was on New Year's Day, when Mr. Walrond asked him to dinner to meet Barbara, who was coming down for the first time. Needless to say he went, taking with him a large bunch of vi

eapest that the butcher supplies when the amount of eating is taken into consideration; one roast duck, a large Pekin, the Near Year offering of the farmer Stevens; and a p

ner held some tattered educational works and the walls that once had been painted blue, but now were faded in patches to a sickly green, were adorned only w

deposited the beef upon the table, was rushing back for the duck, accompanied by two of the young Walronds who were assisting with the vegetables. The maid, recoiling, sat down with a bump on one of the wooden chairs, and the Walrond girls, a merry, good-looking, unkempt crew (no boy had put in an appearance

that beef. I haven't said

upon the beef, which was obviously burnt at one corner. Then with a

Notwithstanding all the troubles and hardships that she had endured, her countenance was serene and even happy, for she was blessed with a good heart, a lively fa

on the burnt beef. "It is good of you to come, though you a

ery good of us to have him when there's only one duck. Anthony, you

elied automatically, for his eyes

Even to a stranger she would have looked extraordinarily sweet with her large and rather plaintive violet eyes over which the long black lashes curved, her waving chest

a seated in that wooden chair! The thought gripped his heart with a hand of ice; he felt as he had felt when he looked at the window-place from the crest of Gunter's Hill. But she

all over and Mr. Wa

ink she looks well, considering? We do, better than you, in fact," he

o do it," piped the irrepressible Janey. "Anthony, why don't y

te throats," he answered, and without a word

a cracked vase from the mantelpiece, disposed of the rest of them there till she could remove them

himself with a piece of very hot and hard potato. Yet to tell the truth never before did he share in such a delightful meal. For soon, when the clamour of "the girls" swelled loud and long, and the attention of Mr. and Mrs

getting quite

a pause and with a glance from

know that if you had-died

know how to thank you. But I want to say something, if you won't laugh. Just at that time I seemed to come up out of some blackness and began to dream of you. I dreamed that I was sinking back into the blackness, but you caught

, but at that moment, pausing from her

ows cold. You know the doctor said y

lly hungry," and really she did; her gentle heart having f

did not see what portion of its gaunt skeleton was going to furnish him with dinner, and duck was one of his we

eplied Mrs. Walrond rather sharpl

o had got the calcined bit, "why, mo

erely, "especially as I was mistaken. It is very r

hing is burn

ny, paused from her meal to sniff, t

. Why, Anthony, you must be as beautifully done as the beef. If you can

s that the chairs were all pushed downwards, with the result that for the rest of that meal there was a fiery gulf fixed between him and

he Crimean War. Or rather the letter had been begun in the trenches and finished in the military hospital, whither George had been conveyed, suffering from "fever and severe chill," which seemed to be somewhat contradictory terms, thou

ms to be very unwell

ather knows, who is working in that hospital, says they mean to send him home as s

but Mr. Walrond found t

been in several of the big battles and will be promoted. I look upon

wounded hero in the villag

ro," answered Janey, "

ear, and I am sure he would have b

o Cambridge, Anthony?" ask

s summer term, and my father is very anxious that I should take high honours in mathematics. He says that it will give me a be

ssics now, with a little refurbishing perha

ted one of the little girls slyly.

seven. Barbara, love, you are looking very tired. All this noise is too much for you, you must go and lie

words of commonplace farewell. Then staying a moment to take the violets from the cracked vase, and another moment to kiss her father as she passed him, she walked, or rather glided from the room with the graceful movement that w