twenty cantos, I remember it was with a
vague feeling that Olive was not the sort of
person calculated, as a wife, to make him
happy. She was so light and volatile, so
changeful and full of whims, so different
from Philip in disposition and temper, that
for all her beauty and pretty, saucy ways, it
was a mystery to me how an attachment could
ever have sprung up between them. But,
then, Philip was not the first man of sense
that has been entangled by a pretty face with
nothing behind it.

Philip came over frequently for a day or
two at a time; and though half of each visit
was spent at Doctor Graile's, there was
nothing either in his words or looks which
betrayed that anything more than professional
tastes induced him to go there so
frequently.

We had not seen Neville for nearly two
years; but he came at last—a tall, sunburnt
sailor, full of fire and energy—and there was
much joy at home when he arrived. My
father gave the scholars a half-holiday, in
honour of the event; and my mother at
once issued invitations to our friends for a
party to celebrate my brother's return. It
was to be merely a quiet country tea-party,
with a dance afterwards for us young folk,
and sixpenny whist for our elders. Philip
wrote to say that he could not come, having
a very critical case in hand, which required
his undivided attention. Olive came, as a
matter of course; and very pretty she looked.
Neville started with surprise when she
entered the room; she had grown so tall, and
was so much improved since he had seen her
last, that he scarcely knew her. He seemed
rather bashful and timid at first, but she
soon put him at his ease. He hardly ever
took his flashing black eyes off her during
the evening; and after all the company were
gone, I saw him sitting in a corner smoothing
out a little white kid glove between his
great palms; neither do I think it difficult
to guess to whom it had belonged. He was
off next morning, immediately after breakfast,
to Doctor Graile's, to inquire how the
family were; and I believe he never afterwards
during his visit passed a day without
going in the same direction. As, during the
previous summer, I had met Philip and
Olive walking together in the meadows, so it
was now Neville and Olive whom I met arm
in arm, taking the same walks. Was the
little beauty merely flirting with Neville; or
had she given up Phillip for the sake of the
handsome sailor; or was there on her part
no attachment for either of them? I knew
not what to think: and as it was certainly no
business of mine, I considered it best to keep
silent on the matter. Neville was evidently
over head and ears in love; his warm
impulsive nature could not conceal the fact; he
betrayed it daily in his words and actions.
As a proof of his infatuation, I may mention
that he professed to like Mrs. Graile
extremely; and he did, indeed, contrive to thaw
that icy lady, and to win his way into her
chill favour in an unexampled manner.

One morning, some weeks before he
expected it, came a peremptory summons to
join his ship without delay. It would not
do to disobey orders; so he prepared,
ruefully enough, for immediate departure. On
one point I am certain—that Olive and he had
a long interview the evening before he left
us; and when he joined me in the garden
after parting from her, there was such a
happy loving look on his face, as I had never
seen there before. He asked me, after we
got up-stairs, to assist him in cording his
large trunk; and as he stooped to fasten
the knob, a piece of paper fell from his
pocket, which opening when it reached the
ground, displayed a lock of hair vastly like
Olive's in colour, tied with blue ribbon in a
true-lover's-knot. He coloured to the forehead,
stammered out some words about a
West Indian damsel (as if the ladies of that
part of the world had flaxen locks), and
replaced it carefully in his pocket.

Neville was never fond of letter-writing;
and if, during his voyages, we received a few
lines from him once in six months, we thought
ourselves fortunate. After his departure
this time, whenever he wrote he sent
"affectionate regards to Doctor and Mrs. Graile,"
but never said a word about Olive; an
omission on his part which gave me the
idea that he corresponded with her, direct.

Some two or three years elapsed after
Neville's departure without the occurrence
of any event in our quiet family circle necessary
to linger over here. Philip came at
intervals to see us, and Ruth always spent
her vacations at home. My sister Helen was
engaged to be married to Peter Sykes, the
shoemaker's son, whom I mentioned before
as having been smuggled by my father into
the school, and who had just taken his degree,
with high honours, at the university. I
also was enacting my own little romance
about this time—I and pretty Rose Allan,
whom I hoped to marry after a while, but
never did. As for Ruth, so plain of person,
so neat of dress, so prim, so quiet, so methodical,
she was always set down, laughingly,
in our family conclaves, as an old maid. She
accepted the lot we assigned to her with
undisturbed serenity. Sometimes she would
reply, with a quiet smile, that women were
foolish to encumber themselves with
husbands, when they might live happy and
independent without them.

We were seated round the fire one chill
October evening, Helen, my father, and
myself, when we heard a knock at the front
door. Helen sprung to open it, thinking it
was my mother returned from shopping. We
heard a sudden exclamation in the passage,
and then Helen rushed back into the room
"Father, here's Neville!" she cried, clapping