"She was punished, I tell you. As you will be, if you do not take care. You will live to prove it, if you are not mindful of yourself. You have a pretty face-psha! we are women and no one but ourselves hears what I say. I had a pretty face once, and I knew its power, and used it as you wish to do. But not with my nephew, Miss Marston, mark that! You have all the world to choose from, with the exception of my nephew. And you fancy you know him, I have no doubt-simpleton! You know as much as a baby of the world and of men of the world. Take an old woman's counsel-marry in your own station-"

"My mother was a lady," interrupts Nelly, with a curl of her lip, "and I am one."

"Pooh! Nonsense! You have no money. You are a poor girl, and no lady-as ladies go," she adds unconsciously uttering a truism in her attempt to soften the effect of her words. "There's the gardener's son. You can't do better than marry him. His father has been all his life at Springfield, and has saved money I hear. He is continually making you presents of flowers, and the housekeeper tells me-"

With a burning consciousness that these words are reaching other ears than her own, Nelly again interrupts her mistress:

"When you have finished insulting me, Lady Temple, I shall be glad to leave the room."

"You shall not leave the room till I am asleep. Marry whom you like except my nephew. If he marries you he is a beggar by it. I am tired of talking. I will take my medicine."

She empties the glass, and sinks back on her pillow. The medicine is an opiate, but even while she yields to its influence, she continues to murmur, in a tone so low that only Nelly now can hear her.

"Marriage, indeed! As if he means it, and as if, meaning it even, he dared to thwart me! A pair of fools! They will rue the day!"

Thus she mutters until sleep overpowers her, and she takes her theme with her into the land of dreams.

Mr. Temple steals from his hiding-place.

"She is in a sweet temper," he says in a whisper, placing his hands on Nelly's shoulders, and drawing her to him. "I was very nearly coming forward and spoiling everything; but I couldn't afford to do it. Nelly, I want to know about that gardener's son."

She yields to his embrace for a moment, then draws away.

"I can tell you nothing now. Go, for my sake, lest she should awake."

"For your sake, then. Do not forget. In an hour, by the brook."

"I ought not to come."

"You have promised," he says, in a louder tone.

"Hush-hush!" she entreats. "Yes, I will come."

Before the hour has passed, he has appeased his hunger, and is standing by the brook, waiting for Nelly. The night is most peaceful and lovely, and Mr. Temple, as he smokes his cigar, pays homage to it in an idle way, and derives a patronising pleasure from the shadows in the starlit waters. His thoughts are not upon the graceful shapes, although his eyes behold them. What, then, does he see in their place? Do the floating reflections bear a deeper meaning to his senses than they would convey under ordinary conditions? Does he see any foreshadowing of the future there? No. His thoughts are all upon the present, and what he beholds is merely tinged with such poetry as springs from animal sentiment. He may trick himself into a finer belief, but he cannot alter its complexion. He is in an ineffably pleasant mood, and his pulses are stirred by just that feeling of pleasurable excitement which sheds a brighter gloss on all surrounding things. At the sound of a step behind him he smiles and his heart beats faster. "It is Nelly," he whispers. But when he turns, and confronts the gardener's son, the smile leaves his face.

"I ask your pardon, sir," says the young man, "can I have a word with you?"

"Ah!" says Mr. Temple, with a look of curiosity at the young fellow, "you are the gardener's son."

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Temple regards the intruder attentively, and says, rather haughtily:

"You have selected a singular time for a conference."

"I must speak to you now, sir."

"Must?"

"If you please, sir."

"By-and-by will not do?"

"By-and-by may be too late, sir."

Mr. Temple looks at the gardener's son still more earnestly.

"Attend to what I am about to say, young man. You have lived all your life at Springfield, I believe?"

"I was born here, sir."

"Have you an idea as to who will be the next master of this estate?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you wish to continue on it?"

"That's as it may be, sir."

These questions have been asked with a perfect consciousness of the subject which the gardener's son wishes to approach, and have been so worded as to have an indirect bearing upon it. The answer to the last, spoken with manly independence, conveys to Mr. Temple the knowledge that the gardener's son is not ignorant of their bearing, and the tone in which it is given, although perfectly respectful, does not please him.

"I must request you," he says, with a masterful wave of his hand, "to choose some other time for your confidence."

"You expect some one, perhaps, sir."

Mr. Temple smiles complacently. In the few words that have passed, the battle has been fairly opened. He determines that it shall be short.

"As you seem resolved," he says, taking out his watch and consulting it, "to force yourself upon me, I will give you just five minutes. Now, what have you to say?"

He is aware that he is taking the young fellow at a disadvantage by his abrupt method; but, being a lawyer, he is not nice as to the means of gaining an advantage.

