LITMIR.BIZ

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clear and strong and in its way as musical as her own.

      Whose voice – whose? For a moment I felt as though I were transfixed to the spot where I stood; then with trembling hands, softly parted the thickly covered branches which intervened between me and the speakers. Philip! My heart had already told me that it was he; and one swift glance shewed me that it was the Philip of my dreams – so improved as to bear only an ideal resemblance to the boy-lover I had parted with. He had developed grandly during the nine years we had been separated. Taller and larger in figure, his handsome bronzed face adorned with an auburn beard, whilst his gray eyes retained their old frank kindliness of expression, he looked the personification of manly strength, physical and mental.

      Impulsively I advanced a step or two, then shyly and nervously shrank back again, clinging to the low outspreading branches of the tree. Presently, when my foolish heart did not beat quite so wildly – presently.

      'Yes; that is better. Now a few bold strokes athwart the horizon. Have you not a coarser brush?'

      'Yes. I will run in and fetch one.'

      'Cannot I, Miss Maitland? Allow me.'

      'O no; auntie could not tell you where to find it.' And away she ran, in the opposite direction to where I stood.

      Without a moment's pause, in my anxiety for our meeting to take place whilst he and I were alone, I stepped hastily forward. He was examining Lilian's drawing, when he caught the sound of my footstep and looked up. His eyes met mine – ah Philip! ah me! – with the grave calm gaze of a stranger!

      I stood utterly powerless to move or speak; and perhaps I looked more than ever unlike my past self in that moment of bitter anguish. But suddenly the truth flashed upon him.

      'Great heavens —Mary!' he ejaculated, catching me in his arms as I swayed towards him.

      I was still speechless; and looking down into my face, he added gently, it seemed to me sorrowfully: 'My poor Mary!'

      'Am I so changed as that, Philip?' I murmured in a low broken voice.

      'I – I fear you have gone through more than you would allow me to know about,' he replied, reddening. Adding a little confusedly: 'How was it that I did not find you at home, Mary?'

      'I did not expect you quite so soon as this,' I stammered out quite as confusedly. 'You said a month or six weeks, and it is only three weeks since I received your letter.'

      'I – found myself free sooner than I expected; and of course set my face homewards at once. I arrived at Liverpool last evening, and travelled all night, in order to be here in good time in the morning.'

      'Did you get here this morning?'

      'Yes; you had only left half an hour or so when I arrived. I should have met you, they told me, had I not taken the wrong turning from the stile.'

      'Had – you a pleasant voyage?' I asked, terribly conscious that this was not the kind of talk which might be expected between him and me at such a moment.

      I think he was conscious of this also. He stood a moment without replying, then every line in his face seemed to grow set and firm, and he said gravely: 'How is it that your friends here do not know that I have come to claim my wife, Mary?'

      'I put off telling them from time to time,' I replied in a low voice; 'but I fully intended telling them this evening.'

      'Let us go in at once,' he said hurriedly.

      He drew my hand under his arm, keeping it firmly clasped in his own, and we went silently towards the cottage. Lilian was turning over the contents of a box in search of the brush she wanted, and Mrs Tipper was nodding over her knitting, fatigued with her day's exertion. Neither saw us approach, and both looked up with astonished eyes when we entered the room; and without a moment's pause, Philip introduced me to them as his promised wife.

      'We have been engaged for the last ten years,' he said hurriedly, 'and I have just been taking Mary to task for not having told you so.'

      'Dear Mary, dear sister, when you ought to have known how much good it would have done us to know!' said Lilian with tender reproach.

      'Better late than never, my dear,' cheerfully put in dear old Mrs Tipper, eyeing me rather anxiously, I fancied.

      The ground seemed to be slipping from beneath my feet and everything whirling round. I suppose I was looking very white and ill, for Philip gently placed me on the couch, and Lilian knelt by my side, murmuring tender words of love, as she chafed my hands, whilst Mrs Tipper was bending anxiously over me with smelling-salts, &c. But I shook my head, and tried to smile into their anxious faces, as I said: 'I am not given to fainting, you know – only a little tired.'

      'The truth is, you have sacrificed yourself for us all this time, and it is now beginning to tell upon you!' said Lilian. Turning towards Philip, she added: 'We have all needed her so much, and she has been so true a friend to us in our time of trouble, that she has forgotten herself, Mr Dallas.'

      He murmured something to the effect that he could quite understand my doing that.

      'But of course it will all be very different now,' said Lilian. 'It will be our turn; and we must try what we can do to pay back some of the debt we owe to her. – Now, don't look fierce, Mary; it's not the least use, for petted you will have to be.'

      'Then I am afraid fierce I shall remain,' I replied, trying to speak lightly.

      'That is more like yourself, dear. You are feeling better now, are you not?' asked Lilian.

      'O yes, quite well; only a little tired from walking farther than I need have done,' was my reply.

      'To think of my talking "Mary" to you all day without knowing you were more than friends!' said Lilian, looking up smilingly into Philip's face. 'I know now why you bore the waiting so patiently, and why we got on so well together. – I felt at home with Mr Dallas at once, Mary. I think we both felt that we two ought to be friends. – Did we not?'

      He bowed assent.

      'And you must please try to like me more than an ordinary friend, Mr Dallas, or I shall be jealous. Mary is my sister, you know, or at least you will know by-and-by; and we cannot be separated for very long; so you must be considerate.'

      'Philip knows more about you than you do about him, Lilian,' I put in.

      'I am glad he knows about me, of course, Mary; but it will take a little time to quite forgive your reticence about him. – Will it not, auntie?'

      'Auntie' thought that forgiveness might just as well come soon as late, in her simple placid way. Then, to my great relief, a diversion was caused by tea being brought in. If Philip had not won the heart of his dear little hostess before, he would have won it now by his hearty appreciation of the good things set before him. I quite understood why, for the first time since Becky had been at the cottage, her mistress had some cause to complain of her awkwardness. Becky's whole attention was concentrated upon Philip; and she placed things on the table in a somewhat hap-hazard fashion, gazing at him the while with curious speculative eyes.

      Afterwards they commenced asking Philip questions about his voyage and so forth; and the conversation became less personal. He gave us an amusing account of his passage, humorously describing the peculiarities of life on board ship. Then as night drew on, Mrs Tipper very earnestly pressed the hospitalities of the cottage upon him. Of course he would be her guest – a room was already prepared, and she knew that she need not apologise to him for its homeliness. She had, I found, arranged to give up her own room for his use, and share Lilian's. But he explained that he was going back to an hotel in town, having arranged to stay there for the present.

      'I am afraid I shall very frequently trespass upon your kindness nevertheless, Mrs Tipper. You will only get rid of me by giving up Mary, now.'

      At which Lilian laughingly replied, that would be paying too dearly for getting rid of him. 'The better way would be to put up with you, for Mary's sake, and so secure you both.'

      In truth, Lilian was a great deal more cheerful, I might say merry, than I had seen her for many a long day, in her unselfish rejoicing over my happiness. And the sweet, girlish, modest freedom – the

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