portion as companion to the young ladies
could be very easily defined, and would be
very readily understood. Do you like the
plan?"

All the details of the proposition rushed
through her mind before she spoke. Home
comforts, luxury, good living, warmth,
care, attention, money, or at least the
command if not the possession of money, that
is what it meant, instead of a wretched
lodging, a starveling income, penury, and
perhaps, so far as certain necessaries for
her mother were concerned, want. What
would they sacrifice? not freedom, they
had never had it, and if their lives were
still to be passed in drudgery it would, at
all events, be better to be the drudge of a
kind old man and two insignificant girls,
than of a set of racketty schoolboys, as they
had hitherto been. Position? no sacrifice
there; the respect always paid to them was
paid to them as James Ashurst's wife and
daughter, and that respect they would still
continue to receive. All in the village
knew them, the state of their finances, the
necessity of their availing themselves of
any opportunity for bettering their
condition which might present itself; and out
of the village they had but few acquaintances,
and none for whose opinion they had
the least care. So Marian, with beaming
eyes and heightened colour, said,

"Yes, dear old friend, frankly I do like
the plan. If it were carried out an
immense load of anxiety would be removed
from my mind, respecting mamma's
immediate future you know, and it would suit
our circumstances in various ways. Is it
possible? How can it be brought about?"

"You are as prompt as ever, Marian!"
said the doctor, smiling; "I never saw
a girl retain so many of her childish
characteristics!" Marian winced a little as he
said this, remembering Tom's remarks that
morning on her childish character as
depicted by Mesdames Whicher and Croker.
"I think it is perfectly feasible, and
it can be brought about by me. Mr. Creswell,
having known me for many years, and
believing that I never advise him but for
his good, is always ready to listen to any
advice I give him, and if I judge rightly,
will be already predisposed to agree with
this proposition, and to take it as though
you and your mamma were conferring a
favour on him rather than—-. Dear me,
look at this foolish fellow, coming towards
us at full gallop! The man must be
drunk! Hallo, sir, hi! hallo! Why it's
one of the Woolgreaves grooms, isn't it?

I think I know the man's appearance.
Hallo, sir, hi! what is it?" And the little
doctor pulled the chaise close into the left
bank, and stood up, waving his whip, and
shouting lustily.

The horseman, who was urging his horse
to yet greater speed, paid no attention to the
shouts, and contented himself by rising in
his stirrups and waving his hand as though
bespeaking a clear way, until he came close
upon the chaise, when he apparently
recognised its occupants, and strove to pull
up his horse. With some difficulty, and
not until he had shot past them, he
succeeded, then turning back, he cried out,
"Doctor Osborne, I was going for you, sir!
for God's sake, drive up to the house at
once—you're wanted, awful bad!"

"What is it?" asked the doctor. "Quiet
my child, don't be alarmed, don't shake
so! There is nothing happened to your
master?"

"No, sir, Master Tom!"

"What of him—taken ill?"

"No sir—chucked off the chesnut mare,
and took up for dead in the Five Acres!
Ben Pennington was bird-scarin' close by,
and he see the accident and hollerd out,
and gave the alarm. And some of the
farm men came and got a hurdle, and put
Master Tom on it, and carried him up to the
house. Master see 'em coming, and ran
out and would have fell down when he see
who it was, but they caught hold of him,
and they say he's like a madman now, and
Miss Maud, she told me to come after you.
Make haste, sir, please! Hadn't you better
jump on this mare, sir, she'll carry you
quicker nor that cob of your'n, and I'll
drive Miss Ashurst home."

"Not for any money," said the doctor;
"get on that horse, indeed! There'd be
another accident, and no one to be of any
assistance. I shall be up at the house in a
very few minutes; ride on and say I'm
coming. Lord, my dear, fancy such an
interruption to our conversation—such a
bombshell bursting over the castle we were
building in the air!"

"The doctor wishes to speak to you,
miss, outside master's door," said Mrs.
Caddy, in that hissing whisper which
servants always assume in a house of sickness.
"He didn't say anything about Master Tom,
but his face is as white as white, and"

"Thanks, Mrs. Caddy; I'd better go at
once," and Marian left the dining-room,
where she had been doing her best to calm
her mother's agitation, which expressed