d, in a lower
tone, though still in the unflinching manner of one who had set herself
to say a thing, and would say it--'He is not to be definitely engaged to
me any longer. We are not thinking of marrying, you know, Picotee. It
is best that we should not.'

'Perhaps it is,' said Christopher hurriedly, taking up his hat. 'Let me
now wish you good-bye; and, of course, you will always know where I am,
and how to find me.'

It was a tender time. He inclined forward that Ethelberta might give him
her hand, which she did; whereupon their eyes met. Mastered by an
impelling instinct she had not reckoned with, Ethelberta presented her
cheek. Christopher kissed it faintly. Tears were in Ethelberta's eyes
now, and she was heartfull of many emotions. Placing her arm round
Picotee's waist, who had never lifted her eyes from the carpet, she drew
the slight girl forward, and whispered quickly to him--'Kiss her, too.
She is my sister, and I am yours.'

It seemed all right and natural to their respective moods and the tone of
the moment that free old Wessex manners should prevail, and Christopher
stooped and dropped upon Picotee's cheek likewise such a farewell kiss as
he had imprinted upon Ethelberta's.

'Care for us both equally!' said Ethelberta.

'I will,' said Christopher, scarcely knowing what he said.

When he had reached the door of the room, he looked back and saw the two
sisters standing as he had left them, and equally tearful. Ethelberta at
once said, in a last futile struggle against letting him go altogether,
and with thoughts of her sister's heart:

'I think that Picotee might correspond with Faith; don't you, Mr.
Julian?'

'My sister would much like to do so,' said he.

'And you would like it too, would you not, Picotee?'

'O yes,' she replied. 'And I can tell them all about you.'

'Then it shall be so, if Miss Julian will.' She spoke in a settled way,
as if something intended had been set in train; and Christopher having
promised for his sister, he went out of the house with a parting smile of
misgiving.

He could scarcely believe as he walked along that those late words, yet
hanging in his ears, had really been spoken, that still visible scene
enacted. He could not even recollect for a minute or two how the final
result had been produced. Did he himself first enter upon the
long-looming theme, or did she? Christopher had been so nervously alive
to the urgency of setting before the hard-str