er case. 'I have a
small offering for my godson in the shape of the inevitable mug, and I
mean to give this to Leonard's mamma.'

'It is very handsome; mother thinks so: don't you, mother? and Gage is
devoted to bracelets; but I like mine ever so much better; it is the
very perfection of a cross, and I shall value it, ah, so dearly,
Michael!' and Audrey held out her hand as she spoke.

Michael pressed it silently. It was little wonder, he thought, that
Audrey liked her gift better than Geraldine's; it had cost at least
three times as much; in fact, its value had been so great that he had
written the cheque with some slight feeling of shame and compunction.
'There is no harm, after all, and she is so fond of diamonds,' he
assured himself, as he put the little case in his pocket; 'she will not
know what it cost me, and he will never be able to buy ornaments for
her--I may as well give myself this pleasure;' and just for the moment
it did please him to see her delight over the ornament.

'It is not so much the diamonds that please me, as Michael's kindness
and generosity,' she said to Cyril the next day. 'He has bought nothing
for himself, and yet he has been in town a whole month; he only thought
of us.'

And Cyril observed quietly, as he closed the case, that it was certainly
very kind of Captain Burnett; but a close observer would have said that
Michael's generosity had not quite pleased him.

'I suppose you will wear this to-night at the Charringtons'?' he asked
presently.

'Yes; and those lovely flowers you have brought me,' she added, with one
of her charming smiles; and somehow the cloud passed in a moment from
the young man's brow.

What did it matter, after all, that he could not give her diamonds? Had
he not given himself to her, and did they not belong to each other for
time and for eternity? And as he thought this he took her in his arms
with a loving speech.

'You are sweet as the very sweetest of my flowers,' he said, holding her
close to him. 'You are the very dearest thing in the world to me,
Audrey; and sometimes, when I think of the future, I am almost beside
myself with happiness.'

When the little excitement of the diamonds was over, Michael relapsed
again into gravity, and he was still grave when he went up to Hillside
the next day. A wakeful night's reflection had brought him no comfort;
he felt as though a gulf were opening before him and those whom he
loved, and that he dared not, for ve