er-soldier,' said Nuttie. 'To have
come five miles for it in vain!'

'I don't know what to suggest,' added Gerard. 'Even if the ladies were
to retire--'

'No, no,' interposed Mr. Dutton, ''tis no swimming ground, and I forbid
the expedient. You would only be entangled in the weeds.'

'Behold!' exclaimed Mary, who had been prowling about the banks, and
now held up in triumph one of the poles with a bill-hook at the end
used for cutting weed.

'Bravo, Miss Nugent!' cried Gerard.

'Female wit has circumvented the water-soldier,' said Mr. Dutton.

'Don't cry out too soon,' returned Mary; 'the soldier may float off and
escape you yet.'

However, the capture was safely accomplished, without even a dip under
water to destroy the beauty of the white flowers. With these, and a
few waterlilies secured by Gerard for the morrow's altar vases, the
party set out on their homeward walk, through plantations of whispering
firs, the low sun tingeing the trunks with ruddy light; across heathery
commons, where crimson heath abounded, and the delicate blush-coloured
wax-belled species was a prize; by cornfields in ear hanging out their
dainty stamens; along hedges full of exquisite plumes of feathering or
nodding grass, of which Nuttie made bouquets and botanical studies, and
Gerard stored for harvest decorations. They ran and danced on together
with Monsieur at their heels, while the elders watched them with some
sadness and anxiety. Free-masonry had soon made both Mary and Mr.
Dutton aware of each other's initiation, and they had discussed the
matter in all its bearings, agreed that the man was a scoundrel, and
the woman an angel, even if she had once been weak, and that she ought
to be very resolute with him if he came to terms. And then they looked
after their young companions, and Mr. Dutton said, 'Poor children, what
is before them?'

'It is well they are both so young,' answered Mary.

CHAPTER VII.

THAT MAN.

'It is the last time--'tis the last!'--SCOTT.

Sundays were the ever-recurring centres of work and interests to the
little circle in St. Ambrose's Road. To them the church services and
the various classes and schools were the great objects and excitements
of the week. A certain measure of hopeful effort and varying success
is what gives zest to life, and the purer and higher the aim, and the
more unmixed the motives, the greater the happiness achieved by the
'something attempted, something done