nd perhaps I may not have to write it many times. If I grow
very rich, mamma, we shall soon pay off this debt, and then we shall
never hear any more of Harold Gwynne. Oh! how happy that would be!"

The letter went, and an answer arrived in due form, not to Mrs., but to
Miss Rothesay:

"Madam,--I thank you for your letter, and have pleasure in
cancelling a portion of my claim. I would fain cancel the
whole of it, but I must not sacrifice my own household to
that of strangers.

"Allow me to express my deep respect for a child so
honourably jealous over a father's memory, and to subscribe
myself,

"Your very obedient,

"Harold Gwynne."

"He is not so stony-hearted after all, mamma," said Olive, smiling.
"Shall I put this letter with the other; we had better keep them both?"

"Certainly, my dear."

"Look, the envelope is edged and sealed with black."

"Is it? Oh, perhaps he has lost his mother. I think I once heard your
poor papa say he knew her once. She must be now an old woman; still her
loss has probably been a grief to her son."

"Most likely," said Olive, hastily. She never could bear to hear of any
one's mother dying; it made her feel compassionately even towards Mr.
Gwynne; and then she quickly changed the subject.

The two letters were put by in her desk; and thus, for a season at
least, the Harbury correspondence closed.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Seven summers more the grand old mulberry-tree at Woodford Cottage has
borne leaf, flower, and fruit; the old dog that used to lie snarling
under its branches, lies there still, but snarls no more. Between him
and the upper air are two feet of earth, together with an elegant canine
tombstone, on which Miss Rothesay, by the entreaty of the disconsolate
Meliora, has modelled in clay a very good likeness of the departed.

Snap is the only individual who has passed away at Woodford Cottage; in
all things else there has been an increase, not a decrease. The peaches
and nectarines cover two walls instead of one, and the clematis has
mounted in white virgin beauty even to the roof. Altogether, the garden
is changed for the better. Trim it is not, and never would be--thanks
to Olive, who, a true lover of the picturesque, hated trim gardens,--but
its luxuriance is that of flowers, not weeds; and luxuriant it is,
so that every day you might pull for a friend that pleasantest of all
pleasant gifts, a nosegay; yea, and after