d half a mind to stop another week at his
aunt's--but Gertrude was not enjoying herself. From behind the gorse
bushes, from between the moss-grown boulders, from beneath the dark
foliage of the Scotch firs, there peeped at her a ghost.

She saw it everywhere. It was the ghost of Reggie Alston.

The next day was Sunday; always a quiet home day in the St. Olave's
household, and in the little interval between tea-time and
evening service the whole family were gathered in the cool shaded
drawing-room, reading, or listening to Gertrude's description of the
yesterday's picnic. Suddenly she broke in upon her own narrative with
a question--

"Mother, how did you and father happen to meet and like one another?"

Mrs. Brougham smiled as she glanced over at Mr. Brougham.

"My dear!" she said, "that's a very old story!"

"Mother won't tell it!" said Willie in his slow, drawly way, "so I
will; I know all about it. Father made up his mind that there was
nobody like mother in all the world, but prospects were bad in England
and he did not see how he could buy the furniture, so he did not say
a word to anybody except to his own mother, and he went to China and
saved up, and in four years he came back because the firm shut up
shop, and the first thing he heard when he got back, was that mother
was going into a big hospital to train as a nurse, and he said to
himself, 'One of those doctors will take a fancy to her, as sure as
sure,' so he put on his best clothes and rushed off--and--and--"

"Proposed," ended up Gertrude. "Of course I know all that as well as
you do. What I want to know is before all that."

"Now it is my turn," said Mr. Brougham looking up from his book,
"before that, mother used to give music lessons to my little
step-sister and brother--and two more rampageous little mortals
I never came across--and they were always in hot water with their
masters and mistresses. But whatever they did, she was so patient and
gentle--though she made them mind her too--but she never spoke
sharply or raised her voice. I used to stand on the stairs outside the
drawing-room door, to be sure that they were not very naughty to her,
and I made up my mind then. When true love comes to bless us, it
is generally through some little everyday thing, some strength or
tenderness of character, some simple good quality, some sympathetic
tone, or some unselfish act."

"Oh, what fun it would have been if mother had come out and caught
you," cr