shaded his eyes as before, but looked longer and
harder than before. Into that dusty powdery
region she seemed to bring light, and fragrance,
and brilliance. The boy stood helpless with his
mouth open. The old man kept muttering,
"Good gracious, good gracious!"

"They told me," said Pauline, in her sweet
voice, "that you had rooms. If yours are not to
let, you might, perhaps, know of others. There
would be an advantage, I confess, being only
just recovered, in having medical assistance so
near."

"Yes, yes," said the old man, hastily; "that is
all true. Watkyn is considered clever all round
the country, oh, for miles. I am sure he would
not mind; he ought to like it, indeed he ought.
It would be a surprise for him when he comes
back. Heaven send we may all die in our beds!"
Which odd speech, muttered to himself in a
reverie, made Miss Manuel and the boy start.
He started himself, and looked round
nervously.

The rooms were taken. Before the day was
out it went through the town, where there was a
perfect drought of news, that a "fine" lady had
come down, and was staying at "th' old doctor's."
Later, too, the fine lady was seen herself, walking
about, in the Green especially; and she spoke
to the children playing there, and found out a
little girl in a red cloak. For the little girl in
the red cloak soon came a fresh and handsome
young woman, and with the fresh and handsome
young woman Miss Manuel began to
talk.

The doctor's lodgings were clean and bright
enough. They had a bow-window, and muslin
curtains in the bow-window, and would have
been very bright and encouraging apartments,
but for a dreadful male portrait or two, done
in rich teaboard colouring, which, clad in
inflexible coats, with high collars apparently cut
out of the hardest wood, and suggesting horrible
associations of discomfort for the wearer, looked
down with a mournful ferocity on the tenants
as they sat at tea.

That night the doctor's son came home, and
started as he saw a great box of Miss Manuel's
in the hall. She heard his voice below, putting
all manner of inquiries, half angrily, half suspiciously.
Very soon he was up in the drawing-room,
on the pretext of seeing that all was
comfortable.

This pink Welshman, so free of speech, talked
gaily with Miss Manuel, who presently set him
quite at ease. One of her charms, which she
could assume when she pleased, was a
helplessness of manner, with a sense of finding
strength and support in the person she was talking
with. He was at first half curious, hinting
as to where she came from, and how long was
she going to stay, and why, of all places in the
world, she selected that cold bleak corner to
repair her health in. Pauline scorned a falsehood,
or even a semblance of one; but someway a misty
idea was left in his mind that some one, say some
visitor, had spoken of the superior medical advice
to be found in the little town. He told her
by-and-by all about himself, for she showed great
interest in such personal details; how his practice
was increasing, how he soon expected to
have the whole business of the place, and of
the country round. He was making great
way.

Said Miss Manuel, quickly: " And you have
not long succeeded your father? He was
practising last year, was he not?"

The other looked at her suspiciously. "Well,
yes," he said. "But how did you know? That
news did not fly up to London."

"Oh, I have heard a good deal since I came—
even already," said Miss Manuel, smiling; but
he had become doubtful and silent, and as he
left the room, cast back a sharp quick searching
look at her.

During these days Miss Manuel often went up
and down, often went in and out, often looked
wistfully at the glass door; but the son was
always on quick sharp duty. She never saw
that strange nervous old man who sat in the
parlour over the fire—that is, could not see him
alone, for when she met him, and tried to talk to
him, the son stood by and watched jealously with
his eye fixed on him. Under which eye old
Doctor Jones always grew uneasy.

  CHAPTER XXI. A STORMY NIGHT.

IT went on, in this fashion, for a week, then
for ten days, then for a fortnight. It was a jail-like
existence. The lady who visited the watering
place out of the season, and at a cheerless
season out of the season, was an inexhaustible
source of wonder and speculation to the inhabitants.
The town maid, cut off from her circle
of friends and acquaintances (when her season,
too, was rife), began to murmur at heart, to grow
reserved, and, later, became charged with lemons
and vinegar about her face. Pauline herself was
fretting and growing impatient. At last, on the
night of a cold miserable day, whose tone had
been blue as steel, the sea tumbling sharply and
bitterly up the straits, and sharp icy east winds
gashing at human chests and human eyes like
cruel razors, an express came in from a
neighbouring squire for young Doctor Watkyn Jones.
Doctor Watkyn Jones's stories to Miss Manuel
were, indeed, pure fables; he was not often sent
for, and a Welshman of grim humour said his
patients were all of the "God reward ye" class.
The express from the squire was for the squire's
lady—the great country doctor was away, and
Watkyn was the nearest medical man. With
the squire's express came a gig to take away
Watkyn Jones.

At first he was dazzled and triumphant, and
rushed to tell the London maid, who had been
scornfully indifferent to him as an admirer, and
who doubted his professional standing. "He
was an imposture," she often said to Miss
Manuel (thinking she was using the word