nths before,
when I arrived there in the bleak January weather. The thought of
five weeks' respite from the monotonous routine of Albury Lodge was
almost perfect happiness. I did not forget those I loved at home, or
cease to regret the poverty that prevented my going home for the
holidays; but since this was impossible, nothing could have been
pleasanter than the idea of the visit I was going to pay.

Throughout the journey Mr. Darrell was all that was gracious and
kind. He talked a good deal of his wife; dwelling much upon her
accomplishments and amiability, and assuring his daughter again and
again that she could not fail to love her.

'I was a little bit of a coward in the business, I confess, Milly,'
he said, in the midst of this talk, 'and hadn't courage to tell you
anything till the deed was done; and then I thought it was as well
to let Julian make the announcement.'

'You ought to have trusted me better, papa,' Milly said tenderly;
and I knew what perfect self-abnegation there was in the happy smile
with which she gave him her hand.

'And you are not angry with me, my darling?' he asked.

'Angry with you, papa? as if I had any right to be angry with you!
Only try to love me a little, as you used to do, and I shall be
quite happy.'

'I shall never love you less, my dear.'

The journey was not a long one; and the country through which we
passed was very fair to look upon in the bright June afternoon. The
landscape changed when we were within about thirty miles of our
destination: the fertile farmlands and waving fields of green corn
gave place to an open moor, and I felt from far off the fresh breath
of the ocean. This broad undulating moorland was new to me, and I
thought there was a wild kind of beauty in its loneliness. As for
Milly, she looked out at the moor with rapture, and strained her
eyes to catch the first glimpse of the hills about Thornleigh--those
hills of which she had talked to me so often in her little room at
school.

The station we had to stop at was ten miles from Mr. Darrell's
house, and a barouche-and-pair was waiting for us in the sunny road
outside. We drove along a road that crossed the moor, until we came
to a little village of scattered houses, with a fine old church--at
one end of which an ancient sacristy seemed mouldering slowly to
decay. We drove past the gates of two or three rather important
houses, lying half-hidden in their gardens, and then turned sharply
off into a