ne who held towards her the
relation now borne by Nathanael Harper.

At length even the good-natured elder brother's flow of conversation
seemed to fail, and he gave hints about leaving, to which the younger
tacitly consented. Agatha bade them both good-night in public, and crept
away, as she thought, unobserved, to her own sitting-room.

There she stood before the hearth, which looked cheerful enough this
wet July night,--the fire-light shining on her hands, as they hung down
listlessly folded together. She was thinking how strange everything
seemed about her, and what a change had come in a few days, nay, hours.

Suddenly a light touch was laid on her hand. It startled her, but she
did not attempt to shake it off. She knew quite well whose hand it was,
and that it had a right to be there.

"Agatha!"

She half turned, and said once more "Good-night."

"Good-night, _my_ Agatha."

And for a minute he stood, holding her hand by the fire-light, until
some one below called out loudly for "Mr. Harper." Then a kiss, soft and
timid as a woman's, trembled over Agatha's mouth, and he was gone.

This was the first time she had ever been kissed by any man. The feeling
it left was very new, tremulous, and strange.

CHAPTER VI.

The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury
Church--with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and
Jane's sickly unhappy face at the other--Agatha said her prayers in due
sabbatical form. "Said her prayers" is the right phrase, for trouble
had not yet opened her young heart to pray. Yet she was a good girl, not
wilfully undevout; and if during the long missionary-sermon she secretly
got her prayer-book and read--what was the most likely portion to
attract her--the marriage service, it was with feelings solemnised
and not unsacred. Some portions of it made her very thoughtful, so
thoughtful that when suddenly startled by the conclusion of the sermon,
she prayed--not with the clergyman, for "Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
Heretics"--but for two young creatures, herself and another, who perhaps
needed Heaven's merciful blessings quite as much.

When she rose up it was with moist eyelashes; and then she perceived
what until this minute she had not seen,--that close behind her, sitting
where he had probably sat all church-time, was Nathanael Harper.

If anything can touch the heart of a generous woman, when it is still
a free heart, it is that quiet, unobtru