does, I assure you, date farther back than that farther, even, than when I first had the pleasure of meeting you in the train, when, if I recollect rightly, I was studying a pamphlet on-what was the title ?"

"Landlords and their Tenants,' I think," said Margaret.

"Yes, I believe that was it. Do you mean to say you observed it ?"

"I did,” she answered, “because I had heard it spoken of very highly only the night before."

"How curious!" he said, stopping short; "how little we either of us expected then to be standing here in this park talking of it!"

"No, indeed; for I, for one, had no idea such a park existed."

"Well, but to go back to what I was saying," he continued; "I have really been attempting what I have been advocating; for I have been in Nottinghamshire, where I have some property, which, owing to the misconduct of an agent, I discovered to be in a most neglected state. I have been living in a farm-house there, and regularly working at bringing things into something like order; and, do you know, I never felt happier in my life. So you see I have some right to tell you that I consider the workers the enviable people; provided, that is, they are working in the right direction. But there is the rub."

"Oh! but you cannot be doing wrong, and time and experience will help you to do better."

"Thank you for such encouragement, Miss Stourton, it will help me to persevere."

Thus talking pleasantly, and half seriously, they reached the spot where Lucy and Maude were sitting beneath the shade of a noble beech, employed in sketching the house.

Mr. Stratton remarked that he had often thought the Rectory from between the lime avenue, catching a glimpse of the church tower, would make an extremely pretty picture.

"Do you not draw?" he asked Margaret.

"Not much," she answered; "Lucy is the artist of the family."

"I think you underrate your powers," said Lucy, 66 as much as you overrate mine."

Mr. Stratton felt a great desire to have the said picture drawn and presented to him by Margaret, but he did not venture upon such a suggestion. She at the same time felt that it would be "goodnatured" to offer to make the drawing for him, but somehow or other she did not make the offer.

The day before Mr. Stratton left the rectory, he with Mrs. Shirley walked up to Northcourt to take leave of the party there. They stayed some time, and it so happened that Mr. Stratton took the chair nearest to Margaret. He mentioned his intention of proceeding with various plans which his steward had been anxious for, and asked her opinion as to the merits of some new cottages which had been lately built on the North estate. She spoke of one or two improvements which she

fancied would make them not only more picturesque, but more commodious; and he seemed to think her ideas quite worthy of recollection and consideration. Certainly, on various other matters upon which they conversed, he appeared very much to like knowing her opinion, and they seemed to agree remarkably well in their fancies and tastes.

Mrs. Shirley at length rose to go, and Mr. Stratton had to say "good-bye," which he did as if he was quite sorry to be leaving every thing and every body with whom his accident had brought him into so much intimacy. His last look was for

Margaret, as he left the room, and do what she would she could not prevent the bright colour from rushing up into her face. "Why was she so foolish, so ridiculous, so absurd?" she asked herself, as she walked up and down once or twice, and then stood by the window. Yes, there they were; she could just see that Mr. Stratton was walking backwards, taking a last look at the house from the spot where Lucy and Maude had sketched it a few days previously. Five minutes after she heard steps in the gallery. "Was it Miss May? Yes, it must be." How she longed to say she could not see her today! There was a knock at the door. "Come in," she said, hastily leaving the window.

"A note from Miss May, if you please, Ma'am ; and the servant is waiting for an answer.”

Happily for Margaret, it was a "put off;" Miss May hoped, however, that some of the party would

go and see her in the afternoon, as she had a cold, and could not leave the house in consequence.

No sooner had Margaret sent her answer, than, sitting down, she gave herself up to a short reflection, and ended by determining that she would not allow her thoughts to be wandering over recollections of what Mr. Stratton had said, what he had thought, how he had looked, &c. &c. "It was so absurd. Was it for one moment likely that he would ever think of her again?—Of course not; she never ought to have thought so much of him. But, no matter, she could not help that now; however, no one else in all the wide world should know of this great folly of hers."

The county paper mentioned a few weeks afterwards that Mr. Stratton, of Stratton Park, was one of the county gentlemen who had lately shown much interest in the improvement of those dwellings on his extensive property. Schools, roads, farm-houses, cottages, &c., were receiving attention, which indeed they greatly needed; and a sum of money had been placed in the hands of the rector of the parish by Mr. Stratton for the furtherance of various desirable objects, previously to his quitting Stratton Park to join Lady Vaux and her family at Brighton.

CHAPTER XV.

"O'er wayward children would'st thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces;

Love, hope, and patience, these must be thy graces-
And in thine own heart let them first keep school."

OON after Mr. Stratton went away, the Shirleys left home for a few weeks, and Miss May also. Life at Northcourt was at its quietest, and might very truthfully have been called dull. Lucy had gone back to Teesdale again. Margaret did feel a yearning for change of scene come over her, and specially on the morning when she and her charges exchanged "good-byes" with the joyous party who were leaving the rectory for a month at the sea-side. But no murmur escaped her in writing home, and scarcely a word on the subject reached the ears of the children. The absence of the Shirleys was of course deplored by them. Oliver solaced himself with his carpentering. He was very ingenious, and he had completed a rabbit-hutch, with divisions and arrangements of his own designing, very cleverly. When Margaret and his sisters went to see it one morning, Fanny exclaimed at the beauty of a couple of black rabbits which it contained, and