tly."

"Dear me! what an odd creature that Miss Moore is!" thought the maid, as
she flew back to the house. "Instead of being in the house, enjoying the
music and the grand toilets of the aristocracy that's here to-night,
she's out in the loneliest part of the grounds. But, dear me! what an
amazing goose I am to be sure. She must have a lover with her, and in
that case the grove's a paradise. Too bad my lady was so imperative. I
would have pretended that I couldn't find her--just yet."

Bernardine stooped down, and wetting her handkerchief in the brook,
laved her face with it.

She dared not approach the grand old lady with her face swollen with
tears, as she was sure it must be.

Bernardine found her quite beside herself with excitement.

"I heard the whistle of the incoming train some fifteen minutes ago,
Miss Moore," she said. "My son has reached the station by this time. I
have sent our fastest team down to meet him. He will be here at any
moment. Ah! that is his step I hear now in the corridor! I am trembling
so with excitement that I can hardly stand. Do not leave, Miss Moore. I
may need you in case this meeting is too much for me and I should faint
away in his strong arms."

The footsteps that Bernardine remembered so well came nearer.

She pressed her hand tightly over her heart to still its wild beating.

Bernardine could have cried aloud in her agony; but her white lips
uttered no moan, no sound, even when the door was flung open and a tall,
handsome form sprung over the threshold.

"Where are you, mother?" cried Jay Gardiner. "The room is so dark that I
can not see where you are!"

The next moment the proud, stately old lady was sobbing on the breast of
the son she idolized.

She forgot that in the shadow of the alcove stood her companion; she
forgot the existence of every one save her darling boy, whom she clasped
so joyfully.

Bernardine watched him herself, unseen, her whole heart in her eyes,
like one turned into stone.

His handsome face was pale, even haggard; the dark hair, that waved back
from the broad brow, was the same; but his eyes--those bonny, sunny,
laughing blue eyes--were sadly changed. There was an unhappy look in
them, a restless expression, deepening almost into despair. There was a
story of some kind in his face, a repressed passion and fire, a
something Bernardine could not understand.

"I am not alone, you must remember, mother, dear," he said in his deep,
musical voic