d with a halo; and her
affection being equally returned, both found their greatest happiness
in each other's society.

Oh, what fun they had together in the oak parlour! Oh, the shouts of
ringing laughter and the merry jest of words! Now and then Dick would
bring home with him his special friend, Archie Trollope, and what a
night would follow,--Winnie entering into their games with all the zest
of her tomboy nature.

She never felt solitary or out of place in the company of these two
boys; and they--why, they looked upon her as one of themselves: Dick
describing her to his numerous companions as being a "tip-top" girl,
and Archie singing her praises loudly to his own sisters who never knew
what it was to join in a madcap frolic, and whose voices were strictly
modulated to society pitch.

Sometimes, in the long winter evenings, the trio, tired with play,
would lower the gas, and gathering round the large, blazing fire, tell
ghost stories with such thrilling earnestness that often the ghastly
phantoms seemed to merge almost into reality, and they found themselves
starting at a falling cinder or the sound of a footstep in the passage
outside. On those occasions the window-blind was usually drawn up to
the top, that the pale, glimmering moonlight might stream in; and as
the soft silvery beams stole silently into the room and laid their
tremulous light on the young forms and awestruck faces, the flames
leaping and crackling joined in enhancing the effect of the story by
throwing on the walls weird shadows of a moving spectral band.

But the winter days were yet to come, though the cold autumn winds and
falling leaves heralded their sure approach; and this evening Winnie
and Dick were engaged--not in wandering hand in hand into wonderland,
but in the prosaic occupation of making toffy.

Winnie, enveloped in one of nurse's huge bib-aprons, stood at a little
distance from the fire, busily studying a book of recipes; while Dick,
his honest face burnt to the colour of a lobster, was bending over a
saucepan and stirring manfully the tempting contents.

"Yes," said the young lady, laying aside the well-thumbed volume and
taking a step forward, "the quantities are correct. I am sure this
will be excellent toffy, but--Dick, you shocking boy! whatever are you
doing? Licking the spoon, I declare. How very vulgar!" and Winnie
opened her eyes in horrified amazement at her brother's lack of
good-breeding.

"Well, you see, W