William muttered to the effect that "Anybody med kiss she ". which was true enough, as she had seen but three summers yetand went on twining his whip with a cowed, injured look, while Alma gazed in awed admiration at her handsome young champion, whose kindling eyes seemed to send forth floods of pale-blue light in the gloom.

"There is something so unmanly in attacking a girl's selfrespect," continued the eager champion. "I did not think you capable of it, William. A stout fellow like you, a man I always liked. Go home to your wife, and think better of it.-I will see you across the meadow myself, Alma, though it is hard that a girl can not be abroad alone at this hour."

So saying, the young Bayard possessed himself of sundry of Alma's parcels, and with a pleasant "Good-night, Jem," turned his back on the wagon and opened the gate, through which Alma passed quickly, followed by her protector, while the cumbrous wagon went on its way to the rhythmic jangle of the sweetly clashing bells, and William trudged stolidly on with his accustomed whip-crackings and guttural exclamations, murmuring from time to time with a mortified air, "There ain't no harm in a kiss! And, indeed, he meant no harm, though he took care not to relate the incident to his wife; it was only his rough tribute to Alma's unaccustomed beauty, and signified no more than a gracefully turned allusion in higher circles. "And Mr. Cyril must go a-spiling of she," he added, "as though she didn't look too high already. But pride goes before a fall, as I've heerd 'un zay." Ominous repetition of Judkins's words!

Alma, in the mean time, murmured her thanks to her chivalrous protector, and stepped up the dewy meadow with a beating breast and a flushing cheek, her ears tingling with the words, "A poor man's daughter has as much right to respect as a duchess," her heart swelling at the memory of the courtesy with which Maitland handed her down from the wagon and carried half her parcels; she knew that a veritable duchess would not have been treated with more honor. All her life she had known Cyril Maitland. She had sported with him over that very lea, where the tall yellow cowslips nodded in spring, and where they had pelted each other with sweet, heavy cowslip-balls; she had kissed and cuffed him many a time, though he was always "Master Cyril" to the coachman's child; and, as they grew up, had been inclined to discuss him

with a half-respectful, half-familiar disparagement, such as wellknown objects receive. Never till that fatal evening had his grace of mind and person and the singular charm of his manner keenly touched her. But when he stood there in the lantern's dim rays, looking so handsome and so animated by the impulsive chivalry with which he defended her, and she heard the musical tones and refined accents of the voice pleading her cause and the cause of her sex and her class, a new spirit came to her-a spirit of sweetness and of terror, which set all her nerves quivering, and opened a new world of wonder and beauty to her entranced gaze. As holy as a young archangel, and as beautiful, he seemed to the simple girl's dazzled thoughts, and she felt that no harm could ever come to her in that charmed presence, no pain ever touch her.

All unconscious of the tumult of half-conscious emotion awakening beside him, Cyril Maitland walked on, chatting with pleasant ease on all sorts of homely topics, in no wise surprised at his companion's faltering, incoherent replies, which he attributed to the embarrassment from which he had just delivered her. The dulcet clashing of the bells grew fainter, and then rose on a sudden gust of wind just as they reached the door of the strangely built white house, before the square windows of which rose a small colonnade of white pillars. Alma opened the door, and a ruddy glow rushed out upon her, while within a cheerful little home-scene presented itself. A small table, covered with a clean white cloth, touched with rose by the firelight, and spread with tea-things, was drawn up before the glowing hearth, and a warm aroma of tea and toast greeted the tired, hungry girl. Before the fire sat a strong, middleaged man in an undress livery, consisting partly of a sleeved waistcoat, busily engaged in making toast; while a neatly dressed woman moved about the warm parlor, adding a few touches to the table. "Just in time, Alma," called out the man, without turning his head.

"And a pretty time, too," added the woman, who was Alma's step-mother. "Why hadn't you a come along with Charlie Judkins this hour agone? Gadding about till it's dark night- O Mr. Cyril, I beg your pardon, sir!" and she dropped a courtesy, while her husband turned and rose.

"May I come in?" asked Cyril, pausing, hat in hand, and smiling his genial smile. "Your tea is very tempting, Mrs. Lee."

"Come in and welcome, Master Cyril," said the coachman, as

Cyril, with the air of an accustomed guest, placed his hat on a sidetable adorned with the family Bible, work-boxes, and tea-trays, and took the chair Mrs. Lee handed him.

"Why, I've not had tea with you for an age," continued Cyril, stroking a large tabby cat, which sprang purring upon his knee the moment he was seated; "and I don't deserve any now, since I come straight from the drawing-room at Swaynestone, where the rites of the tea-pot were being celebrated. But the ladies there have no idea of tea-making, and I only had two cups, and was tantalized with a vague sketch of a piece of bread and butter."

"Well, you always were a rare one for tea, Master Cyril," returned his hostess. "If I had but known you were coming, I'd 'a made some of them hot cakes. But there's jam in plenty, some blackberry as Alma made this fall."

"Alma came by Long's wagon," he explained, when she had withdrawn to lay aside her hat and shawl; "and as I chanced to be at the gate when she got down, I saw her across the meadow."

"Thank 'ee kindly, Master Cyril. I don't like her to be out alone at nights," said Ben Lee, "though, to be sure, there's only our own people about on the estate."

