morning,--in the
homeliness of the English garden, with tall hollyhocks, espalier apple
trees, and one labourer digging amid the cabbages. Joy crystal as the
morning itself illumined John's mind for a moment, and then faded, and
he was left lonely with the remembrance that his fate had still to be
decided, that it still hung in the scale.

One evening as they were walking in the park, shadowy in the twilight of
an approaching storm, Kitty said:

"I never would have believed, John, that you could care to go out for a
walk with me."

"And why, Kitty?"

Kitty laughed--her short sudden laugh was strange and sweet. John's
heart was beating. "Well," she said, without the faintest hesitation or
shyness, "we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you,
when you came home for the first time; when you used to think of nothing
but the Latin authors."

"What do you mean?"

Kitty laughed again.

"You promise not to tell?"

"I promise."

This was their first confidence.

"You told your mother when I came, when you were sitting by the fire
reading, that the flutter of my skirts disturbed you."

"No, Kitty, I'm sure you never disturbed me, or at least not for a long
time. I wish my mother would not repeat conversations, it is most
unfair."

"Mind you, you promised not to repeat what I have told you. If you do,
you will get me into an awful scrape."

"I promise."

The conversation came to a pause. Presently Kitty said, "But you seem to
have got over your dislike to girls. I saw you talking a long while with
Miss Orme the other day; and at the Meet you seemed to admire her. She
was the prettiest girl we had here."

"No, indeed she wasn't!"

"Who was, then?"

"You were."

Kitty looked up; and there was so much astonishment in her face that
John in a sudden access of fear said, "We had better make haste, the
storm is coming on; we shall get wet through."

They ran towards the house. John reproached himself bitterly, but
he made no further attempt to screw his courage up to the point
of proposing. His disappointment was followed by doubts. Was his
powerlessness a sign from God that he was abandoning his true vocation
for a false one? and a little shaken, he attempted to interest himself
in the re-building of his house; but the project had grown impossible to
him, and he felt he could not embrace it again, with any of the old
enthusiasm at least, until he had been refused by Kitty. There were
mome