aunt Gordon, on Thursday week; that's only just a fortnight, you know."

Aleck was my only boy cousin, and ever since there had been a notion of his coming to Braycombe, I had been thinking and dreaming of him incessantly. My aunt Gordon had been in very delicate health, and the doctors ordered foreign air and constant change for the summer months, and a winter in some warm climate. There had been some hesitation as to how my cousin, their only child, should be disposed of. He was not very strong, and school life, it was feared, might be too great an ordeal for another year; so my parents had written, offering that he should spend that time at Braycombe, and share my tutor's instructions. The decisive answer from my uncle had only just arrived, and I was in a tumult of joy and excitement that it was in favour of my cousin's coming to stay with us, and that the actual day of our visitors' arrival had been fixed.

George listened with every appearance of interest to my communication.

"I'm glad your cousin's coming, Master Willie, as you're pleased," he said.

"But aren't you glad, too, for your own sake?" I asked. "It will be so nice having him to play with us."

"Oh, I'll be pleased to see him, never fear for that," responded George. "I knew his father when he was but a little fellow like yourself."

"Mamma calls me her big boy," I threw in, disapprovingly. "But what do you think Aleck will be like?"

"Well, sir, I should expect very much such another young craft as yourself; or, now I come to think of it, perhaps a year older or so."

"Not a year," I replied; "ten months and a half. I asked mamma his birth-day. Do you think he'll be as tall as me? because papa and mamma say I'm tall for my age."

"His father stood six feet one the day he came of age. I daresay his son will take after him," said George.

"And be as tall as that?" I inquired, feeling rather anxious, until reassured, at the transformation of my cousin in prospect into a young giant.

I suppose that few children had ever seen less of other children than I had up to this time. There were but three gentlemen's houses in our neighbourhood: the Rectory, where lived the elderly clergyman and his wife, who had never had a family; the Elms, a country seat, where Sir John and Lady Cosington and two grown-up daughters resided; and Willowbank, another country place, occupied by a young married couple, with one little baby. Elmworth, our nearest town, was seven miles off; and this distance almost entirely precluded intercourse with any of the families there.

In consequence of this, I had been completely without companions of my own age up to this time. In books I had read much of children's amusements with their companions; and although the perfect happiness of my own home left nothing really to be wished for, if ever a wish did occur to me for anything I had not, it was for a play-fellow and companion somewhere about my own age; and now, when this wish of mine was really on the eve of being realized, I was filled with vague dreams and anticipations of all the delight which it was to bring to me. When George and I had mutually agreed that my cousin Aleck—allowing for the difference of age—might be reasonably expected to be somewhat taller than myself, we sat down on the beach, and began to discuss certain plans of mine for giving him a suitable welcome.

Dim ideas, the result of "Illustrated London News'" pictures, were floating in my mind—bouquets, triumphal arches, addresses, and so forth—even although I wound up by saying—

"Of course, not like that exactly; only something—something rather grand."

OLD GEORGE AND WILLIE.

Old George, however, kindly and wisely pulled my schemes down, and laid them affectionately in the dust:—

"You see, Master Willie, anything written, even in your best hand, wouldn't come up to what you will say in the first five minutes by word of mouth; and then the school banners, though very suitable for a feast—and I'm sure my Susan would be right pleased to look them up for you—would be no ways suitable. 'A merry Christmas and happy New Year,' or, 'Braycombe Schools, founded 1830,' would look odd-like flying in the avenue at this time of year. And though I'd be glad to do anything to give you pleasure, I'd rather be opening the gate to your uncle and aunt and cousin, as they drive up, than firing off a gun, which might disturb their nerves, not to say frighten the horses."

All of which was perfectly unanswerable. But as old George put on his spectacles in conclusion, I knew he meant to consider the subject with attention; and I therefore remained quietly at his side, sending flat stones skimming along the water, or throwing in a stick for Frisk to fetch out again, until, as I expected, he signified to me that he had thought of what would do.

He said that the light arch which supported the central lamp over the gate might be very easily decked with evergreens for the occasion, and the word welcome, traced in flowers, put up so as to appear very pretty with the green background; whilst the flag-staff at the top of the hill, just by the shrubbery, should display all the flags that our establishment could boast of.

Groves' scheme, though not quite so extensive as those which had floated through my childish imagination, was sufficiently attractive to be very welcome; and I eagerly insisted upon our immediately returning to the lodge, where George took certain measurements of the arch which impressed me wonderfully with a sense of his superiority, and wisdom.

By which time Mrs. Groves looked out to say that her husband's dinner would be spoiled by waiting, or eaten by the dog, "which there was no driving off." And I, thus reminded of the time, settled the difficulty about Frisk by taking him up bodily in my arms, and, hurrying off, reached home only just in time to get ready for dinner before the gong sounded.

CHAPTER II.

ALECK'S WELCOME.

It is almost unnecessary to remark that the fortnight preceding my cousin's arrival was one of the longest I had ever spent—even longer than those preceding birth-days or Christmas. However, the long looked-for Thursday came at last.

I pleaded hard for a whole holiday, but my mother would not be persuaded; so I had to do my morning lessons as usual, and confessed, after they were over, that the hours had passed much faster than I at all expected.

In consideration of the travellers having, in all probability, had but little time for refreshment, dinner was to be rather earlier than usual; and Aleck and I were to have it, for once, with the elders of the party. Luncheon was also early; and not having the time to go down to the lodge before it, I went out into the garden with my mother to help in gathering a nosegay for my aunt's room.

How fresh and beautiful everything looked that morning, as we stood there amongst the flowers, my mother selecting the materials for the nosegay, and I holding the basket, and handing her the scissors as she wanted them, or executing at intervals little by-plays with Frisk. I remember feeling a kind of intense thrill of happiness, which to this day is vividly recalled by the scent of those particular roses and geraniums; and also a sort of dim wonder about the unhappiness which I had heard and read of as the fate of some—pondering in my own mind how it felt to be so very unhappy, and whether people couldn't help it if they would only go out into the fresh air and warm sunshine, and enjoy themselves as I did. From which speculations I was recalled by my mother saying,—

"I think we have enough flowers, Willie; perhaps just one creeper for the outside of the