een expecting visitors, he had forgotten it, for they had
come quite close to him before he looked up, and he quite started at the
sound of Mr Millar's voice. He rose and received them courteously and
kindly, however. Mr Elphinstone in his own drawing-room was a
different person, or rather, he showed a different manner from Mr
Elphinstone in his counting-room in intercourse with his clerks; and
Harry, who had had none but business intercourse with him, was struck
with the difference. It required an effort for him to realise that the
bland, gentle voice was the same that he had so often heard in brief and
prompt command.

Business was to be ignored to-night, however. Their talk was of quite
other matters. There was an allusion to the new partnership, and to Mr
Millar's half-brother, the new partner, who at the moment, as they all
knew, was passing along the garden walk with a little white hand on his
coat-sleeve. This was not alluded to, however, though each thought his
own thoughts about it, in the midst of their talk. That those of Mr
Elphinstone were rather agreeable to himself, the lads could plainly
see. He had no son, and that his partner and nephew should fall into a
son's place was an idea that pleased him well. Indeed, it had cost him
some self-denial to-night not to intimate as much to him after the
pretty Lilias had withdrawn, and the smile that Harry was stealthily
watching on his face, was called up by the remembrance of the admiration
which his daughter had evidently called forth. Harry watched the smile,
and in his heart called the new partner "lucky," and "cute," and looked
at Charlie's discontented face with a comic astonishment that would have
excited some grave astonishment to their host, if by any chance he had
looked up to see. Though why Charlie should look discontented about it,
Harry could not well see.

They talked about indifferent matters with a little effort till the
white dress gleamed in the firelight, and a soft voice said--

"What, still in the dark, papa!"

The lights came in, and Harry was introduced to Miss Elphinstone. He
had shared Rosie's interest in the lady of the pony-carriage, long ago,
and had sometimes seen and spoken with her in the garden in those days,
but he had not seen her since her return from Scotland, where her last
three years had been spent. A very sweet-looking and graceful little
lady she was, though a little silent and shy at first, perhaps in
sym