into pigeon-holes, and turning over letters as if
they were packs of cards! His patience is
marvellous. And what faces outside! The
English reading actually in the road, the mouths
altering slowly, as they read, from a long slit to
a round O of consternation and despair. The
more respectable lost all this excitement.

As he came away, the dingy and gloomy lane
became illuminated with a flash of light, and
a gay step came tripping along. It was
Lucy. She was postman, manager, market-
woman, everything. Within the short time
she had left school, she had taken a host of
duties on her. When she saw West, she ran to
him. "Getting letters?" she said. "Papa
wants his, though he can expect nothing as yet.
And," she added, smiling, "there can be no bad
news. Oh, we are all in such spirits at home,
and so happy. I left him singing, and reading
his newspapers, and he says he feels like a
boy."

"This is good news," said he, smiling. "But
what is the reason of all this?"

"Well, you should know," said Lucy, naïvely.
"Our poor Harco says you are 'his back,' and
that he does not know where he would be
without you. And, do you know, he says
after you have been with him he feels so
hopeful. Will you promise me this?" she
added, stopping and looking up wistfully into
his face—"to be with him as much as you
can? Some way, we do not know how to keep
him up."

"My dear Miss Lucy, since I saw you I have
been thinking of all sorts of things. In a few
days, I will tell you what I have worked out.
But I am sure I shall light on something for
him—something that will clear away all difficulties,
if you will only get him to second me a
little."

"How good you are!" said she enthusiastically.
"I could take your hand here and kiss
it."

"Hush!" he said, colouring, and looking
round. "There is nothing in that. If I could
only find out some way—-"

"But there is something," she said, with an
affectionate impatience that was her characteristic.
"And what love! What can I do in
return? Ah! let us go on quickly; there is that
dreadful man."

Mr. Filby was limping down to get his
newspapers at the post, and cursing the stones
at every step. Gout used to seize on him at
times, and put him in his worst humour. He
saw the pair, and that evening, as he sat on a
bench at the port, he told some of his admirers
that West was sniggering and sneaking after
that little chit of a school-girl, who might be his
great-granddaughter, and as knowing a little
shaver as any of the crew here. "He has to pay
that Irishman, her father, many a nap for letting
her humbug him."

There were no letters for Mr. Dacres. "I
am not sorry," said Lucy, confidentially, "for it
is generally only one in ten which we call a
good letter."

"We shall try and make them all good letters
in future," he said.

"Ah!" she said, stopping. "I was thinking
of this ever so long before going to sleep last
night—a poor childish creature like me, with
what you will call no mind, and you so wise,
and clever, and experienced, and have seen so
much life."

A look of uneasiness came into his face, and
a sort of twitch about his mouth. "Well,"
he said, quite calmly, and even indifferently,
"you remember what we agreed on; in fact,
that there was to be no agreement? That is
what I wished for. Only, instead of lying awake
and losing that dear and precious sleep, why
not think everything over comfortably and
leisurely during the next few months or years,
if you please. I am, as you say, wiser and
older—-"

"You never will understand me," she said,
vehemently, and half turning back from him.
"You turn everything I say. Do you want
superiority over a poor young girl just fresh
from a school, by forcing her to do homage to
your pride by telling you that she loves and
worships your gifts? I can't tell you any such
thing. I won't. I said enough last night, when
I told you I liked you, and could like you more,
and would try to like you more again. If I am
not clever, I can be truthful, and not all your
power and cleverness of the world can get more
from me than that."

With glowing face she turned and tripped
hastily away. He smiled, and did not call her
back. "This will do very well," he was thinking
to himself, and went on to take a cheerful
and brisk walk up on his favourite beat of the
ramparts, where the lonely soldiers heard "the
Englishman" singing to himself as he passed
them.

When Lucy came home, she found her father
lying on the comfortable velvet sofa, reading
the newspaper.

"Well, my little Lulu," he cried, "where's
papa's budget?" He was a little put out
and disappointed. "And what on earth kept
you?" he said, getting up. "I told that
blackguard at the hotel to send me on
everything in a cover. I suppose they'll keep
me waiting, waiting, from day to day, sending,
and sending, and coming back with our fingers
in our mouths. Phew!" And he looked ruefully
out of the window, with his hands deep in his
pockets. "On my soul, my last lodgings, though
they looked out on a yard with rails over it,
had more life than this."

Lulu came up to him to coax him into good
humour, as if she were Annot Lyle with her
harp. "I thought you liked a hotel, Harco,
pet?"

"Hotel!" and he burst into a loud laugh.
"Oh, ay, to be sure. Hôtel de Diable. Little
innocent. You should sit up aloft, my sweet
little cherub! Well, well—hope deferred, and
all that. I don't know how things will turn,
out. Here's precious time, youth, strength,
manhood, passing away. The golden hours