what could I ask of fate that I have not
got?"

He looked at her affectionately. " Good,
unselfish, Margaret! " he said. " Boon and
blessing to your whole world! Without you,
at least two lives would be incomplete—your
sister's and mine. We should be desolate
wayfarers, without a guide and without a
light, if you were not here. I cannot say
that you are needful to us, Margaret: you
are much more than needful."

A smile of infinite happiness wandered
over Margaret's face as she repeated softly,
"Am I then needful to you, Horace?" and
her eyes lighted up with such love and
fervour, that for a moment she was as absolute
in youth and beauty as little Ada herself.
Even Horace looked at her again, as at a
face he did not know; but the smile and the
glance faded away as they had come, and the
gloom of physical unloveliness clouded over
her face thick and dark as ever.

"Margaret is very good; she is true and
noble; but she is fearfully plain! " Horace
thought to himself. " My father, who was
so fond of beauty, would have said she was
sinfully ugly. What a pity, with such a fine
nature! And he looked from her to Ada.

Ada was all impatience to set off; and
Margaret must go in for her shawl and bonnet
without a moment's delay. Smiling at her
little sister's impetuous sovereignty, Margaret
went into the house, like a patient mother
with a favourite child; shaking her head,
though, as she passed the little one, standing
there in her woman's beauty and her child's
artlessness; and saying, " You are spoilt, my
darling," conveyed by look and accent, " I
love you better than my own life," instead.

"Come to me, Ada," said Horace, as
Margaret went into the house. " Your hair is all
in disorder. Careless child! at seventeen
you ought still to have a nurse."

"Now leave me alone, Horace, and never
mind my hair," said Ada, escaping from him
to the other end of the balcony. " You
never see me without finding fault with my
hair; and I am sure it is not so bad. What
is the matter with it?"  She shook it all over
her face, and took up the ringlets one by one,
to examine them; pouting a little, but very
lovely still.

Horace was not to be coaxed nor frightened.
He caught her in her retreat, and drew her
to him, giving her a lecture on neatness that
was rather against his instincts. But no
matter; it served its purpose. Part of those
yellow ringlets had been caught among the
blue cornflowers under the bonnet she had
perched on the top of her head, and part
had been folded in with her awkward shawl.
They were all in a terrible condition of
ruffle; and Horace made her stand there
before him like a child, while he smoothed
them back deftly enough, scolding her all the
time; but very tenderly. Then, impelled
by a sudden impulse, that seemed to
over-master him, he bent down close to her,
and whispered something in her ear, so low
that the very swallows sleeping under the
eaves could not have dreamed they heard its
echo; and when he ended he said, " Do
you, Ada? " as if his very soul and all his
hopes had been centered in her answer.

"Yes—no—ask Margaret," cried Ada,
struggling herself free; and then she added,
with a ringing laugh, " Oh, it is only a jest.
You are not serious, Horace? " rushing
almost into Margaret's arms as she stepped
through the open window.

"What is it all about? " asked Margaret,
looking from Ada, with her burning cheeks,
to Horace, pale and agitated. " Have you
been quarreling ever since I left you?"

Neither spoke for a moment; and at last,
Horace said with a visible effort: " I will
speak to you alone of this, Margaret. You
alone can decide it;" grasping her hand
warmly.

They went down the balcony steps, through
the garden, and then through the shrubbery
of rhododendrons and azalias, and then
through the little wicket gate that opened
upon the shingly bay, where the May Fly lay
moored in Ada's harbour—just under the
shadow of the purple beech. Ada sprang into the
little skiff first, as usual, insisting on steering;
an art about which she knew as much and
attended to as carefully as if a problem of Euclid
had been before her. But she was generally
allowed to have her own way; and they
pushed out of the harbour, Ada at the helm,
murmuring a love-song about a Highland
Jeanie tried and true—"chanting to the
nixies," Horace said—as she bent over the
gunwale and looked into the water.
Margaret's face was turned upwards, and
Horace—his fine head almost idealised in
this gentle light—sat gazing at the two
sisters, while the tender moon flowed over
all; flooding Ada's golden curls with a light
as gay as laughter, and losing itself in the
thick braids of Margaret's hair, like life
absorbed in death.

"Ada means to shipwreck us," cried
Horace suddenly, avoiding Dead Man's Rock
only by a skilful turning of the oar, as the
Venetian boatmen had taught him.

Margaret caught the tiller-string and
drew it home, and the little boat glanced off,
just grazing her keel as she scudded over the
farthest point of the sunken rock.

"Ada, child, are your thoughts so far from
earth that you cannot see Death when he
stands in the way? What were you thinking
of, love, when you nearly gave a plural to
Dead Man's Rock?"

"Oh, nothing—nothing. But do you take
the helm, Mar," Ada exclaimed, half in
tears. "I am not steady enough to guide
myself; still less, others!" And she almost
cried, which was a common manifestation of
feeling with her, and looked so distressed
that Margaret took her face between her