of philosophy, had
vanished before this beautiful creature of sunshine whose radiance cut
out a clear line for his future through the confusion of life.

At a florist's in the High Street of Hampstead he bought a costly
bouquet of white flowers, and walked airily to the house and rang the
bell jubilantly. He could scarcely believe his ears when the maid told
him her mistress was not at home. How dared the girl stare at him so
impassively? Did she not know by what appointment--on what errand--he
had come? Had he not written to her mistress a week ago that he would
present himself that afternoon?

'Not at home!' he gasped. 'But when will she be home?'

'I fancy she won't be long. She went out an hour ago, and she has an
appointment with her dressmaker at five.'

'Do you know in what direction she'd have gone?'

'Oh, she generally walks on the Heath before tea.'

The world suddenly grew rosy again. 'I will come back again,' he said.
Yes, a walk in this glorious air--heathward--would do him good.

As the door shut he remembered he might have left the flowers, but he
would not ring again, and besides, it was, perhaps, better he should
present them with his own hand, than let her find them on the hall
table. Still, it seemed rather awkward to walk about the streets with a
bouquet, and he was glad, accidentally to strike the old Hampstead
Church, and to seek a momentary seclusion in passing through its avenue
of quiet gravestones on his heathward way.

Mounting the few steps, he paused idly a moment on the verge of this
green 'God's-acre' to read a perpendicular slab on a wall, and his face
broadened into a smile as he followed the absurdly elaborate biography
of a rich, self-made merchant who had taught himself to read, 'Reader,
go thou and do likewise,' was the delicious bull at the end. As he
turned away, the smile still lingering about his lips, he saw a dainty
figure tripping down the stony graveyard path, and though he was somehow
startled to find her still in black, there was no mistaking Mrs.
Glamorys. She ran to meet him with a glad cry, which filled his eyes
with happy tears.

'How good of you to remember!' she said, as she took the bouquet from
his unresisting hand, and turned again on her footsteps. He followed her
wonderingly across the uneven road towards a narrow aisle of graves on
the left. In another instant she has stooped before a shining white
stone, and laid his bouquet reverently upon it. As he