CHAPTER XIV.

LIONEL.

THERE was an arrival at Cedar Lodge,-Lionel, Mrs Pemberton's only son, after a residence of many years on the Continent, had at length returned to spend a few months at his childhood's home.

He received his mother's caress and his sisters' embraces, and then, with an undisguised look of admiration at Millie, asked if she indeed were the fairy child who in days of yore bore the name of "Wildflower?" and he, the fastidious man of fashion, as he stood there, was carried back into the pure atmosphere of his boyhood,—and Millie's bright and blushing smile reminded him of the heartbound of real joy he had felt when, lightly climbing the hillside, he had procured for her its crowning blackberries.

He was half-piqued at the utter unsophistication of Millie's sisterly welcome,-nay, he doubted if the man of the world would ever be received with the genuine affection which had always greeted the merry playmate.

As he renewed his acquaintance with Millie, what would he not have given for something of her freshness of manner, for all her dewy purity of thought!

He had so long been accustomed to the gas-light

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of artificial society, that this sunbeam of pure morning light went down into his heart, and undissembled and earnest approval was kindled within him, strongly and strangely at variance with his notions of Parisian education.

He found about his sisters, too, an invigorating freshness of appearance, and in his better moments the sweet influences of home could be recognised in the genuine fervour of his smile, and in the brotherly affection which at times appeared, trampled and pressed down, as it had been, the last lingering memento of his former self.

The world spoke of him in approval, as wearing her brightest polish; and his mother repeated the soft words of praise to herself, and tried to frame out of them, for her own heart, the flattering conviction that there was truth in its judgment.

He had doubtless brought home with him a store of caution for every emergency; and if there was a subtle infusion of scorn in his manner towards some of those who had been the playful companions of his earlier years, it was so concealed by the flowery wreaths of courtesy that none but an acute observer could discover it.

This mantle of worldly policy hung becomingly round him; and if a morbid selfishness, indicative of a very unwholesome state of the moral atmosphere, lay hidden amidst its folds, it was invisible to man; and from the All-seeing he had long in his recklessness turned,-looking on the holy lessons of his early

years as the infatuation of weak enthusiasm, the foolish dream of childhood.

It was evident that with Millie he brought into action all his powers of pleasing. Yet this was scarcely necessary. His brilliant intellect flashed through her mind with its own peculiar gleamingthough sometimes, after those conversations in which she had been most deeply interested, there remained on her memory more of phosphoric glare than starlight radiance; but his thoughts were new and strange, and therefore, as is often the case in early youth, she invested them with a value in nowise due to them.

From her easy simplicity and unstudied gracefulness of manner, there would have been in any society a considerable power of attraction about Millie; but to a heart over which the busy world had made a thoroughfare, in the midst of dusty thoughts and wearied feelings, she came as mountain air or morning dew. And this charm, which so silently enveloped her, consisted not in the brilliancy of her conversation, nor in the varied nature of her accomplishments, it was, in a measure, the effect of Christian feelings which grafted themselves on the common emergencies of life.

In boyhood, Lionel had been distinguished for a delicacy of feeling which bade fair to mature into the honourable man; but he turned from the straight path into the dark windings of worldly expediency, and a wondrous change came over him. The me

chanism of his heart lost all the finer springs of principle, and now he could seek to win the pearl of a young maiden's love only to place it carelessly by other treasures which he had darkly gained.

By degrees, Millie found herself spending many hours of the day with Lionel. The sportive sunlight that came merrily dancing in through the sycamore boughs, saw them side by side, and sometimes the flushing evening lit its crimson brand-mark on her bosom, when it found her still under the shadows of the old tree.

Millie felt it difficult to tear herself away from her companion, so much still remained unsaid, and though after such converse there was always a sense of depression in her heart, unintelligible even to herself, she found Lionel at her side the next day, bringing in sunlight perhaps with his smiles, but the oppressive sunlight of a rainy day, when clouds are around.

Millie, in the common acceptation of the word, was not vain, that is to say, she did not spend much time at the looking-glass, and scarcely a thought of her appearance entered into her mind at the evening party; but the love of approbation hitherto scarcely discernible, now came strongly forth, pushing aside, for the first time, in its rushing tide the sweet simplicity of her feelings, and causing her to experience positive pleasure in receiving those exclusive attentions to which others, she thought, had far greater claim than herself.

Stylish and fashionable girls anxiously sought Lionel's notice. Mothers, who had hitherto been almost strangers at the Lodge, brought their daughters to be introduced to him, whilst those who had looked disdainfully on the simple pastimes of Florence and Kate, now called to borrow magazines, or to procure patterns for crotchet-work. All these were young, many were highly accomplished, and some were beautiful; yet Millie received, without any effort on her part, Lionel's brightest smiles and softest words.

In yielding to the enjoyment thus afforded her, Millie greatly erred. In the remote chambers of her heart, and but indistinctly visible through the mists of indulged temptation, was the dim consciousness of wrong. She, too, was acting dishonourably, for she did not love Lionel, and there became apparent just a fading in her smile, through the shadows that rose up around her heart; for, being to herself untrue, the reality of happiness had escaped from her. hold, leaving in its place but a phantom of excitement, in which man so vainly wearies himself to find substance.

All the avenues of prayer seemed closed within her heart, and had the great Father called to her then, as he did to his first-born; from the hidingplace of conscious wrong would have issued her trembling answer.

But as if the shadow of the Almighty were yet round about Millie, though she sought not guidance