shares, and they will make so much money they will never miss this--that is, not before the shares are bought. Afterwards, when they have completed their operation, they will recollect, and come asking for it. Put it in your desk for the present, it will not be long till they relieve you of the charge."

CHAPTER II.

A CONFIDANTE.

The day came for the Misses Stanley's return to the country. Muriel's classes were over, and the streets grown hot and dusty past endurance. Life was a burden under the all-pervading glare shot from the vault overhead, and the two miles breadth of glassy river, the acres on acres of shining tin-roofs, and the heated face of limestone pavements. The breeze felt withering like breath from a furnace, hotter even than the air at rest, and cool was attainable only by ingenious contrivance, and in twilight darkness.

"Ah!" said Considine; he had been lingering in town till now, and had suddenly found out that it was time to take his yearly villagiatura at St. Euphrase, his plans coinciding with those of his friends so closely, that when the ladies reached the railway station he was already on the platform to assist them about tickets and baggage as well as to join them in the parlour car; which Miss Penelope considered quite remarkable, but most fortunate and "very nice." "Ah!" said Considine, raising a window as the train rolled into the country, "what a different air to breathe! It smells and feels of the country already."

"Yes," said Miss Matilda, "I feel myself absorbing new vitality from the verdure as we pass along. Do the woods not look seductive after the baking and withering we have suffered of late? One grudges even the delay of railway speed. What will it not be this afternoon to sit among the trees, with coolness rustling softly through the foliage--just to sit and feel one's self alive--with every breath a new deliciousness, and the sense of rest and freshness making one happy and new down to the finger-tips. You will find it delightful at Podevin's to-day, so close by the river. I can imagine you will get into a boat immediately, and go out in the stream and drift, and smoke your cigar, I dare say; you gentlemen seem always doing that, though it must spoil the flavour of a day so exquisite as this, it seems to me."

"As Podevin, whose house is full, has fitted me up the room over the boat-house for my chamber, I imagine I shall have my share of any coolness stirring; yet it would, I dare say, be pleasant to make a beginning of the freshness at full strength by getting into a boat. However, I shall not stay long, and if you will permit me, when the afternoon heat grows moderate, I will walk up to your house and learn if you and Miss Stanley are still alive--and my young friend Muriel also, though indeed, the weather appears to suit her well enough."

And truly at that moment Muriel was in perfect comfort, sitting a little apart with an escort of her own--her friend Gerald who had deserted the cares of business for her sweet company. Not that he found her difficult of access at other times, for they often met; but there is a privacy in a public railway carriage when the rumbling of the wheels drowns conversation for every ear other than the one addressed, and a safety from intrusion and interruption while the journey lasts, not easily to be found elsewhere.

Muriel sat in one corner of a sofa, with Gerald in the other, listening to his purring, and purring softly back. It may have been owing to the heat of the day, but their talk seemed less lively than at other times, and their glances drooped shyly on the ground instead of seeking and meeting each other's as they were wont. Gerald drew closer as they talked, and by-and-by his hands secured one of hers, and held it in possession. He would have slipped his hand behind her waist, perhaps, if her position in the corner of the sofa had not been beyond his reach; and as it was, she used some effort to liberate the imprisoned hand, and regained it at last. Hushing and growing pale the while in her fear of having become grouped with her companion into a tableau too interesting to escape notice. And then her eyes rose shyly to his face, and shining with a light they had not held before, and her lips parted tremulously to smile, and faltered out words which were lost in the roar and hubbub of the rattling wheels, and Gerald could not hear them; but the eyes which had looked in his a moment, the rosy flushing and the tremulous smile, were proof the unheard answer was not "no," and he was happy. When the train reached St. Euphrase Muriel was "engaged," while still it wanted a week of her sixteenth birthday.

It is not very remarkable, if, in view of his success, young Gerald stepped on the platform with something of the victor in his mein--his head thrown back, and his coat unbuttoned, flapping away from the expanded chest, while his eyes looked forth on the world at large, with the broad imperial gaze of a new-crowned conqueror, while Muriel leaned on his arm perhaps a shade more clingingly than she was aware. It struck Betsey Bunce, at least, who, according to her custom, was awaiting the city train, to espy the new arrivals, and pick up any fragments of news dropped by her acquaintance--it struck Betsey that summer day, that Gerald was a far finer and handsomer fellow than theretofore she had thought him. She bowed and waved her hand with much empressement; she even stepped forward to welcome him to St. Euphrase at that unusual hour; but Gerald did not see her. His head was in the clouds, and he inhaling that upper ether where swim the stars and the souls of the most blest, to whom the gods have granted all their desire. He was dazzled by the brightness of his own felicity--alas, that the felicity should be as fleeting as its power to dazzle--and saw little of what passed around him. Only he felt, and felt only the pressure of a slender hand resting on his arm. And so, unwittingly, he strode past Betsey Bunce; and Muriel, too, being with him, and somewhat overcome, looking down, and with her mind disturbed with new and confusing thoughts, and feelings which, if not so altogether new, were yet now first acknowledgedly to herself permitted to harbour there.

And Betsey believed herself to have been slighted, and her wrath grew hot against the young man, and her envy greener-eyed against the girl, who continued to secure so many things which in justice should have been hers; but having a "spirit," as she considered, she only tossed her head, and walked forward through the arriving passengers in search of other acquaintance.

It was the same train which carried home the directors of the mining association after their board meeting. Podevin was the first to alight. He appeared a happier man than when setting out in the morning. With him was Belmore, who had sunk through the whole gamut from confidence to despair, and whose barometer of feeling had again risen to "tranquil." His golden hopes for the future, indeed, had vanished, but he expected under Stinson's direction to sell out without loss, and by aid of the village notary to make everything snug in case of after litigation. Joe Webb alone looked troubled and oppressed. The dangers to his investment, and of his position as director, had now for the first time been disclosed to him, and he was at a loss how to act; and yet to take professional advice seemed to his scrupulous mind to be a breach of confidence towards his fellow directors, while to act with them appeared dishonest to the shareholders and the general public. It was useless to open his mind to Belmore and Podevin; they were resolved to save themselves at whatever cost to other people.