vely. "I
am afraid they have not always been good to you, and they want to make
up for it."

But not all the attentions she received could move Mattie from her own
humble estimate of herself; and yet in some ways, if she could have
seen herself, she would have owned there was a difference. Mattie no
longer fussed and fidgeted: always sweet-natured, she grew placid in
her new happiness.

"I consider myself a fortunate fellow, for I have the dearest little
wife in the world," Sir Harry said to her a few days after they were
married, when Mattie had, as usual, said something disparaging of
herself. "Never mind what you think, so long as I am satisfied; and it
is very rude of you to be always finding fault with my choice,--ay,
Lady Challoner!"

CHAPTER L.

PHILLIS'S FAVORITE MONTH.

Archie had been persuaded to remain until the following evening, and
to take the night mail up to London. "You know you always sleep so
soundly in a railway-carriage," his mother had said, with her eyes
full of pleading.

"Perhaps so; but all the same it is dreary work to be shunted on to a
platform in the middle of the night, and to have to find your way
across London to catch a Sussex train." But, in spite of his grumbling
he had remained. For once it was difficult to tear himself away from
that happy family party.

But all through that night he scarcely closed his eyes, but sat
staring at the swinging-lamp and his drowsy fellow-passengers, or out
into the blank wall of darkness, too wide awake and full of thought to
lose himself in his usual placid slumbers. The fortunes of the
Drummond family seemed rising a little, he thought, with pleasure. How
alert and full of energy his father had seemed when he had parted from
him at the station! he had lost that subdued despondent look that had
grown on him of late. Even his shoulders were a little less bowed, as
though the burden did not press quite so heavily.

"All this makes a great difference to me, Archie," he had said, as
they had walked to and fro on the platform. "Two such wealthy
sons-in-law ought to satisfy any father's ambition. I can hardly
believe yet that my little Mattie--whom her sisters always called 'the
old maid'--should have secured such a prize. If it had been Grace,
now, one need not have wondered so much."

"You may leave Grace out of your reckoning," returned Archie, smiling
assent to this, "and consider you have three out of your seven
daughters provided