against her daughter’s acceptance of the invitation, Mrs. Mayne had risen and kissed her with some effusion as she took her leave.

“It is so nice of you to say this to me; of course I should have been pleased, delighted to have had Nan with us” (oh, Mrs. Mayne, fie for shame! when you want your boy to yourself), “but all the same I think you are so wise.”

“Poor child! I am afraid I am refusing her a great treat,” returned Mrs. Challoner, in a tone of regret. It was the first time since her husband’s death that she had ever decided anything without reference to her daughters; but for once her maternal fears were up in arms, and drove her to sudden resolution.

“Yes, but, as you observed, it would throw them so entirely together; and Dick is so young. Richard was only saying the other night that he hoped the boy would not fancy himself in love for the next two years, as he did not approve of such early engagements.”

“Neither do I,” returned Mrs. Challoner, quickly. “Nothing would annoy me more than for one of my daughters to entangle herself with so young a man. We know the world too well for that, Mrs. Mayne. Why, Dick may fall in and out of love half a dozen times before he really makes up his mind.”

“Ah, that is what Richard says,” returned Dick’s mother, with a sigh; in her heart she was not quite of her husband’s opinion. She remembered how that long waiting wasted her own youth,—waiting for what? For comforts that she would gladly have done without,—for a well-furnished house, when she would have lived happily in the poorest lodging with the Richard Mayne who had won her heart,—for whom she would have toiled and slaved with the self-abnegating devotion of a loving woman; only he feared to have it so.

“‘When poverty enters the door, love flies out of the window:’ we had better make up our minds to wait, Bessie. I can better work in single than double harness just now.” That was what he said to her, and Bessie waited,—not till she grew thin, but stout, and the spirit of her youth was gone; and it was a sober, middle-aged woman who took possession of the long-expected home.

Mrs. Mayne loved her husband, but during that tedious engagement her ardor had a little cooled, and it may be doubted whether the younger Richard was not dearer to her than his father; which was ungrateful, to say the least of it, as Mr. Mayne doted on his comely wife, and thought Bessie as handsome now as in the days when she came out smiling to welcome him, a slim young creature with youthful roses in her cheeks.

From this brief conversation it may be seen that none of the elders quite approved of this budding affection. Mrs. Challoner, 18 who belonged to a good old family, found it hard to forgive the Maynes’ lowliness of birth; and though she liked Dick, she thought Nan could do better for herself. Mr. Mayne pooh-poohed the whole thing so entirely that the women could only speak of it among themselves.

“Dick is a clever fellow; he ought to marry money,” he would say. “I am not a millionaire, and a little more would be acceptable;” and though he was always kind to Nan and her sisters, he was forever dealing sly hits at her. “Phillis has the brains of the family,” he would say: “that is the girl for my money. I call her a vast deal better looking than Nan, though people make such a fuss about the other one;” a speech he was never tired of repeating in his son’s presence, and at which Dick snapped his fingers metaphorically and said nothing.

When Dick wished that one of them were going to Switzerland, Nan sighed furtively. Dick was going away for three months, for the remainder of the long vacation. After next week they would not see him until Christmas,—nearly six months. A sense of dreariness, as new as it was strange, swept momentarily over Nan as she pondered this. The summer months would be grievously clouded. Dick had been the moving spirit of all the fun; the tennis-parties, the pleasant dawdling afternoons, would lose their zest when he was away.

She remembered how persistently he had haunted their footsteps. When they paid visits to the Manor House, or Gardenhurst, or Fitzroy Lodge, Dick was sure to put in an appearance. People had nicknamed him the “Challoners’ Squire;” but now Nan must go squireless for the rest of the summer, unless she took compassion on Stanley Parker, or that dreadful chatterbox his cousin.

The male population was somewhat sparse at Oldfield. There were a few Eton boys, and one or two in that delightful transition age when youth is most bashful and uninteresting,—a sort of unfledged manhood, when the smooth boyish cheek contradicts the deepened bass of the voice,—an age that has not ceased to blush, and which is full of aggravating idosyncrasies and unexpected angles.

To be sure, Lord Fitzroy was a splendid specimen of a young guardsman, but he had lately taken to himself a wife; and Sir Alfred Mostyn, who was also somewhat attractive and a very pleasant fellow, and unattached at present, had a tiresome habit of rushing off to Norway, or St. Petersburg, or Niagara, or the Rocky Mountains, for what he termed sport, or a lark.

“It seems we are very stupid this evening,” observed Phillis for Dick had waxed almost as silent as Nan. “I think the mother must nearly have finished her nap, so I propose we go back and have some tea;” and, as Nan languidly acquiesced they turned their faces towards the village again, Dulce still holding firmly to Nan’s arm. By and by Dick struck out in a fresh direction. 19

“I say, don’t you wish we could have last week over again?”

“Yes! oh, yes! was it not too delicious?” from the three girls; and Nan added, “I never enjoyed anything so much in my life,” in a tone so fervent that Dick was delighted.

“What a brick your mother was, to be sure, to spare you all!”

“Yes; and she was so dull, poor dear, all the time we were away. Dorothy gave us quite a pitiful account when we got home.”

“It was a treat one ought to remember all one’s life,” observed Phillis, quite solemnly; and then ensued a most animated discussion.

The treat to which Phillis alluded had been simply perfect in the three girls’ eyes. Dick, who never forgot his friends, had so worked upon his mother that she had consented to chaperon the three sisters during Commemoration; and a consent being fairly coaxed out of Mrs. Challoner, the plan was put into execution.

Dick, who was in the seventh heaven of delight, found roomy lodgings in the High Street, in which he installed his enraptured guests.

The five days that followed were simply hours snatched out of fairyland to these four happy young creatures. No wonder envious looks were cast at Dick as he walked in Christ Church Meadows with Nan and Dulce, Phillis bringing up the rear somewhat soberly with Mrs. Mayne.

“One pretty face would content most fellows,” his friends grumbled; “but when you come to three, and not his own sisters either, why, it isn’t fair on other folk.” And to Dick they said, “Come, it is no use being so awfully close. Of course we see what’s up: you are a lucky dog. Which is it, Mayne?—the pretty one with the pink and white complexion or the quiet one in gray, or the one with the mischievous eyes?”

“Faix, they are all darlints and jewels, bless their purty faces!” drawled one young rogue, in his favorite brogue. “Here’s the top of the morning to ye, Mayne; and it is mavourneen with the brown eyes and the trick of the smile like the sunshine’s glint that has stolen poor Paddy’s heart.”

“Oh, shut up, you fellows!” returned Dick, in a disgusted voice. “What is the good of your pretending to be Irish, Hamilton, when you are a canny Scotchman?”

“Hoots, man, mind your clavers! You need not grizzle at a creature because he admires a wee