suppose there ever was anything really in
that old story. How handsome she is, and how graceful. I wonder--"

He broke off in his musing fit to light a cigar, and see through the
curling smoke dark-eyed Ada, mamma to little Aileen as well as the other
two. He had never thought of wanting a wife before, in all the years of
his widowhood; but the want struck him forcibly now.

"And Aileen wants a mother, and the little baronet a father," he
thought, complacently; "my lady can't do better."

So next day, the earliest possible hour brought back the gallant
colonel, and with him a brown-haired, brown-eyed, quiet-looking little
girl, as tall, every inch, as Sir Rupert. A little embryo patrician,
with pride in her infantile lineaments already, an uplifted poise of the
graceful head, a light, elastic step, and a softly-modulated voice. A
little lady from top to toe, who opened her brown eyes in wide wonder at
the antics, and gambols, and obstreperousness, generally, of little May.

There were two or three children from the rectory, and half a dozen from
other families in the neighborhood--and the little birthday feast was
under the charge of Mrs. Weymore, the governess, pale and pretty, and
subdued, as of old. They raced through the leafy arcades of the park
and gambolled in the garden, and had tea in a fairy summer-house, to the
music of plashing fountains--and little May was captain of the band.
Even shy, still Aileen Jocyln forgot her youthful dignity, and raced and
laughed with the best.

"It was so nice, papa!" she cried, rapturously, riding home in the misty
moonlight. "I never enjoyed myself so well. I like Rupert so
much--better than May, you know; May's so rude, and laughs so loud. I've
asked them to come and see me, papa; and May said she would make her
mamma let them come next week. And then I'm going back--I shall always
like to go there."

Colonel Jocyln smiled as he listened to his little daughter's prattle.
Perhaps he agreed with her; perhaps he too, liked to go there. The
dinner-party, at which he and the rector of St. Gosport and the rector's
wife were the only guests, had been quite as pleasant as the birthday
fete. Very graceful, very fair and stately, had looked the lady of the
manor, presiding at her own dinner-table. How well she would look at the
head of his?

The Indian officer, after that became a very frequent guest at Thetford
Towers--the children were such a good excuse. Aileen was lonely at h