ith the miscellaneous
correspondence of the colonel's father dating back a half-century and
more. Much curious matter the colonel discovered there, for "Wild Will"
Musgrave's had been a full-blooded career. And over one packet of
letters, in particular, the colonel sat for a long while with an
unwontedly troubled face.

PART SIX - BYWAYS

"Cry _Kismet!_ and take heart. Eros is gone,
Nor may we follow to that loftier air
Olympians breathe. Take heart, and enter where
A lighter Love, vine-crowned, laughs i' the sun,
Oblivious of tangled webs ill-spun
By ancient wearied weavers, for it may be
His guidance leads to lovers of such as we
And hearts so credulous as to be won.

"Cry _Kismet!_ Put away vain memories
Of all old sorrows and of all old joys,
And learn that life is never quite amiss
So long as unreflective girls and boys
Remember that young lips were meant to kiss,
And hold that laughter is a seemly noise."

PAUL VANDERHOFFEN. _Egeria Answers._

I

Patricia sat in the great maple-grove that stands behind Matocton, and
pondered over a note from her husband, who was in Lichfield
superintending the appearance of the July number of the _Lichfield
Historical Association's Quarterly Magazine_. Mr. Charteris lay at
her feet, glancing rapidly over a lengthy letter, which was from his
wife, in Richmond.

The morning mail was just in, and Patricia had despatched Charteris for
her letters, on the plea that the woods were too beautiful to leave, and
that Matocton, in the unsettled state which marks the end of the week in
a house-party, was intolerable.

She, undoubtedly, was partial to the grove, having spent the last ten
mornings there. Mr. Charteris had overrated her modest literary
abilities so far as to ask her advice in certain details of his new
book, which was to appear in the autumn, and they had found a vernal
solitude, besides being extremely picturesque, to be conducive to the
forming of really matured opinions. Moreover, she was assured that none
of the members of the house-party would misunderstand her motives;
people were so much less censorious in the country; there was something
in the pastoral purity of Nature, seen face to face, which brought out
one's noblest instincts, and put an end to all horrid gossip and
scandal-mongering.

Didn't Mrs. Barry-Smith think so? And what was her real opinion of that
rumor about the Hardresses, and was the woman as bad