truth. While Arthur and I were talking to Mr. and Mrs. Mordaunt, the girls had drawn Agnes a little aside, and were affectionately inquiring after her health, and grieving over her altered looks. She answered them with great composure, and said she expected each day to feel stronger and better. She did not attempt to give any reason for her indisposition, and they were too well-bred and too kindhearted to ask any questions. I asked for Henry, and was told he had gone to spend the day at Hartley Grange. We now took our leave, and at the door we encountered Mr. Willis, who had slept at the Rectory the preceding night, and did not intend to return home till the following day. I told him a note from my father was on its way to his house, begging him for once to break through his rule, and join the circle about to be assembled at the hall. To my surprise, instead of giving a decided refusal, he said he was very much obliged to Sir Henry, and, with his leave, would take time to consider of it.

"What can have come to Mr. Willis?" I exclaimed, as soon as we had parted from him; "dining and sleeping two nights at the Rectory, and actually hesitating about accepting an invitation to stay in the house with a large party!"

"Has he always been so entire a recluse?" asked Arthur ; 66 For is it a whim of late years?"

"Indeed," I answered, "little is known in these parts of his early life, which was chiefly spent in or near London; but it is believed that he was very gay, and got through at least half of his property. About seven years ago, when he was little more than thirty, he took possession of that pretty cottage on the road between Leyton and Marden, and there he has remained ever since; nor do I think that he has been known to sleep a night away from home till the last, when he consented to remain at the Mordaunts. When he first came to live here, I remember it was rumoured that he had formerly borne a different name, and had recently changed it for that of Willis, in consequence of an inheritance of about a thousand a-year, left to him under this condition.

It was supposed that this did not comprise the whole of his income, though he had but one maid-servant, and a man to look after his horse and garden, he shut up all except two rooms for himself, and two garrets for his servants, and refused to see a human being. His charities have been unbounded. Many

of the surrounding gentlemen called upon him, but all were denied admittance; and exactly three days after each of these gentlemen had paid him their visit, his card was left at their doors. He was a regular attendant at Leyton church; and, after five years of entire solitude, he at last agreed to see Mr. Mordaunt. Since then, he has relaxed so far as to act as a magistrate, and occasionally to admit a visiter at his own cottage, and even to call in return; but ladies have always inspired him with the greatest abhorrence, and if, on any one of these occasions, a daughter of the family has chanced to enter the room, he has been observed to shudder, and to make some excuse for going away directly. His extraordinary conduct is imagined to have been caused by some disappointment in love, and I think not unjustly, after the hints he dropped last night."

“I think so, too,” replied Arthur; "but I fancy I see a reason for this alteration in his behaviour-don't you, Caro

line?"

"No, I do not; what is it?”

I was not very quicksighted in these matters unless my feelings were personally interested in the case; and then, as the reader may have already observed, I was given to surmise a good deal beyond the truth.

"I believe I can guess your meaning, Captain Mildmay,” said Agnes; "for I was at the Rectory one morning when Mr. Willis was there."

"Were you?" asked Arthur, abstractedly, and at that moment their eyes met. It was but for a moment, however; for Agnes quickly turned her's away, and Arthur fixed his upon the ground. But I had seen it, and said, angrily

"It is thus that Agnes reads what is passing in your mind, I suppose, Arthur! Really it is quite embarrassing to play third on these occasions, and, at this distance from London, the proprieties of etiquette scarcely require the sacrifice. Another day I will be careful not to inflict my presence upon you."

At this cruel taunt, Agnes covered her face with her hand, and almost shrieked the words

66

Oh, Caroline, Caroline! spare me! I have not deserved this!"

The colour rose in Arthur's cheek, and overspread his forehead, as he said in a firm and commanding tone

for

"Caroline, if you have the slightest particle of affection be silent! I entreat-nay, moree-I desire it!"

me,

I was silent, not only because there was something in his voice and manner which I dared not disobey, but because I was nearly choked by mingled feelings of shame and anger.

