self aloof, that gazed and listened like a soul in dreams, weaving the wondrous tale it marvels at." He only knew from time to time, as her voice ceased, or her head was turned away for a moment, that he had come under one of those divine madnesses which the gods send upon men; that life grew more wonderful every moment, and that ever after he should be able to say—I have once been happy.

Meanwhile Tregurtha and his partner of the white face and dark eyes were eating strawberries in an adjacent hayfield. It was pleasant there also, and the damsel, for all her grave looks, was playful, and conversation was uninterrupted. "Tell me a sea story," she asked, after a little desultory persiflage had been exchanged; and Tregurtha settled himself on a large haycock and began to recount his own adventures in various storms and casualties on the ocean, just as he told them to Roscoria's boys at night. And as he did so, his blue eyes kindling, and his hands closing and unclosing with the excitement of memory and the thought of the wild sea wind, he caught full sight of the blue-black eyes of his hearer, who had come nearer and was watching and listening to him with parted lips. She reminded him of a woman he had known years ago in Spain, who died; and those eyes struck a sharp pain to his heart, so that he finished his story with his hand over his brow to keep them from him. So, as he did not look again at her, Rosetta quietly finished all the strawberries, for she was, as yet, very young.

A loud, impatient halloo aroused them both, as a stout, warlike, flurried, elderly gentleman came puffing indignantly through the tumbled hay (most like a threshing machine), much encumbered by a large feminine shawl, which he carried on his arm, and shouting to Rosetta:

"Why, why, dash it, my love, I call this insubordination, you know. Didn't I tell you an hour you should have and no more? And how long do you suppose you've kept the horses waiting? I can tell you, madam, you're the only human being who dare keep Admiral Sir John Villiers' carriage and himself waiting in this way. How d'ye do, sir? I'm glad to make your acquaintance. Sailor, I see. Of course! didn't I know what the tattooing on your wrist meant? Got an anchor on mine, sir. Confound your impudence, miss, what are you laughing at? Oh! the shawl—stuck to my coat-button, has it? Well, and if it has; have you no reverence, you saucy minx? Put it round your neck, treasure. I hate a woman who catches cold!"

Thus was Rosetta swept off from the glances of her first admirer by Admiral Sir John Villiers, the owner of Braceton Park, renowned as the most awkward customer in Devonshire.

V.

THE GODDESS IS HUMAN.

The friends found their way home together in the cool of the evening; both very quiet, but Roscoria evidently meditating some deep design. At night, growing confidential as they patrolled the garden, smoking, Louis proceeded to rave of his goddess "for an hour by his dial." Tregurtha heard and nodded in silence. He was a more reserved man than his friend, so he did not even mention the maid who ate his share of the strawberries. Indeed, he forgot her whilst listening to the outpourings of his ingenuous comrade.

"I shall never be any good at my work, I'm afraid," complained Roscoria; "that beautiful face is the only thing my mind will comprehend."

"Well, if I were you, as you seem so far gone, I should take some steps," advised Dick. "I'm no friend of shilly-shallying. If you love the girl, go and tell her so, I advise."

"I wish I'd more money," sighed the schoolmaster.

"Many a good paterfamilias has wished that before you, my lad," observed Tregurtha, with a laugh. "How does the country curate get on with his six children, do you suppose?"

"Eh, I don't know. O Lord! I hope I never shall be the father of a boy!" exclaimed the pedagogue, with a sudden agitated glance up at the bedroom windows, as the dread crossed his mind that he might have been overheard all this while.

However, all objection melted before the warmth of Roscoria's attachment, and one night he gave up his keys and authority to Tregurtha, bade him bolt the shutters and troll out prayers to the household in his jovial bass, for Louis Roscoria was going to a ball to "declare himself."

He had found out all about Lyndis (or thought he had). She was the niece of Admiral Sir John Villiers; her father dead; her mother married again to a hunting, racing type of man who wanted no stepdaughter about. So fair Lyndis was staying with her uncle for the time, looking after the housekeeping in return for his kind protection. But Roscoria gathered much hope that his suit might possibly be the means of relieving her from any unsettled feeling that she might have about her future. And thus it came to pass that at the termination of their fifth dance together they were sitting in a ferny grotto—the goddess was all robed in blue this time, as if she had brought down a piece of summer sky trailing after her—and Louis began all at once to show the tenderness he felt.

There was a little of the usual fencing with the subject, and then Roscoria came out with a few leading questions. He had heard rumors—very disquieting rumors—in short, would she set his mind at rest?

Lyndis bent the glory of her mystic eyes upon him for an instant, whilst she said:

"I was going to be married, but we were obliged to put it off. Where are you going, Mr. Roscoria?"

"I don't know," said Louis miserably. He had risen and taken a few steps away, but he came back again and leant against the wall by her side, breathing quick and brokenly.

"What is the matter?"

"Oh!" groaned Roscoria, "I wanted you."

He heard no answer, so he straightened up and took her kind hand and said, "Never mind; I was a fool not to be silent; but—but—if you had known your own charm, would you have made me so unhappy?"

Then there seemed a light in her eyes which was not there before, and a whisper was borne to him low and far away as if it were the echo of the voice of Fate thousands of years ago:

"By the favor of Heaven I am free!"

Shortly afterward Louis believed he heard himself saying, "Why did you forsake him, for he never did it?"

"The admiral forced the match upon me—he is so arbitrary! I consented in a cowardly moment; but that was before I had seen you. The gentleman I was betrothed to saw I was not contented before even I knew it myself; he himself volunteered to release me. Of all the unselfish men I know, Mr. Rodda is——"

("The deuce he is!") thought Roscoria to himself. "Not Eric Rodda, Miss Villiers—the young fellow I tutored at Rome! Brother of Tom? Poor fellow! I feel like a brute, somehow."

"No use to feel so, Louis; it was all over before ever I saw you."

"'Louis'—you darling! Could you put up with a very modest style of existence—at Torres? You said you admired the situation."

"Oh! are you poor?"

"The proverbial church-mouse is a Rothschild to me."

"What a cruel thing that is!" sighed Lyndis; "when the admiral, my mother, my stepfather, all insist on my marrying a rich man."

"Then, my dear lady, go and do it in Heaven's name!" cried Roscoria, and at sight of her surprised face he said, repentantly, "I beg your pardon—Lyndis—darling."

"Which do you put first?" asked Lyndis, smiling sweetly, "Obedience or Love?"

"Love," emphatically responded Louis.

"Oh, Mr. Roscoria, and you a schoolmaster!"

"And you, Miss Villiers, tell me, do you prefer the main chance, or me?"

"Alas! I am no lover of abstractions."

She came a little toward him as she said it, and he had her hand again.

"This dear hand—shall it be mine?"