Farm; and there are some curious Druidical remains in the neighbourhood.'

Without caring greatly for either Druids or Romans, Louis and the two boys eagerly accepted the project; and even Clara was induced to think the day fine enough to venture. Ellen said nothing at the time; but she followed Anne out of the room when she went to give the necessary orders. May I speak to you for one moment, Anne?'

'Certainly,' said Anne, leading the way to the drawing-room, and closing the door.

'I only wanted to say,' said Ellen, while the tears, now always ready to fall, stood in her eyes -'I only wanted to say, Anne, that I would rather not go out to-day; that, indeed, I cannot.'

'Why not?' said Anne; and Ellen quailed before her cold and penetrating gaze, and had not courage to confess, as she had at first intended, that she had pledged herself, by that message to Colonel Oliphant, to remain at home.

'My head aches,' she again faltered.

'Yes; and it was on that account, and because it will do you no good to mope at home, that I devised the expedition. Do not be silly and fanciful, but go and put on your bonnet.' And Ellen went, without another word.

In the same spirit of passive endurance she took the place assigned to her on the box beside Louis, who volunteered to drive; but his manœuvres in starting were so trying to Clara's nerves that no one objected, when Phil scrambled up between them and seized the reins.

'If

'Allow me, my nautical friend,' he said. you do not take that post, you will certainly land us in the ditch.'

'Very likely,' said Louis, good-humouredly. 'I know more about steering on sea than land, so you may drive, and I will talk to Ellen.' And talk he did, not discouraged by her silence and languor, though occasionally expressing his surprise that she could still be suffering from headache, when the sun shone brightly and the fresh breeze met their faces.

To all but Ellen the day was one of enjoyment; and they lingered so long on the Downs, that it was growing dusk before they returned home. Chilly with weariness and pain, Ellen suffered Louis to wrap her in his boat cloak; and resting her aching head on her hand, she sat almost unconscious of what was passing round her, when she was roused by Phil's eager question-'Look, Aunt Ellen! Do you see Colonel Oliphant?'

Ellen started, and strained her eyes through the twilight, to distinguish Hugh's tall and receding figure, as he walked with hasty strides through the meadow leading to the Oaks. 'Did we pass him?' she asked.

Oh, yes! He was leaning over the stile, looking scared and strange; and he tried to look under your bonnet, but you kept your head down, and so he turned round, thinking, I suppose, that you did not want to see him. I thought so,

too.'

'What are you two murmuring about?' said Louis, who had not recognised Colonel Oliphant;

but Phil, subdued into unusual gravity, made no reply, and they drove home in silence.

Colonel Oliphant's card lay on the hall table; and Ellen lingered, after the rest of the party were up-stairs, to ask when he had called.

'He has been here twice, Miss Ellen,' said Sarah. 'He was here in the morning, and seemed surprised to find you all out; so I told him you would certainly be back before sunset, as I thought you would. When he came again, and heard you were still out, he asked for his card back, and wrote something on it. And as Ellen looked again and more closely at the card, she saw the letters 'P. P. C.' lightly traced in pencil.

'How you shiver, Miss Ellen,' said Sarah : 'you are not well, surely.'

'Not very well,' said Ellen, slowly: 'I will go upstairs, and rest till tea-time.'

She went to her room, closed and fastened the door, and then sank down; her slender fingers still clasping the card on which those three letters were inscribed—not, as she well knew, in compliance with any conventional usage, but in deep and bitter resentment, as a final leave-taking. Her bright and brief day-dream was over now; and she and Hugh Oliphant must meet no more, or meet only as strangers. He had loved her and she accepted the conviction with a throb of mingled joy and pain but he believed her to be fickle and unworthy, and so had put the thought from him for ever. He was strong and self-reliant, and so the task was easy; for he

might love again, or live without love, and not be desolate but for her, who had cast herself upon him so utterly, it was not the disappointment of a few weeks or months, but the shattering of all hope and promise, since she must live out her long, long life without him.

There was no rebellion in Ellen's heart, either against Hugh, or the sister who had so harshly come between them; nor yet did she make that true and perfect resignation of her own will which can alone bring peace. She accepted her fate in submissive despair, and sat tearless, and with folded hands, while her dry eye-balls throbbed with a burning pain. How she went through that evening, she herself scarcely knew; but she went down to take her place with the rest, and spoke and moved as in a dream, and yet without betraying herself. When he bade her good-night, Louis remarked, with complacency, that Ellen looked all the better for the day's outing.'

T

CHAPTER XXXII.

Vo solcando un mar crudele
Senza vele

E senza sarte:

Freme l'onda, il ciel s'imbruna,
Cresce il vento, e manca l'arte,
E il voler della fortuna
Son costretto a seguitar.
Infelice, in questo stato
Son da tutti abbandonato
Meco sola è l'Innocenza

Che mi porta a naufragar.

METASTASIO.

HE following day brought with it work enough

THE

to leave Ellen little leisure for brooding over her troubles. The two boys were to go to school on the morrow; and Willy claimed her services and sympathy in all his preparations. As they were at work in the school-room together, deciding how many of his possessions might be stored into the little brass-nailed trunk, Ellen could not help recurring to their last day at Brighton, when Colonel Oliphant had aided her in a like task; but Willy was welcome to suppose that her silence and depression were due to the same cause which made his own heart so heavy; and that she thought only of the miseries of school-life.

They went about their work soberly and methodically; and Phil was not there to distract