ist hand, and as he continued standing, she moved to
the door, after once following the line of his eyes into the moonlight.

Outside the door a noise was audible. Andrew had come to sit with his
dear boy, and the Countess had met and engaged and driven him to the
other end of the passage, where he hung remonstrating with her.

'Why, Van,' he said, as Evan came up to him, 'I thought you were in a
profound sleep. Louisa said--'

'Silly Andrew!' interposed the Countess, 'do you not observe he is
sleep-walking now?' and she left them with a light laugh to go to
Juliana, whom she found in tears. The Countess was quite aware of the
efficacy of a little bit of burlesque lying to cover her retreat from any
petty exposure.

Evan soon got free from Andrew. He was under the dim stars, walking to
the great fire in the East. The cool air refreshed him. He was simply
going to ask for his own, before he went, and had no cause to fear what
would be thought by any one. A handkerchief! A man might fairly win that,
and carry it out of a very noble family, without having to blush for
himself.

I cannot say whether he inherited his feeling for rank from Mel, his
father, or that the Countess had succeeded in instilling it, but Evan
never took Republican ground in opposition to those who insulted him, and
never lashed his 'manhood' to assert itself, nor compared the fineness of
his instincts with the behaviour of titled gentlemen. Rather he seemed to
admit the distinction between his birth and that of a gentleman,
admitting it to his own soul, as it were, and struggled simply as men
struggle against a destiny. The news Miss Bonner had given him sufficed
to break a spell which could not have endured another week; and Andrew,
besides, had told him of Caroline's illness. He walked to meet Rose,
honestly intending to ask for his own, and wish her good-bye.

Rose saw him approach, and knew him in the distance. She was sitting on a
lower branch of the aspen, that shot out almost from the root, and
stretched over the intervolving rays of light on the tremulous water. She
could not move to meet him. She was not the Rose whom we have hitherto
known. Love may spring in the bosom of a young girl, like Helper in the
evening sky, a grey speck in a field of grey, and not be seen or known,
till surely as the circle advances the faint planet gathers fire, and,
coming nearer earth, dilates, and will and must be seen and known. When
Evan lay like a dead