r knew her till now."

A favorite myrtle of hers stood in the window; he broke off a sprig of
it, and placed it in his button-hole, and then slowly passed down the
stairs and out into the lawn. With very sombre thoughts and slow steps
he retraced his way to the cottage. He went over to himself much of his
past life, and saw it, as very young men will often in such retrospects,
far less favorably as regarded himself than it really was. He ought to
have done--Heaven knows what. He ought to have been--scores of things
which he never was, perhaps never could be. At all events, there was one
thing he never should have imagined, that Alice Lyle--she was Alice
Lyle always to him--in her treatment of him was ever more closely drawn
towards him than the others of her family. "It was simply the mingled
kindness and caprice of her nature that made, the difference; and if I
had n't been a vain fool, I 'd have seen it. I see it now, though; I
can read it in the very smile she has in her picture. To be sure I have
learned a good deal since I was here last; I have outgrown a good many
illusions. I once imagined this dwarfed and stinted scrub to be a wood.
I fancied the Abbey to be like a royal palace; and in Sicily a whole
battalion of us have bivouacked in a hall that led to suites of rooms
without number. If a mere glimpse of the world could reveal such
astounding truths, what might not come of a more lengthened experience?"

"How tired and weary you look, Tony!" said his mother, as he threw
himself into a chair; "have you overwalked yourself?"

"I suppose so," said he, with a half smile. "In my poorer days I thought
nothing of going to the Abbey and back twice--I have done it even
thrice--in one day; but perhaps this weight of gold I carry now is too
heavy for me."

"I 'd like to see you look more grateful for your good for time, Tony,"
said she, gravely.

"I'm not ungrateful, mother; but up to this I have not thought much of
the matter. I suspect, however, I was never designed for a life of ease
and enjoyment Do you remember what Dr. Stewart said one day?--'You may
put a weed in a garden, and dig round it and water it, and it will only
grow to be a big weed after all.'"

"I hope better from Tony,--far better," said she, sharply. "Have you
answered M'Carthy's letter? Have you arranged where you are to meet the
lawyers?"

"I have said in Dublin. They couldn't come here, mother; we have no room
for them in this crib."

"You