ased with your hamper of country
produce; but you will, no doubt, have heard from her before
this. She is looking wonderfully well, and not a day older
than when I left England. As for Madeleine Linders, I hardly
recognised her, she is so grown and so much improved. I find I
have at least a fortnight's business in London, and then I
will run down to you for another visit, if I may. Would it put
you out very much if I brought Madeleine with me for a time? I
should like you and her to know each other, and a change would
do her good. Aunt Barbara seems to have been giving her a
high-pressure education, with no fun to counterbalance it, and
the poor child finds it horribly dull work; and no wonder--I
know I should be sorry to go through it myself. A few weeks
with you and the children would brighten her up, and do her
all the good in the world. Let me know what you think of it.

"Ever yours,

"Horace Graham."

CHAPTER III.

At Ashurst.

It was two days after Graham's talk with Madelon, that some
people of whom mention has once or twice been made in this
little history, were sitting chatting together as they drank
their afternoon tea in Mrs. Vavasour's drawing room at
Ashurst, a low, dark-panelled, chintz-furnished room, with an
ever-pervading scent of dried rose-leaves, and fresh flowers,
and with long windows opening on to the little lawn, all shut
in with trees and shrubberies. Mrs. Vavasour, who sat by the
fire knitting, was a calm, silent, gentle-looking woman, with
smooth, fair hair under her lace cap, and those pathetic lines
we sometimes see in the faces of those who through
circumstances, or natural temperament, have achieved
contentment through the disappointments of life, rather than
through its fulfilled hopes. She was the mother of many
children, of whom the elder half was already dispersed--one was
married, one dead, one in India, and one at sea; of those
still at home, the eldest, Madge, an honest, sturdy, square-
faced child of eleven or twelve, was in the room now, handing
about tea-cups and bread-and-butter. Dr. Vavasour was a big,
white-haired man, many years older than his wife, who had
married him when she was only seventeen; he was a clever man,
and a popular doctor, and having just come in from a twenty
miles' drive through March winds and rain, was standing with
his back to the mantelpiece, with an air of having thoroughly
earned warmth and repose. He was discussing parish matters
with