reoccupation, that they were
observed. When Elsie looked up, puzzled as to what she was to do, and
Mrs. Peck was putting her pen into her hand, she saw the figure of
Walter Brandon approaching her with the appearance of haste and
agitation. Mrs. Peck snatched the paper from Elsie's hand, and replaced
it in the black bag, along with the other writing materials and the
extempore desk.

"Alice Melville!" said Brandon, "what in Heaven's name are you doing
here in such company as this?"

Elsie turned as pale as death; she could not utter a syllable.

"Come with me--let me take you home. I heard from Mrs. Phillips that
you had gone out; but I could not have imagined you to have such a
companion."

"Such a companion, indeed!" said Mrs. Peck, indignantly. "I have been
in these colonies more nor thirty years, and I'm good enough company
for any fine lady's-maid as ever walked on shoe leather."

"Oh, Mr. Brandon!" said Elsie, who had recovered her powers of speech;
"she was doing needlework at Mrs. Phillips's, and I was sent out on an
errand, and she would come with me."

"And we was just a looking over the bill, and seeing as our money was
all right," said Mrs. Peck, in the most plausible manner.

"No; it was not a bill," said Elsie, who hated the idea of this woman
telling lies for her.

"Did Mrs. Phillips actually send you out walking with this person?"
said Brandon, with a look of the most intense contempt and disgust at
Mrs. Peck.

"She said nothing against it; but she did not send me; it was all my
own fault," said Elsie, weeping bitterly. "I rather wished to go with
her."

"My dear Miss Alice, you must have seen that this was no fit person for
you to associate with. You are an innocent girl, ignorant of the world,
as all girls ought to be; but you are not so easily deceived in
character as not to see in this woman's face, language, and manners,
that she is to be avoided as you would avoid death and destruction,"
said Brandon.

Elsie only wept more bitterly than before. Brandon must despise her for
ever now. She had been glad to come out to Victoria, because she
thought if he still loved or cared for her she should hear of it. She
had treasured his parting words and his parting looks in her heart; and
now to meet him again in this way--to feel that he must look down on
her as in the old days of his pity he never could have done--was
dreadful. How was he to guess at the almost irresistible temptation
that had