Before Alma's mind there arose a vision of the Swaynestone drawing-room as she had seen it once at tea-time when she was summoned to speak to the young ladies about some needlework she was doing for them. She saw in imagination the long range of windows with their rich curtains; the mirrors and couches; the cabinets filled with rare and costly bric-à-brac; the statuettes and pictures; the painted ceiling of the long, lofty room; the beautiful chimney-piece of sculptured Parian marble; the rich glow from the hearth throwing all kinds of warm reflections upon the splendid apartment, and principally upon the little table, laden with silver and priceless china, by the fire; and the charming group of ladies in their stylish dress and patrician beauty, half seen in the fire-lit dusk. It was a world of splendor to Alma's unaccustomed eyes—a place in which an ordinary mortal could in no wise sit down with any comfort, without, indeed, a something almost amounting to sacrilege; a world in which the perfume of hot-house flowers took away the bated breath, and in which no footfall dared echo, where voices were low and musical, and manners full of courteous ease; a world inhabited by beings untouched by common cares, with other thoughts, and softer, more beautifully adorned lives; a world which

Alma entered with a burdensome sense of being out of place, in which she only spoke when spoken to, and where she heard herself discussed as if she were a thing without hearing.

"What! is this Lee's daughter?" Lady Swaynestone had asked, putting up her gold-rimmed glasses, and taking a quiet survey of Alma and her blushes.

"Surely you remember little Alma Lee, mother," Ethel Swaynestone replied. “She has shot up, you see, like the rest of us."

"Ah, to be sure! How the time goes, Ethel! How is your mother, Alma? And she is embroidering Maude's handkerchiefs? A very nice employment for a young woman. But I don't like her gown; it is far too smart for a coachman's daughter."

66 Nonsense, mother dear. Why shouldn't she be smart, if she likes? But if you want really to look nice, Alma, you must not wear violet and pale blue together," said the fair-haired Maude, with a sweet look of interest in Alma's appearance that won her heart, wounded as it was by "her ladyship's" want of consideration.

Very glad was Alma to retire from that august presence-almost as glad as she had been to enter it. And Mr. Cyril had walked straight from the splendid apartment, from the light of Miss Ethel and Miss Maude's eyes, and the sound of their sweet, cultured voices, with a disparaging remark upon their tea, and chosen Alma's own humble every-day dwelling and homely meal in the narrow room in preference. This filled her with a strange, indefinable emotion, half pleasure and half pain. Some instinct told her that he was the same welcomed, admired guest there as here; that he spoke with the same easy charm to Lady Swaynestone and her daughters and the high-born visitors he chanced to meet there, as to her parents and herself. And could her imagination have borne her into Cyril's future, she would have seen him, as he subsequently was, a welcomed frequent guest at royal tables, where his beautiful voice and perfect manner cast the same glamour over the palace atmosphere as over that of the coachman's little dwelling.

Quickly as Alma returned to the parlor, she yet found time to arrange her rich hair and add a necklace of amber beads, thus imparting a kind of gypsy splendor to her dark face, and other little trifles to her dress; and very handsome she looked in the firelight -for the one candle but emphasized the gloom-with that new sparkle in her eyes and flush on her cheek. It was Cyril who recommended her to toast the sausages she had brought from Oldport

instead of frying them; he and Lilian had often cooked them so in the school-room at home, he said, when Mrs. Lee demurred at trusting to his culinary skill. It was Cyril also who suggested the agreeable addition of cold potatoes warmed up.

"Well, Master Cyril, I never thought to see you teach my wife cooking," laughed Ben, paying a practical compliment to his skill. "Hand Master Cyril some tea, Alma; and do you taste the sausages, my girl. Why, where's your appetite after tramping all the way into Oldport, and nothing but a bit of bread and cheese since breakfast? You sha'n't walk there and back again any more; that and the shopping is too much. And so you came along part of the way in Long's wagon, when you might have been tooled along by the best horse in our stables, and Judkins fit to cry about it.-Now, don't you call that silly, Mr. Cyril?"

"Every one to his taste, Ben. I prefer the dog-cart."

"And it ain't every day a girl like Alma gets a chance of riding behind such a horse or beside such a young man," added Mrs. Lee, severely. "But there's people as never knows where their bread's buttered."

"There are people," said Alma, with a toss of her graceful head, 66 as know what they've a mind to do, and do it."

"And there's headstrong girls as lives to repent," retorted the step-mother.

"Ay, you was always a willful one, Alma," said her father; "but if you don't look out you'll be a old maid, and you won't like that. And a smarter fellow than Charlie Judkins never crossed a horse. No drink with Charlie-goes to church regular, and has a matter of fifty pound in the bank, and puts by every week. And Sir Lionel ready to find him a cottage and raise his wages when he marries."

"Well, let him marry, then," returned Alma, airily; "I don't want to prevent him. I dare say Mr. Cyril would be kind enough to perform the ceremony if he wished it."

แ

"I should have the greatest pleasure, Alma, particularly if he chose a certain friend of mine. For, as your father says, Charlie is a really good fellow, as warm-hearted a man as I know, and deserves a good wife."

"There are plenty of good wives to be had," returned Alma; no doubt Mr. Judkins will soon find one, especially as he has so many friends to put in a word for him."