enough talent to make him feel his own failures, and to be thoroughly disheartened by them.

This evening he was more out of spirits than usual; Clara regretted much that the sight of his handsome soldier brother should be a trouble to "poor Willie;" and by way of a little consolation, admired and praised his work with a zeal that did not seem at all appreciated.

“That bunch of flowers must be good enough for the new lectern, Willie; and that angel

"

"Good enough! pooh!" was the amiable answer; "do look there, if you have any eyes for it at all-and there-

"

"I'm afraid I haven't," said Clara, meekly; "you know I don't know anything about it. Only it seems beautiful to me. And such a quantity, Willie! after all the reading-time at the rectory!"

"That was not much," said Willie; "I never went there this afternoon at all."

Willie's hours of study with the rector were gradually growing fewer; no one in authority interfered with him on the subject, and he came and went on the plea of illness almost as much or as little as he liked.

"

Why not?" asked Clara.

Why should I?" he retorted, wearily; "I haven't got a class to go in for, like the lucky ones."

"Frank worked very hard for his first-class though," interposed Clara, timidly. "It can't be quite luck, can it?"

"Of course it can't. What a one you are for twisting a fellow's words, Clara! You'll go saying next that I'm in luck, just because I haven't got the chance of overworking myself; no fear of that, at any rate."

"But you like working with Mr. Watham, and you needn't overwork yourself," said Clara, with the truthful simplicity that irritated the boy, as being so difficult to answer. He could only reply bitterly,

"I don't mean to; who cares whether I read or not? A nice little amusement it is to pace over that mopy churchyard, and sit in the dark hole of a study at the rectory! So, having to choose amusements, I may as well take the one I like best; eh, Clara? And now look here; here's something for you to get on with."

"Oh, it looks hard!" pleaded poor Clara, at the sight of an intricate design, to be sawn out in the shortest possible space of

time; and then she sat down dutifully and worked away under strict supervision, with a few regretful thoughts of her talking, and the cosy schoolroom, and Miss Griffiths; but consoling herself with the recollection that the out-of-the-way seat at Willie's table, even with aching arms, was better than being talked about by Mrs. Winton in the more diguified part of the room, especially when she discovered that the incessant questions and answers, and descriptions of "foreign parts," and small home histories were settling down, as far as Mr. Winton was concerned, into the ordinary strain of the grievances of a country squire.

In the midst of Janie's ceaseless chatter, and not too respectful comments over every remark of her elders, the often-heard sentences, "poverty of the land," "heavy rating," "difficulty of getting in money," were audible, in the voice that so exactly corresponded with the harassed expression of the squire's goodnatured face.

Then came Janie's pert entreaty, in her sharp, quick tones, "Now, papa, do leave those wretched tenants and hedges and crops alone for once! The very first evening of Herbert's coming back, too! He's telling me no end of things.-Now, Herbert, go on-about that ball, you know."

And the soldier, with a pull at the long black hair streaming over his shoulder from Janie's head, and a remark that she was more unbearable than ever, proceeded with the history of his gaieties, while Mrs. Winton listened as delighted as Janie herself, and Mr. Winton could do no more than attempt a very mild remonstrance about extravagance that fell harmlessly on Herbert's clear conscience.

In the middle of the merry noise there was a sudden crash at Willie's table.

"Hollo!" said Herbert.

"You needn't stop talking, or go into a fit," said Janie, coolly, "it's only Willie. Some boards smashed, or something of that sort. I'm used to any kind of row by this time, and that was quite a mild one; you should have heard the noises we had when he went in for chemistry or something, and the smells!-Go on, Herbert."

And the chattering began again, while Clara stooped down to pick up a chisel.

"Have you done any harm?" she asked, leaving her saw to examine Willie's performance.

"

Spoiled it-broken it-that's all," was the answer. "How

can I do anything with that talking going on-enough to turn a fellow's head?"

Clara knew enough of the real meaning of the complaint to attempt any direct consolation-in her simplicity she said exactly the wisest thing she could have thought of :—

"I think I would as soon carve beautifully as you are doing, as be clever like Frank."

Willie finished the sentence, brightening a little at the implied meaning of Clara's consoling remark; "or be a soldier, like Herbert; and learn to dance and flirt at fancy balls, and do all kinds of warlike deeds. Yes, if I could do it well. Look there!"

He pointed to one of his failures with the bitter peevishness that was common with him now, and went on,

"Herbert has the advantage of me, you see, Clara. He can do what he pretends to; he's a swell at a valse, he says; and I dare say he is. And I can't do what I want; there's the difference. Where's the smallest chisel? I'm going to spoil that fern group, now."

"I think you will get to do it well, in time," said Clara, in the patient, comforting voice that was always ready to soothe poor Willie's despondencies if possible; "and you will like it then, Willie! It must be so nice to be able to do something really worth doing, that it must!"

