my romance, and try to guess at her history.'

'To console you for your godson going away?'

'Ah! it won't do that! But it will be something to think of, and I will
report to you if I make out any more about her. And mind you give me a
full account of the godson.'

Arthur wished the journey well over; he had often felt a sort of
superior pity for travellers with a baby in company, and did not relish
the prospect; but things turned out well; he found an acquaintance, and
travelled with him in a different carriage, and little Johnnie, lulled
by the country air, slept so much that Violet had leisure to enjoy the
burst into country scenery, and be refreshed by the glowing beauty of
the green meadows, the budding woods, and the brilliant feathery broom
blossoms that gilded the embankments. At Winchester Arthur came to her
window, and asked if she remembered last year.

'It is the longest year of my life,' said she. 'Oh, don't laugh as if I
had made a bad compliment, but so much has happened!' There was no time
for more; and as she looked out at the cathedral as they moved on, she
recollected her resolutions, and blamed herself for her failures, but
still in a soothed and happier frame of hope.

The crossing was her delight, her first taste of sea. There was a fresh
wind, cold enough to make Arthur put on his great-coat, but to her
it brought a delicious sense of renewed health and vigour, as she sat
inhaling it, charmed to catch a drop of spray on her face, her eyes and
cheeks brightening and her spirits rising.

The sparkling Solent, the ships at Spithead, the hills and wooded banks,
growing more defined before her; the town of Ryde and its long pier,
were each a new wonder and delight, and she exclaimed with such ecstasy,
and laughed so like the joyous girl she used to be, that Arthur felt old
times come back; and when he handed her out of the steamer he entirely
forgot the baby.

At last she was tired with pleasure, and lay back in the carriage in
languid enjoyment; fields, cottages, hawthorns, lilacs, and glimpses of
sea flitting past her like pictures in a dream, a sort of waking trance
that would have been broken by speaking or positive thinking.

They stopped at a gate: she looked up and gave a cry of delight. Such
a cottage as she and Annette had figured in dreams of rural bliss,
gable-ends, thatch, verandah overrun with myrtle, rose, and honeysuckle,
a little terrace, a steep green slope of lawn shut in wit