r suit. You may carry it how you
will--what says the song?

'_She_ never will forget;
The gold she gave was not thy _gain_,
But it must be thy _debt_.'

"But come, our host is punctual to his dinner hour, and if we journey
back at the same pace we have travelled here, we shall not have much
time upon our hands." And accordingly the two friends set themselves in
motion to return to the house.

Our readers have, of course, discovered that, in spite of his
disclaimer, Reginald Darcy _was_ in love with Emily Sherwood. He was,
indeed, very far gone, and had suffered great extremities; but his pride
had kept pace with his passion. Left an orphan at an early age, and
placed by the will of his father under the guardianship of Mr Sherwood,
Darcy had found in the residence of that gentleman a home during the
holidays when a schoolboy, and during the vacations when a collegian.
Having lately taken his degree at Cambridge, with high honours, which
had been strenuously contended for, and purchased by severe labour, he
was now recruiting his health, and enjoying a season of well-earned
leisure under his guardian's roof. As Mr Sherwood was old and gouty, and
confined much to his room, it fell on him to escort Emily in her rides
or walks. She whom he had known, and been so often delighted with, as
his little playmate, had grown into the young and lovely woman. Briefly,
our Darcy was a lost man--gone--head and heart. But then--she was the
only daughter of Mr Sherwood, she was a wealthy heiress--he was
comparatively poor. Her father had been to him the kindest of guardians:
ought he to repay that kindness by destroying, perhaps, his proudest
schemes? Ought he, a man of fitting and becoming pride, to put himself
in the equivocal position which the poor suitor of a wealthy heiress
must inevitably occupy? "He invites me," he would say to himself, "he
presses me to stay here, week after week, and month after month, because
the idea that I should seek to carry away his daughter never enters into
his head. And she--she is so frank, so gay, so amiable, and almost fond,
because she has never recognized, with the companion of her childhood,
the possibility of such a thing as marriage. There is but one part for
me--silence, strict, unbroken silence!"

Charles Griffith was not far from the truth, when he said that it would
be difficult to find a better specimen of her fascinating sex than the
daughter of their host. But it was