"You are getting on, my poor dear ?"

"Don't call me your 'poor dear,' as if I wanted pity. Getting on ?-famously. Last Sunday I was not up till four in the afternoon-see what a stride I have made in one week."

"You have a great many more strides to make yet," began Mr. Wynne, sadly.

"Before I and your two little grandsons are in dear old Ford House? Yes, but we shall be as quick about them as we can. Papa, I do take it very ill that you have not yet made a single remark upon my boys."

George is a fine little fellow, but poor Frank

"Poor dear!''Poor Frank!' Papa, we don't want any pity. Frank is running a race with me in getting strong and sensible. I really heard him taking a second in one of Georgie's roaring fits this morning."

"That was at sight of me," answered Mr. Wynne, quaintly; "something about me frightened both alike."

"Ah, they will soon know you-they do me and George. Just think of my having two sons of my own," and she buried her happy face upon his shoulder; "I shall have another Ford House, all noise and fun, some day.”

"Little noise and fun now, my dear! Indeed, it's a great deal too big for us."

"No, not a bit. I shall want three great big rooms every time I come, and that will be whenever I'm asked-and George can make time. But, Barbara, come and tell me all about the wedding."

“Ah, my dear, it was nothing with you lying ill here."

"Papa, you will make me quite angry, and any excitement is most strictly forbidden. Think how grave Dr. Matthews will look if I have to tell him this afternoon, 'Yes, Doctor, I do feel very bad, but father's been to see me, and he did put me in such a passion you can't think.'

Mr. Wynne smiled. Hetty laughed, sighed, and

Z

smiled again. "It is being so happy that makes me so nonsensical. I shall be wiser when I'm up and about again. But where's George all this time ?"

"We left him in the dining-room. He meant us to enjoy you all to ourselves," said Barbara, gratefully. "Do just-ah, but he must be in the nursery, or he would have been here before now. Ah, that's his step!"

Her wifely look of expectation gladdened Barbara's heart. In another moment Mr. Cradock came in, and though he only took his stand behind the sofa, and simply said, "I hope dressing has not over-fatigued you," Hetty, albeit the quieter for his presence, looked all the more content.

"Now, Barbara, please tell me everything, how Mme. St. Croix was dressed, and whether Isabella""No, no, my dear," put in Mr. Cradock at once, you have had your father and sister quite as long as is good for you, at once, already. Indeed, I believe it is quite time for us to be preparing for Church."

66

Barbara took the hint and departed, but was dressed quite in time to have a good five minutes with her two little nephews; both of whom were, to her undiscriminating eye, equally ugly and dear.

Luncheon passed off fairly, and so did the space before afternoon service, though Mr. Wynne was every minute meditating an escape to his daughter-a design that Mr. Cradock, with unfailing politeness and patience, never failed to contravene. Barbara had subImitted at once to his courteous "I think Henrietta must be left to rest till after our late dinner."

After dinner, at first Barbara, then her father, stole away to the drawing-room, and had a quiet hour's happy talk with a sister and daughter whom absence made but doubly dear; Hetty was looking paler than in the morning, and seemed more inclined to listen and less to talk, but listened with undiminished interest to every word of her old home and its inmates.

Then Mr. Cradock came in and said, "My dear, it

is quite time you were upstairs," rang the bell for Clarke, gave his wife his arm, half carried her up stairs, and hurried back to his guests.

"Poor Hetty! she is sadly changed," said Mr.

Wynne.

"Indeed ?" answered the husband, looking surprised; "she is of course still far from strong, but I have thought her all day looking so remarkably well. You must come down for another Sunday before Barbara leaves us, and see how she is progressing; we shall be so pleased to see you."

Barbara thought this very pleasantly as well as courteously said.

"Thank you, I shall like it of all things. I quite dread the thought of returning to that empty house."

