o it."

"Not a word! Go and tell her all. Let her be the first to hear it. Away
with you! the sun is coming out. Run and talk in the garden-alleys,
children!"

Her manner, so playful, yet full of keen penetration, drove them away
like a battery of sunbeams.

"What does she mean?" said Agatha, looking up puzzled, as they stood in
the hall.

"She reads people's minds wonderfully clear; she always did, but clearer
than ever now. It is strange. Agatha, do you think"--

"I think all sorts of things about her--different and contrary every
hour. But the chief thought of all is, that you must go to Havre at
once. I long for Uncle Brian's coming. How soon can you return?"

"As soon as practicable, you may be sure of that. But you must relax
your interest even in Uncle Brian just now; I want to talk to you. Shall
we go, as Anne said, into the garden-alleys?"

"Anywhere that is sunny and warm," said Agatha, with a light shiver. Her
husband regarded her with that serious pathetic smile which was one of
his frequent moods.

"Must you always have sunshine, Agatha? Could you not walk a little
while in the shade? Not if I were with you?"

She cast her eyes down, trembling with a vague apprehension of ill; then
gazed in the kind face that grew kinder and dearer every day. She put
her hand in her husband's without speaking a word. He folded it up
close, the soft little hand, and looked pleased.

"Come now, let us go into the garden."

Agatha wrapped a shawl about her, gipsy-fashion, and met him there. It
was one of those mild days that sometimes come near upon Christmas, as
if the year had repented itself, and just before dying, was dreaming of
its lost springtide. The arbutus-trees were glistening with sunshine,
and under the high wall a row of camellias, grown in great bushes in
the open air, the pride of Anne's gardener and of the whole county of
Dorset, were beginning to show buds, red, white, and variegated, as
beautiful as summer roses.

"I used to be so fond of this walk when I was a little lad," said
Nathanael, "I remember, after I had the scarlet-fever, being nursed well
here; and how every day when my brother came, he used to carry me up and
down this sunny walk on his back. Poor Fred! he was the kindest fellow
to children."

"Kindness seems his nature. I think that if your brother did any harm
it would never be through malice or intention, but only weakness of
character."

"I perceive," Mr. Harper said, abru