ith in this
house? he wondered. Hitherto his welcome had always been so cordial that
until this moment he had never doubted of it, but now circumstances were
changed. He was no longer in the position of second son to Sir Thomas
Outram of Outram Hall. He was a beggar, an outcast, a wanderer, the son
of a fraudulent bankrupt and suicide. The careless words of the woman
in the carriage had let a flood of light into his mind, and by it he saw
many things which he had never seen before. Now he remembered a little
motto that he had often heard, but the full force of which he did not
appreciate until to-day. "Friends follow fortune," was the wording of
this motto. He remembered also another saying that had frequently been
read to him in church and elsewhere, and the origin of which precluded
all doubt as to its truth:--

"Unto every one that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he hath."

Now, as it chanced, Leonard, beggared as he was, had still something
left which could be taken away from him, and that something the richest
fortune which Providence can give to any man in his youth, the love of
a woman whom he also loved. The Reverend and Honourable James Beach
was blessed with a daughter, Jane by name, who had the reputation, not
undeserved, of being the most beautiful and sweetest-natured girl that
the country-side could show. Now, being dark and fair respectively and
having lived in close association since childhood, Leonard and Jane, as
might be expected from the working of the laws of natural economy, had
gravitated towards each other with increasing speed ever since they had
come to understand the possibilities of the institution of marriage.
In the end thus mutual gravitation led to a shock and confusion of
individualities which was not without its charm; or, to put the matter
more plainly, Leonard proposed to Jane and had been accepted with many
blushes and some tears and kisses.

It was a common little romance enough, but, like everything else with
which youth and love are concerned, it had its elements of beauty. Such
affairs gain much from being the first in the series. Who is there among
us that does not adore his first love and his first poem? And yet when
we see them twenty years after!

Presently the Rectory door was opened and Leonard entered. At this
moment it occurred to him that he did not quite know why he had come. To
be altogether accurate, he knew why