We had now reached the cottage with the unknown tenant; and, as we passed its gate, every blind was down, and not the smallest sight or sound was there to tell of any living thing. Arthur turned to Agnes, and, pointedly addressing her, he made the above remark, adding, that the woman had doubtless kept the child indoors until we should have repassed her gate, and left the coast clear. Agnes made no reply, and we went on in perfect silence till we reached home. The first object that met my eyes was Captain Spencer's card on the hall table, and that of "Mr. Norman Bankes, Regiment," lying by it. Seizing with pretended eagerness on the former, I exclaimed

"How vexed I am to have missed Captain Spencer; are not you, Arthur? Richard (to a servant), how long is it since Captain Spencer and Mr. Bankes called?"

"Not five minutes, miss," said he; "if you had come by the lower path you must have met them.'

دو

"How provoking!" I continued; "we might have secured him, and now, perhaps, he will have some other engagement."

Arthur returned no answer; he saw through my intention of annoying him, and was far too much hurt at this and my previous conduct to take any notice of what I said. Agnes had disappeared, and we stood alone in the little room appropriated to hats, sticks, and garden bonnets. My pride would support me no longer; and, as Arthur turned away to look out at the window, I said passionately :

"Arthur, I will not thus be trifled with! Yesterday you were pouring forth the most ardent protestations of eternal love and unceasing care for my happiness; and now you are spurning both, and trampling down my pride into the very dust beneath your feet!"

"But where is the call for pride, Caroline?" asked Arthur gently, but gravely, as he turned towards me. "What has any one done to draw forth all this violence from you?"

More in sorrow than in anger he spoke; but my feelings

were exactly the reverse, as I burst into a passionate flood of tears.

"Arthur, Arthur!" I said, "you are cruel indeed! Upbraid revile me, me, if you will; but do not treat me with this scornful coldness. I cannot-cannot bear it."

A moment more, and I was locked in Arthur's embrace, and he was imploring my forgiveness. Our engagement was yet of too recent standing for a scene of strife and anger to be of any duration; and in my folly and blindness I believed that it would ever be thus-that I should never lose the power of vanquishing him in any struggle, let me be right or wrong, that might arise between us.

Still, as I went to my room, these lines came to my mind; though little did I imagine that they could ever be really applicable to myself and Arthur :

"Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,

And sorrow but more closely tied ;

That stood the storm when waves were rough,

Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When Heaven was all tranquillity!
A something light as air-a look-
A word unkind, or wrongly taken,
Oh! love, that tempests never shook,

A breath, a touch like this hath shaken.
And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds, or like the stream
That smiling left the mountain's brow,

As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet, ere it reach the plain below,

Breaks into floods that part for ever."

CHAPTER X.

I

THE few days that intervened between the scene I have just related and the arrival of our guests, passed rapidly away-at least to Arthur and myself. I had sent to town for a very handsome set of ornaments, which I intended for Agnes, and took them to her, saying, I thought she might like to wear them while we had company in the house. had expected her to be overwhelmed with gratitude at the splendour of the gift; and was not a little astonished when, after looking at them, she said quietly, that she was extremely obliged to me, but they were far too handsome for her to wear, and she trusted I should not misunderstand her motive in declining them.

I endeavoured to combat her scruples, but in vain; and at length I desisted, rather angry at what I considered her thankless indifference. I forgot that only that very morning I had spoken to her in the most harsh and bitter manner, merely because she had expressed an opinion on some trivial subject in accordance with Arthur's, and in opposition to my own. I forgot that scarcely a day had passed, during the first year of her sojourn at Vernon Hall, without my saying something calculated either to wound her feelings, or to show my total disregard of them. True it was that Agnes had not resented my behaviour; but it is not in human nature to be indifferent to such conduct from those on whom we feel we have a claim for kindness and sympathy. Gifts, and even benefits, can never buy love; on the contrary, if accompanied by hard words and an uncomplying temper, they seem to put us under a painful sense of obligation, without the power of feeling the gratitude we would wish towards the conferer. And so, again, we see how truly those can make themselves beloved who have no means of

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