay docility. When it was all arranged to her liking, Joyce turned towards the children. She stood at one side, pointing towards the pretty group under the trees, holding her own fine head high, with a habit of public speaking, which the Colonel thoughtand perhaps also Norman Bellendean, who was looking on-one of the prettiest sights he ever saw.

"Children," said the young schoolmistress, lifting her arm, with simple natural eloquence, "this is a tableau-a beautiful tableau for you to see. If you ever read the word in a book, or in the papers, you will know what it means. It is a French word. It means a living group-that is like a picture. This is our Scots Queen Margaret a far grander Queen than her they call the Queen of Scots in your history-books-Margaret that was the Atheling, that married Malcolm Canmore, that was the son of King Duncan, who was murdered by-who was murdered by Speak quick! what do you mean, you big girls? Why, it's in Shakespeare!" cried Joyce, with a ring of indignant wonder in her voice, as if the possibility of a mistake in such a case was bevond belief.

There was a movement among a group of girls, and some whispering and hasty consultation: then one put forth a nervous hand, and cried, but faltering, "Macbeth."

"I thought you would not put me to shame before all the ladies!" cried Joyce, with a suffusion of sudden colour: for she had been pale with suspense. Then she added, in a business-like tone: "It is you, Jean, that are to say Portia. The Queen will hear you. Come well forward, and speak out."

It was not a masterpiece of elocution. The speaker blushed and fumbled, and clasped and unclasped her fingers in agonies of shyness -while Joyce stood by with her head on one side, prompting, encouraging, her lips forming the words, but only twenty times more quickly, as her pupil spoke them. The Colonel was so absorbed in this sight, that he started when a voice spoke suddenly at his elbow, and recoiling a step or two instinctively, saw that it was the young man,

He

evidently a schoolmaster, who had been with Joyce in the tent. was looking at her with a mixture of tenderness and pride.

"It is quite wonderful how she does it," he said. "I've no reason to think I'm unsuccessful myself with my big boys; but I have not got them under command like that. They will make very acute remarks, sir, that would surprise you, in the Shakespeare class-but answer like that, no. It is personal influence that does it-and I never saw anybody in that respect to equal Joyce."

It gave the Colonel a sensation of anger to hear this fellow call her Joyce. He turned and looked at him again. But there was nothing to object to in him. He was not a gentlemen; but he was what is called in his own class quite a gentleman-a young fellow of very tolerable appearance, whose clothes were of the most respectable description, and who wore them as if he were used to them. He had as good a necktie as Norman's, and a flower in his coat. But when he stood by Norman it was apparent that there was a good deal wanting. He was in all probability much cleverer than Norman. He spoke of Shakespeare with an awe-striking familiarity as if he knew all about him-which was more than the Colonel did. All the same he felt a sensation of offence at the use by this man of the girl's Christian name.

Miss Joyce-is evidently a young lady of unusual gifts," he said.

The face of the young man flushed with pleasure. "Sir," he cried, "you never said a truer word. She is just running over with capability. She can do anything she sets her hand to. I sometimes feel as if I grudged her to be in the line of public tuition all her life. But when there are two of