was
dawning upon her; human wants and human sympathies were demanding her
thought and care, and every day brought her into contact with those in
the villages round about, whose histories were educating her heart into
the true ideal of womanhood.

As Mr. Morton finished reading the letter he passed it to his wife,
merely remarking:

"You will see Digby has mixed himself up with some disagreeable piece
of business in the school. It is time he came home. I shall see Mr.
Vickers about him to-day, and write for him to return as soon as this
affair has blown over, instead of in September, in order that he may
commence his studies in the law at once."

Leaving Mrs. Morton to mourn that her anxieties and responsibilities
were to be increased by Digby's return, and Ethel to rejoice in the
fact that her brother was coming home to be again her companion, let us
now take a glance into a home in the suburbs of London.

It is a humbler home than that we have just visited, and a happier one.
The breakfast-room is elegantly furnished, but it is small; the garden
is well stocked with flowers, but the whole extent of it is not greater
than the lawn at Ashley House.

There are three people round the breakfast-table. Mrs. Pemberton, a
handsome woman, dressed in the neatest of black and lavender dresses,
and wearing a picturesque widow's-cap. Nellie, her daughter, a girl
about nine or ten years old, and Captain Arkwright, a retired naval
officer, the brother of Mrs. Pemberton.

There is anxiety on each face, and traces of recent tears mark that of
Mrs. Pemberton, as she nervously turns over and over in her hand a long
letter from Dr. Brier, and a still longer and more closely written one
from Howard.

"It is an extraordinary and distressing affair," she said, "and I am at
a loss to know what to do. What would you advise, Charles?"

"I should advise Dr. Brier to choose a lunatic asylum to go to. What a
wooden-headed old fellow he must be, to have got the affair into such a
mess. Do? I should do nothing. You certainly don't suppose Howard is
really concerned in the affair. Not he; that sort of thing isn't in his
line. It'll all come right enough by and by, so, don't fidget yourself,
my dear," he continued. "There's some vile plot laid against Howard,
but if he doesn't come clean out of it with flying colors, call me a
simpleton."

That day was spent in letter-writing, and the same post that brought to
Digby the intelligence that