Meantime the inhabitants of the "empty house" felt strange and dreary too. No clatter at breakfast, no mirth at dinner, no afternoon walk, no noisy, happy supper. Never mind, in a little time they would discover the few compensations of their present dulness, --the cosiness, the unity of will and purpose of a small party, and Will himself would cease to feel a laugh in which there were no brothers to join, a hollow mocking vent for gladness.

That day three weeks Mr. Wynne travelled northwards again to fetch Barbara home on the Monday. How had that fortnight fared with her? Prosperously, Barbara felt. Mr. Cradock had for the last few mornings paid her the compliment of treating her so far as a sister as to read the Times the latter half of breakfast, instead of making talk all through the rather appalling tête-à-tête meal; they had also found a common source of interest in the nursery and in German literature; and though each had still many old-standing prejudices against the other to outlive, both began to suspect, even to hope, that they would be outlived in time. As for Hetty, Barbara saw her surprise her father by entering the dining-room at breakfast-time, with little less than a mother's pride.

"Why, papa, are you too astonished to kiss me! I believe you are horrified to see how nearly a great Cradock invasion is impending over Ford House!"

"Wait a minute, let me look at you," answered Mr. Wynne, taking her hands.

Very lovely she looked as she stood there, cap, shawl, and dressing-gown, all at last discarded. Her hair was simply dressed, and the fair face and graceful figure had certainly gained in mature beauty more than they had lost in youthful charms.

Mr. Cradock fidgeted. Barbara came to the rescue. "Papa, she must not be kept standing. This is a great feat in honour of your arrival. She went to bed an hour earlier last night on purpose to make it. And does she not look well ?"

"More beautiful than ever," said Mr. Wynne, in his most matter-of-fact tone, as stating so evident a truth that there was no fear of contradiction.

Hetty turned to her husband and smiled. Somebody else had, on first seeing her that morning, unconsciously looked such admiration that even her father's words fell flat after this glance.

"Now, you know, I expect you all to be very good to me," said she, taking her old place behind the urn; "there, papa, you shall put in the sugar, Barbara the cream and tea, and I must have my old place, Barbara knows it of old. The honour mine, the trouble some one else's,-stop one minute, one cup must be all my own."

Her hand was still so tremulous that the tea trickled into the cup in so absurd a manner, that she half laughed and cried at her weakness, but it was complete at last, and holding the saucer with both hands, she rose and put it before her husband.

"There!" she said, cheek, eye, and lip smiling, "that's the first cup of tea that your wife has poured out these three months. What do you give her

for it ?"

Not a kiss before two spectators, but Mr. Cradock

pressed the trembling hand tight, and gave her in return a smile which Hetty now thought was worth all the more evident tokens of affection in the world. She lay up after breakfast, but had her two little boys in to love and be admired.

"Here's an improved godson for you," she said, happily, holding out little Francis Wynne Cradock to his grandfather.

"And here's the king of babies," said Mr. Cradock, catching his wife's tone for the minute, as he took his little first-born son from Mrs. Giles' arms, "and the image of his mother."

"H'm," said Mr. Wynne, rather discontentedly comparing the sweet fair face of his daughter with the red vacant one of his grandson.

"Oh, but it is very like," put in Barbara, " George's are Hetty's eyes all over, and his hair is getting so much lighter, and has just the same bright tinge.

"For all that, this is mamma's own true boy," said Hetty herself, pressing little Frank tight, "we two will buffet through the world hand in hand, won't we, Frankie? and leave great happy Georgie to fight his own way."

Georgie looked at his mother with a serene benignant smile, and nodded his little head in such grave apparent consent to this arrangement that even Mr. Cradock laughed.

"We shall see, shan't we?" he said to his smiling good-tempered heir, with a smile, "papa and George, versus mamma and Frank. There, Giles, take him,I want, my dear, just to inquire after Mr. Brown, he was very unwell last night, and do pray send Frank away too, you are doing too much."

"Oh, no, we must have them a little longer: Barbara will look after George."

"I am sure you were enough worried with that child last night," he persisted.

"Not worried, George,-you don't understand a mother's pleasures yet.'