re-read her dear letter. There was but little
news in it. Hugh was well ; was working
hard; and although he had not yet succeeded
in finding the necessary money for the
purchase of the business in Daneshire, he
by no means despaired of doing so. His
mother sent her fond love to Maud, and
missed her sadly. The remainder of the
epistle was full of words of the fondest and
warmest affection. They were very precious
and interesting to Maud, but would scarcely
be deemed so by the reader.

It may as well be mentioned here that
Maud was in ignorance of Mr. Frost's debt
to Hugh. He had debated with himself
whether he should or should not make her
acquainted with it; and he had decided in
the negative, perceiving that it would be
impossible to do so without revealing his
mother's story, and that he conceived he
had no right to do without her permission.

Maud sat and read, and re- read her
letter. And then she took out the little
plain wooden desk she had used as a child,
and set herself to begin an answer to it.
More than an hour passed thus. It was
half-past ten o'clock, and still no vicar!

Maud at last began to think that Mr.
Levincourt might prefer not to find her
sitting up on his return. She had an
instinctive feeling that he would a little
shrink from saying to her that he had been
passing his evening at Farmer Meggitt's.
He had never yet, in speaking with her,
alluded to the growth of his intimacy with
the farmer's family. With this feeling in
her mind, she resolved to write out the
words about Veronica's marriage, stating
that she copied them from Hugh's letter,
and to lay the paper on the table, so that
the vicar could not fail to see it when he
should come in. Just as she had finished
her task he returned.

"You up still, Maud!" said he. " Why
did you not go to bed?" He spoke with
a sharp, querulous tone, very unusual with
him when addressing his ward, and made
no allusion as to where he had been. Maud
was glad that she had written what the
vicar had to learn. She slipped the paper
into his hand, kissed his forehead, and ran
quickly up to bed.

The next morning the vicar was as bland
as usual, perhaps a trifle more bland than
he had been for a long time. He asked
Maud how she had passed the evening at
Mr. Plew's, and seemed quite amused by
her account of Mrs. Plew's anxiety that her
son should marry.

"That little Miss Turtle, hey? Ha, ha,
ha ! How absurd it seems to look upon
Plew in the light of an object of hopeless
attachment ! There is an incongruity about
it that is deliciously ridiculous."

"I think," said Maud, rather gravely,
"that Mr. Plew well deserves to be loved.
He is very kind and unselfish."

"Oh, yes, child. That of course. That
is all very true. There is a great deal of
home-spun, simple goodness of heart about
poor Plew. But that does not prevent his
being extremely comic when considered in
a romantic point of view. But you're a
wee bit matter-of-fact, Maudie. You don't
quite perceive the humour of the thing.
Which of our modern writers is it who
observes that women very rarely have a
sense of humour? Well, why in the
world don't Plew marry little Miss Turtle?
Upon my word I should say it would do
admirably!"

"I'm afraid — I think that Mr. Plew is
not in love with Miss Turtle, Uncle
Charles."

"My dear Maudie! How can you be so
intensely—what shall I say? — solemn?
The idea of a " grande passion" between a
Plew and a Turtle is too funny!"

"I think, Uncle Charles," said Maud,
resolutely, and not without a thrill of
indignation in her voice, " I do believe that,
absurd as it may seem, Mr. Plew has felt a
true and great passion; that he feels it
still; and that he will never overcome it as
long as he lives.

For one brief instant the vicar's face was
clouded over by a deep, dark frown —a
frown not so much of anger as of pain.
But almost immediately he laughed it off,
stroking Maud's bright hair as he had been
used to do when she was a child, and
saying, "Pooh, pooh, little Maudie! Little
soft-hearted, silly Maudie, thinks that
because she has a true lover all the rest of the
world must be in love too! Set your mind
at rest, little Goldielocks. And—go whenever
you can to that poor old woman. It
will be but charitable. Don't think of me.
I have occupations, and duties, and —
besides I must learn to do without your
constant companionship, Maudie. I cannot
have you always with me. Don't mope
here on my account, my dear child. And
to visit the sick and aged is an act,
positively, of Christian duty."

Again Maud had the painful perception
of something hollow in all this; and the
sense of being ashamed of the perception.
The suspicion would force itself on her
mind that the vicar purposely shut his eyes