d, at all events, no
matter what comes of it, he cannot betray his brother.

"How could it have come here?" asks Lord Sartoris, without raising his
eyes from the luckless handkerchief. "Do you know anything of it?"

"Nothing; except that it belongs to Ruth. I gave it to her last
Christmas."

"You! A curious gift to a girl in her rank in life?"

"She wished for it," returns Branscombe, curtly.

"Then she is no doubt heart-broken, imagining she has lost it. Return
it to her, I advise you, without delay," says his uncle,
contemptuously, throwing it from him to a table near. "I need not
detain you any longer, now,"--rising, and moving towards the door.

"Going so soon?" says the younger man, roused from his galling
reflections, by his uncle's abrupt departure, to some sense of
cordiality. "Why, you have hardly stayed a moment."

"I have stayed long enough,--too long," says Lord Sartoris, gloomily,
fixing his dark eyes (that age have failed to dim) upon the man who
has been to him as his own soul.

"Too long?" repeats Branscombe, coloring darkly.

"Yes. Have you forgotten altogether the motto of our race?--'Leal
friend, leal foe.' Let me bring it to your memory."

"Pray do not trouble yourself. I remember it perfectly," says Dorian,
haughtily, drawing up his figure to its fullest height. "I am sorry,
my lord, you should think it necessary to remind me of it."

He bows and opens the door as he finishes his speech. Lord Sartoris,
though sorely troubled, makes no sign; and, without so much as a
pressure of the hand, they part.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Lock you, how she cometh, trilling
Out her gay heart's bird-like bliss!
Merry as a May-morn thrilling
With the dew and sunshine's kiss.

* * * * *

Ruddy gossips of her beauty
Are her twin cheeks; and her mouth,
In its ripe warmth, smileth fruity
As a garden of the south."--GERALD MASSEY.

To Georgie the life at the vicarage is quite supportable,--is, indeed,
balm to her wounded spirit. Mrs. Redmond may, of course, chop and
change as readily as the east wind, and, in fact, may sit in any
quarter, being somewhat erratic in her humors; but they are
short-lived; and, if faintly trying, she is at least kindly and tender
at heart.

As for the vicar, he is--as Miss Georgie tells him, even without a
blush--"simply adorable;" and the children are sweet good-natured
little souls, true-hearted and earnest, to who