me. Since I first heard it how many hearts
have throbbed with love, grief, ambition, and
then ceased to throb! What changes since
then had befallen empires as well as households!
Firesides had been desolated—
thrones overturned; but that dull
mechanical pulse beat on the same. No matter,
I thought, it is because man is a spirit and
lives, that his forms wear out.

I was now fairly in the lane—that lane
where, as a girl, I had so often tripped on,
hand-in-hand, with my mother. I looked up
the archway, close by the surgeon's; the
groom was busy—as of old—polishing
harness. Then I saw a tall, dignified, Queen
Anne sort of house, picked out with stone
and guarded with palisades. It was the
Lathams'. The door was open, and a lazy-
looking footman was taking a parcel from a
shop-boy. I saw within a lamp, like that
beneath whose cheerful beam I had stood
in the nights of long-ago Christmas parties.
I noted the very steps which the boy
Cyril would have kissed for love of the light
feet that passed over them.

Then with a thrill, swifter than sight I
looked down the street on the opposite side;
yes, there it stood, the quaint, straggling,
dear old house! We had already learned
that it was to let. A middle-aged woman
who stood at the window saw me approach,
and quickly admitted me. I made her
understand gently that I wished to explore the
apartments alone. Then I went into the old
panelled-room, and into the little library—
neither of them much altered save for being
unfurnished. I went up-stairs into my former
bed-chamber, then into my mother's, then
into the drawing-room, and looked out upon
the grass-plot, the lime-walk, and the river.
Finally, I bent my way to the garden, longing
to muse beneath the shadows of the green,
transparent leaves.

But I was disappointed of solitude. Turning
into the walk I saw before me, a lady, simply
but elegantly dressed, and engaged in binding
up a straggling creeper. She performed this
task with a care and gentleness that went to
my heart, for every leaf-fibre in the old place
was dear to me, and I felt as if, instead of a
plant, she had bound up a memory.

She moved on with a slow easy grace, now
and then delaying to root out some
overgrown weed, or to free some entangled rose
which peered up helplessly amid the tall
grasses between the limes. But that I knew
the house was to let I should have supposed
her at home. At length a thorn-tree, that
lay half levelled, barred her path. Raising
her arm to set aside the intruder she stood in
a more open spot. The mazy light glided
down her dress and made a bright island
at her feet. As she turned her face
suddenly, it met me like a revelation. Though
years had past since I saw the girl of
eighteen in Cyril's sketch, and though she
now wore a subdued veiled kind of expression,
I did not, for a moment, mistake Amelia
Latham.

Did I see her again with resentment or
with yearning? Perhaps with a mixture of
both. Could she feel pleasure in a scene that
must recal the hopes she had destroyed? If
not, what brought her there? It flashed
upon me that Cyril would join me almost
instantly. What was to be done?

I advanced towards her. It was clear,
from her face, that she had no recollection of
me. I inquired, if the house had been to let
long.

"About a year," she replied.

I said, in a careless manner, that the place
was prettily situated, but forlorn and ill-kept
—capable, indeed, of great improvement.

"Tastes vary so much," she answered,
adjusting her shawl.

"These old limes," I pursued, "interrupt
the view. They ought to be felled."

She favoured me with a look almost
haughty in its coldness. She could only
repeat that tastes varied. The future tenant
would of course indulge his own.

Then she would not like, I thought, to see
the dear old trees cut down.

She bent her head slightly, as if to leave
me; but I said, quickly, "The place has some
interest for me. It once belonged to a family
that I knew."

"Indeed!"

"To the Woodfords."

There was a moment's silence. Then she
answered steadily, "The Woodfords were also
friends of my own. Have you seen them
lately?"

"Very lately," I said, preserving my forced
incognita. I could not have avowed myself
without giving way.

It was she who spoke next. She inquired
after my father, then after Lucy (myself),
who, she was pleased to say, had been
kind to her as a child. "Perhaps," she
added, "they may remember me, Amelia
Latham."

Still Amelia Latham, then! In a softened
tone I said, "Lucy will be obliged to you.
But you have not asked after her brother."

"What, the artist?" she replied, busying
herself with a lilac bush.

"Yes, the distinguished artist. His very
first picture, News from the Colony, brought
him into notice."

"You mean, The Leave-taking," she
observed, "that was his first picture."

Her memory was better than his sister's.

"His last picture has been much liked,
Miss Latham, the one called—" I paused
wilfully, and tapped my forehead.

The lilac bush shook as a low murmuring
voice answered from it, "Old Times."

She was right again.

In a minute she looked up calmly, and
walked by my side. "Tell me more," she
said, "of Cyril Woodford. He is well?"

"Yes."