manner.
'You know I have all my own property, so I shall be on no one's hands!
Oh, and Cora made her father buy all Ave's Massissauga shares--at a
dead loss to us of course.'

'Well,' said Gertrude, 'I am sorry Tom is not an American share-holder.
It was such fun!'

'He wanted to have made them all over to Henry; but Cora was
determined; and her father is making heaps of money as a commissary, so
I am sure he could afford it. Some day, when the rebellion is subdued,
I mean to go and see Cora and Henry and his wife,' added Ella, whose
tinge of Americanism formed an amusing contrast with Dickie's colonial
ease--especially when she began to detail the discomforts of
Massissauga, and he made practical suggestions for the remedies of
each--describing how mamma and he himself managed.

The younger ones had all gone to bed, Richard had returned home, and
Ethel was waiting to let her father in, when Leonard came back with the
new arrivals.

'I did not think you would be allowed to stay so late,' said Ethel.

'We did not talk much. I was playing chants most of the time; and
after she went to bed, I stayed with Tom.'

'What do you think of her?'

'I cannot think. I can only feel a sort of awe. End as it may, it
will have been a blessed thing to have had her among us like this.'

'Yes, it ought to do us all good. And I think she is full of
enjoyment.'

'Perfect enjoyment!' repeated Leonard. 'Thank God for that!'

After some pause, during which he turned over his pocket-book, as if
seeking for something, he came to her, and said, 'Miss May, Averil has
assented to a purpose that has long been growing up within me--and that
I had rather consult you about than any one, because you first inspired
it.'

'I think I know the purpose you mean,' said Ethel, her heart beating
high.

'The first best purpose of my boyhood,' he said. 'If only it may be
given back to me! Will you be kind enough to look over this rough
copy?'

It was the draught of a letter to the Missionary Bishop, Mr. Seaford's
diocesan, briefly setting forth Leonard's early history, his
conviction, and his pardon, referring to Archdeacon May as a witness to
the truth of his narrative.

'After this statement,' he proceeded, 'it appears to me little short of
effrontery to offer myself for any share of the sacred labour in which
your Lordship is engaged; and though it had been the wish of the best
days of my youth, I should not have ventured on the th