"Like this?" Willie held up a broken piece of wood.

"Yes! Things like that. They will be the best of all, Willie, because they are going into the church some day; going to stay in it always, and be a part of it."

Willie shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and set to work again, till Clara's exertions came to a stop, at a remark from the other side of the room.

"One of our fellows is come to grief," Herbert was saying; "his governor ruined, or something, Brakespear, our youngest ensign. By the way, I nearly forgot▬▬" Herbert turned round, "he belongs to you, or knows something about you, Clara. I have been doing the civil to him on the strength of it, I declare I have!" Clara looked up, trying to remember something.

"I have heard the name, it is such a funny one!" she remarked, "but I forget where. Oh, yes! at the Rectory. Mr. and Mrs. Watham were talking about them."

"Yes! That's the fellow. The parson at our place was an old friend of some of his people; and a distant cousin of his

lived down here, Miss Bellingham; that was his story; I contradicted him at first I vow I had nearly forgotten that you ever had a separate home, Clara!"

"Did you say they are ruined?" asked Clara.

Something like it, I expect; young Brakespear was in a great state about it."

"But how strange it is," continued Clara, "they must be relations of mine; Mrs. Watham said something about it; why are they poor, if I have got so much money?" Clara was forgetting her usual timidity in real interest, "more than I want,” she concluded.

Janie burst into a loud laugh. "Nobody would ever take her for an heiress, would they?" talked the pert girl, with a look of ridicule at the dress that Janie was not quite wrong in calling

dowdy; "" but it's a fact she had a five pound note more than she knew what to do with last year. It made her accounts wrong to have anything to carry on to the new pocket-book, you know, and she went about the village trying to get rid of it; but Mr. Watham wouldn't let her give it away bodily."

Clara bore Janie's satire very calmly.

"I was thinking of the Brakespears," she said; "I wonder whether Mr. Preston knows about them."

Mr. Preston was Clara's guardian; only known to her as representing the large fortune that she cared little about, beyond the fact that her private allowance rather troubled her, by its superiority to Janie's, and that, on one or two rare occasions, when some parish need was very urgent, she had written a humble petition for a little sum, and had received, by return of post, a cheque considerably larger than she had ventured to ask for.

Janie was right; no one to judge from estimates would have imagined Clara Bellingham to be an heiress; and no one could have been more forgetful of the fact than Clara herself. It was unusual to hear her speak of it in the most casual way. This evening the mention of the Brakespears' difficulties had suggested her own contrasted position; and the association seemed to be disturbing her. Her fingers were more awkward than usual for the rest of the evening, and she answered Willie's cross complaints of her stupidity with the irrelevant remark, "I will go and ask Mrs. Watham about it to-morrow."

'Willie, dear!" said Mrs. Winton's motherly voice; "you must not keep Clara at that funny wood-cutting work any

longer. The poor dear girl looks tired to death, and no wonder. Come and rest, my love, and talk to Herbert. He must enter

tain you.

"All right, mother," said the Lieutenant, carelessly, as Clara was unwillingly put into a grand arm-chair next to Herbert, to enjoy herself as much as her shyness with her grown-up cousin would let her.

"You'll have something to do, then, if you're expected to fit your conversation to Clara," began Janie, from her elegant position on the arm of her brother's chair; "you don't happen to have been hospital-visiting lately, have you? because that's the last idea."

"Hospital?" laughed Herbert; "I did go there once, I declare. One of our fellows was ill, or shamming, and I looked him up. Between you and me, Janie," he continued, confidentially; "I didn't admire the style of things. They were cutting off legs or arms, or something of the sort. Horrid!"

Ah, that's what we're going to do here," said Janie; while Clara interposed.

"Oh, Janie! it's only a little village hospital."

"Village hospital," repeated Herbert, with languid amusement, “who's mad enough for that?”

"Clara, and her set," said Janie; "but never mind such stupidity. Tell me something else funny, Herbert."

So the brisk conversation began again between the two; and Clara sat by, professing to be amused with listening to the absurd stories, and making numberless mistakes in her talking, till, to her relief, she was able to steal away for a quiet half-hour in the schoolroom, on her way to bed.

"You never came in, after all," she began, with a disconsolate look at the little heap of letters on the open desk. One of her strongest attachments was to Miss Griffiths, and the conclusion of her sentence was generally applicable at any time, "I was wanting you so much."

The governess looked up with a pleased smile at the girl's warm-hearted greeting, and shut up the obnoxious writing materials.

"Have you had a pleasant evening, dear?" she asked, as Clara took possession of her favourite seat, in readiness for a talk. "No, not very. I don't know why, it was my own fault. I was too stupid to be able to talk to Herbert much. Janie and he were very merry."