ide the path. Kenelm
seated himself there too, waiting for her to finish her broken sentence.

"You see," she continued, looking down embarrassed, and describing vague
circles on the gravel with her fairy-like foot, "that at home, ever
since I can remember, they have treated me as if--well, as if I
were--what shall I say? the child of one of your great ladies. Even
Lion, who is so noble, so grand, seemed to think when I was a mere
infant that I was a little queen: once when I told a fib he did not
scold me; but I never saw him look so sad and so angry as when he said,
'Never again forget that you are a lady.' And, but I tire you--"

"Tire me, indeed! go on."

"No, I have said enough to explain why I have at times proud thoughts,
and vain thoughts; and why, for instance, I said to myself, 'Perhaps my
place of right is among those fine ladies whom he--' but it is all over
now." She rose hastily with a pretty laugh, and bounded towards Mrs.
Cameron, who was walking slowly along the lawn with a book in her hand.

CHAPTER XII.

IT was a very merry party at the vicarage that evening. Lily had not
been prepared to meet Kenelm there, and her face brightened wonderfully
as at her entrance he turned from the book-shelves to which Mr. Emlyn
was directing his attention. But instead of meeting his advance, she
darted off to the lawn, where Clemmy and several other children greeted
her with a joyous shout.

"Not acquainted with Macleane's Juvenal?" said the reverend scholar;
"you will be greatly pleased with it; here it is,--a posthumous work,
edited by George Long. I can lend you Munro's Lucretius, '69. Aha! we
have some scholars yet to pit against the Germans."

"I am heartily glad to hear it," said Kenelm. "It will be a long time
before they will ever wish to rival us in that game which Miss Clemmy
is now forming on the lawn, and in which England has recently acquired a
European reputation."

"I don't take you. What game?"

"Puss in the Corner. With your leave I will look out and see whether
it be a winning game for puss--in the long-run." Kenelm joined the
children, amidst whom Lily seemed not the least childlike. Resisting all
overtures from Clemmy to join their play, he seated himself on a sloping
bank at a little distance,--an idle looker-on. His eye followed Lily's
nimble movements, his ear drank in the music of her joyous laugh. Could
that be the same girl whom he had seen tending the flower-bed amid the
grave