ost flashing with eagerness. It was a good mouth too,
perhaps a little inclined to sternness of mould about the jaw and chin;
but that might have been partly from the absence of all softening
roundness, aging the countenance for the time, just as illness had
shrunk the usually sturdy figure.

'Has Ethel told you of our plan?' asked Dr. May of the sister.

'Yes,' she hesitated, in evident confusion and distress. 'You are all
very kind, but we must see what Henry says.'

'I have spoken to Henry! He answers for our patching Leonard up for
next week; and I have great faith in Dr. Neptune.'

Leonard's looks were as bright as Averil's were disturbed.

'Thank you, thank you very much! but can he possibly be well enough for
the journey?'

Leonard's eyes said 'I shall.'

'A week will do great things,' said Dr. May, 'and it is a very easy
journey--only four hours' railway, and a ten miles' drive.'

Averil's face was full of consternation; and Leonard leant forward with
hope dancing in his eyes.

'You know the place,' continued Dr. May, 'Coombe Hole. Quite fresh,
and unhackneyed. It is just where Devon and Dorset meet. I am not
sure in which county; but there's a fine beach, and beautiful country.
The Riverses found it out, and have been there every autumn; besides
sending their poor little girl and her governess down when London gets
too hot. Flora has written to the woman of the lodgings she always
has, and will lend them the maid she sends with little Margaret; so
they will be in clover.'

'Is it not a very long way!' said Averil, thinking how long those ten
yards of lawn had seemed.

'Not as things go,' said Dr. May. 'You want Dr. Spencer to reproach
you with being a Stoneborough fungus. There are places in Wales nearer
by the map, but without railway privilege; and as to a great gay place,
they would all be sick of it.'

'Do you feel equal to it? as if you should like it, Leonard?' asked his
sister, in a trembling would-be grateful voice.

'Of all things,' was the answer.

Ethel thought the poor girl had suffered constraint enough, and that it
was time to release the boy from his polite durance, so she rose to
take leave, and again Leonard pulled himself upright to shake hands.

'Indeed,' said Ethel, when Averil had followed them into the
drawing-room, 'I am sorry for you. It would go very hard with me to
make Aubrey over to any one! but if you do trust him with me, I must
come and hear all you wi