"It is about Miss Marston," says the gardener's son, after a slight pause.

"What of that young lady?"

"I don't know whether I have a right to speak-"

"That is candid of you."

The arrow misses its mark.

"But it may be," proceeds the young fellow, "that I have, for the reason that I love her."

His voice trembles, but his earnestness imparts power to it.

"I am obliged to you for your confidence," observes Mr. Temple, watching for Nelly Marston as he speaks, "unsolicited as it is. A pretty young lady generally inspires that passion in many breasts."

"But not in all alike," quickly retorts the gardener's son.

"That is fair philosophy. Proceed."

"You speak lightly, sir, while I am serous. It stands in this way, sir. People are beginning to talk-"

"People will talk," interrupts Mr. Temple, with malicious relish; "as in the present instance."

"And Miss Marston's name and yours have got mixed up together in a manner it would grieve her to know."

"You forget, in the first place," says Mr. Temple haughtily, with an ominous frown on his face, "that Miss Marston is a lady; and in the second, you forget to whom you are speaking."

"Truly I am not thinking of you, sir," replies the gardener's son quietly and simply, "I am thinking of her. A young lady's good name is not a thing to be lightly played with."

"Therefore," says Mr. Temple impatiently, "I would advise you to take that very lesson to heart, and to tell those persons who are, as you say, making light of her good name-you are evidently acquainted with them-that it will be wise for them to choose other topics of gossip. I cannot acknowledge your right to address me on this matter, and this conversation must come to an end. Young ladies nowadays are perfectly well able to take care of themselves, and as a rule choose for themselves. We rougher creatures are often more sensitive than they, and more particular on certain points. And now let me tell you, my man, it is a dangerous thing for you to seek me out at night and address me on such a subject in the tone and manner you have assumed. You are speaking to a gentleman, remember. You-"

"Are not one," interposes the gardener's son, with sad significance; "I know it, sir."

"I will waive that, however, and say this much to you. If Miss Marston had constituted you her champion and had authorised you to speak, I should be willing to listen to you. But that is not the case, I presume, and I wish you goodnight."

The gardener's son twines his fingers convulsively. Were Mr. Temple his equal in station, it would have fared ill with him, smarting as the man is with passionate jealousy and the sting of unrequited love. He controls himself sufficiently to say,

"I must ask you one question, sir. Do you remain at Springfield?"

"No; I leave to-night, and I shall probably be absent for weeks. Ah, I perceive that answer is satisfactory to you. I see a lady approaching. Shall you or I retire?"

The gardener's son, casting one glance at the advancing form, walks slowly away, and his shadow is soon swallowed up by other shadows, among which he walks in pain and grief.

Nelly Marston is in no holiday humour; she is trembling with shame at the thought of what passed in the sick-chamber of her peevish mistress, and she approaches Mr. Temple with downcast head. Love and humiliation are fighting a desperate battle within her breast, and she does not respond sympathetically to her lover's glad greeting. He uses his best arts to soothe and comfort her; he addresses her by every endearing title, saying she is dearer to him than all the world, and beseeching her to throw all the rest aside. She listens in silence at the first, as he pours this sweet balm of Gilead upon her troubled soul. He is in his brightest mood, and his speech which tells the oft-told tale flows sweetly and tenderly. They stand beneath the stars, and he calls upon them to witness his love, his truth, his honour. Every word that falls from his lips sinks into her soul, and her heart is like a garden filled with unfading flowers. Humiliation and unrest melt into oblivion, never more to rise and agonise her. He loves her; he tells her so a hundred times and in a hundred ways. He will be true to her; he swears it by all the beautiful signs around them. Fairer and more lovely grows the night as he kisses away her tears. The moon rises higher in the heavens and bathes them in light. Softly, more tenderly he speaks, and she, like a child listens, listens-listens and believes, and hides her blushing face from him. Ah, if truth lives, it lives in him-in him, the symbol of all that is good and manly, and noble! She is so weak, he so strong! She knows so little, he so much! The sweet and enthralling words he whispers into her ears as her head lies upon his breast, form the first page of the brightest book that life can open to her; and the sighing of the breeze, the sleeping flowers, the hushed melody of the waving grass, the laughing, flashing lights of heaven playing about the dreamy shadows in the waters of the brook, are one and all delicious evidences of his truth, his honour, and his love.

"I love you-I love you-I love you!" he vows and vows again. "Put your arms about my neck-so! and whispers to me what I am dying to hear."

"You are my life!" she sighs, and their lips meet; and then they sit and talk, and, as she gazes into the immeasurable distances of the stars, she sees, with the eyes of her soul, a happy future, filled with fond and sweet imaginings,