me explain to you that when this
letter arrives he will be already gone."

The father started--and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood
a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like
a cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's
ready hand--thanked him--bade good morning to the womenkind all round,
and left them.

"Shall I ride with you, father?" said Nathanael, following him to the
hall-door, with a concerned air.

"Not to-day--I thank you! Not to-day."

Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. "This will be a sad blow to
papa," said the former. "Frederick was always a great anxiety to him."

Agatha inquired wherefore.

"Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished
his eldest son to settle down in the county. I know--though he says
nothing--that this has been a sore point between them for nearly twenty
years."

"And I know," added Eulalie, mysteriously, "that papa was going to make
a last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A
pretty fight there would have been--papa and Frederick against Marmaduke
and his pet candidate!"

"'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best," said
Mary, sagely. "But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or
he would say we had been gossiping."

Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life,
from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were
wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared,
riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up
one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can
drive, and make herself independent of everybody.

"It is Anne Valery!" was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the
door--Agatha being the first.

"My dear--my dear!" murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little
carriage to pat the brown curls. "Are you quite well?--quite happy? And
your husband?" She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry.
"Is all well, Nathanael?"

Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought,
as usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly,
"Yes, Anne, all is well!"

She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage.
Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright
colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she
ca