nding officer to back up
the chaplain; but--hum, ha----_that's_ what you mean, I suppose? You are
not going to foist a parsonical gentleman upon us, young lady?" Despite
the jocular tone, there was a gleam of anxiety.

"I am merely stating a fact," said Maud, stolidly.

"And I am sure we ought to be very glad," murmured Sue in her humble,
peacemaking accents--but even she looked disconcerted.

"We can have Custance to meet Paul at dinner, if that will satisfy him,"
was the general's next; he had had a few minutes for reflection, and
after rapidly weighing the pros and cons of the new development, decided
to swallow it with a good grace. "Will that satisfy him, or will he want
the curates too?"

"You may laugh if you choose, but it is as well you should know;" Maud
drew up her neck, and retorted stiffly. "Paul has been about the world,
and doesn't expect to find people all cut to the same pattern,--only I
imagine _I_ shall have to conform to his ideas after we are married,
and he has set his heart on getting a house with a private chapel
attached."

This was better; the general breathed again. A house with a private
chapel? That meant a big house, a stately house, a house he would be
proud to go to and refer to. "Oh well, a man must have his fads," quoth
he, cheerfully; "and though we have got along well enough at Boldero
Abbey without a private chapel, still if one had been here before my
day, I don't know, 'pon my word, I don't know that I should have done
away with it."

But the above conversation sent Leonore to look again at the photograph.

She was nervous, curiously nervous on behalf of this unknown Paul, of
whom every day produced fresh impressions.

As time passed, he assumed a form she had not been prepared for,--and
the first joyous flurry having worn off, she felt or fancied that he had
in reality been no more fathomed by her sister than she by him.

It will be seen by this that Leonore had herself rapidly altered of
late. She had taken to looking below the surface of things. She pondered
and prophesied within herself. She perceived the drift of casual
observations, and following in thought the byways of life, divined to
what they might lead. In fine, her own blunders and mishaps had
implanted seeds for reflection, and while less unhappy, she was
infinitely more serious than before.

And for Paul Foster's appearance on the scene she grew every day more
impatient.

Perhaps she was altogether mist