not minded to allow Maurice to wander about all the morning with Vera.

"Are you going for a walk?" she called out to them across the water.
"Wait for me; I am coming with you."

Vera turned quickly to her companion.

"Is it true that you are engaged to her?" she asked him rapidly, in a low
voice.

Maurice hesitated. Morally speaking, he was engaged to her; but, then, it
had been agreed between them that he was to deny any such engagement. He
felt singularly disinclined to let Vera know what was the truth.

"People say you are," she said, once more. "Will you tell me if it is
true?"

"No; there is no engagement between us," he answered, gravely.

"I am very glad," she answered, earnestly. He coloured, but he had no
time to ask her why she was glad--for Helen came up to them.

"How interested you look in each other's conversation!" she said, looking
suspiciously at them both. "May I not hear what you have been talking
about?"

"Anybody might hear," answered Vera, carelessly, "were it worth one's
while to take the trouble of repeating it."

Maurice said nothing. He was angry with Helen for having interrupted
them, and angry with himself for having denied his semi-engagement. He
stood looking away from them both, prodding his stick into the gravel
walk.

For half a minute they stood silently together.

"Let us go on," said Vera, and they began to walk.

Once again in the days that were to come those three stood side by side
upon the margin of Shadonake Bath.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MEET AT SHADONAKE.

The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar.

Shelley.

Mrs. Macpherson had brought up her daughters with one fixed and
predominant idea in her mind. Each of them was to excel in some one taste
or accomplishment, by virtue of which they might be enabled to shine in
society. They were taught to do one thing well. Thus, Sophy, the eldest,
played the piano remarkably, whilst Jessie painted in water-colours with
charming exactitude and neatness. They had both had first-rate masters,
and no pains had been spared to make each of them proficient in the
accomplishment that had been selected for her. But, as neither of these
young ladies had any natural talent, the result was hardly so
satisfactory as their fond mother could have desired. They did exactly
what they had been taught to do with precision and conscientiousness; no
less and no more; a