ity
that her pompous father had dictated, and were to supplement the
thirty pounds per annum, "officially delivered." Surely, as she looked
at the young man in his shabby coat, she must have remembered that it
was only Maurice Trafford the junior clerk--the drudge of a mercantile
house.

Nea owned afterward that she had forgotten everything; in after years
she confessed that Maurice's grave young face came upon her like a
revelation.

She had admirers by the score--the handsome, weak-minded Lord Bertie
among them--but never had she seen such a face as Maurice Trafford's,
the poor curate's son.

Maurice's pale face flushed up under the girl's enthusiastic praise,
but he answered, very quietly:

"I did very little, Miss Huntingdon; any one could have done as much.
How could I stand by and see your father's danger, and not go to his
help?" and then, as the intolerable pain in his arm brought back the
faintness, he asked her permission to reseat himself. "He would go
home," he said, wearily, "and then he need trouble no one."

Nea's heart was full of pity for him. She could not bear the thought
of his going back to his lonely lodgings, with no one to take care of
him, but there was no help for it. So Mrs. Thorpe was summoned with
her remedies, and the carriage was ordered. When it came round Maurice
looked up in his young hostess's face with his honest gray eyes and
frank smile and said good-bye. And the smile and the gray eyes, and
the touch of the thin, boyish hand, were never to pass out of Nea's
memory from that day.

* * * * *

The shadows grew longer and longer in the gardens of the square, the
house-martins twitted merrily about their nests, the flower-girls sat
on the area steps with their baskets of roses and jonquils, when Mr.
Huntingdon laid aside his invalid habits and took up his old life
again, far too soon, as the doctors said who attended him. His system
had received a severer shock than they had first imagined, and they
recommended Baden-Baden and perfect rest for some months.

But as well might they have spoken to the summer leaves that were
swirling down the garden paths, as move Mr. Huntingdon from his usual
routine. He only smiled incredulously, said that he felt perfectly
well, and rode off every morning eastward on the new gray mare that
had replaced Gypsy.

And Nea flitted about the room among her birds and flowers, and
wondered sometimes if she should ever