ty of age.
Even when this is on the woman's side, I can imagine circumstances that
would make it far less ludicrous and pitiful; and there are few things
to me more touching, more full of sad earnest, than to see an old man
in love with a young girl.

Lord Ravenel's case would hardly come under this category; yet the
difference between seventeen and thirty-seven was sufficient to warrant
in him a trembling uncertainty, and eager catching at the skirts of
that vanishing youth whose preciousness he never seemed to have
recognized till now. It was with a mournful interest that all day I
watched him follow the child about, gather her posies, help her to
water her flowers, and accommodate himself to those whims and fancies,
of which, as the pet and the youngest, Mistress Maud had her full share.

When, at her usual hour of half-past nine, the little lady was summoned
away to bed, "to keep up her roses," he looked half resentful of the
mother's interference.

"Maud is not a child now; and this may be my last night--" he stopped,
sensitively, at the involuntary foreboding.

"Your last night? Nonsense! you will come back soon again. You
must--you shall!" said Maud, decisively.

"I hope I may--I trust in Heaven I may!"

He spoke low, holding her hand distantly and reverently, not attempting
to kiss it, as in all his former farewells he had invariably done.

"Maud, remember me! However or whenever I come back, dearest child, be
faithful, and remember me!"

Maud fled away with a sob of childish pain--partly anger, the mother
thought--and slightly apologized to the guest for her daughter's
"naughtiness."

Lord Ravenel sat silent for a long, long time.

Just when we thought he purposed leaving, he said, abruptly, "Mr.
Halifax, may I have five minutes' speech with you in the study?"

The five minutes extended to half an hour. Mrs. Halifax wondered what
on earth they were talking about. I held my peace. At last the father
came in alone.

"John, is Lord Ravenel gone?"

"Not yet."

"What could he have wanted to say to you?"

John sat down by his wife, picked up the ball of her knitting, rolled
and unrolled it. She saw at once that something had grieved and
perplexed him exceedingly. Her heart shrunk back--that still sore
heart!--recoiled with a not unnatural fear.

"Oh, husband, is it any new misfortune?"

"No, love," cheering her with a smile; "nothing that fathers and
mothers in general would consider a