o out of their way for money's sake. All the same, it's
a good thing to be well off. But for that, now, I couldn't make the
acquaintance of such people as these at Brackley Hall. I more than half
like them. Old Armitage is a gentleman, and looks back upon generations of
gentlemen, his ancestors. Ah! you can't buy that! And his daughters are
devilish nice girls, with sweet soft voices. I'm glad the old fellow met us
yesterday.'

It was now dark; I looked up and saw the stars brightening. We sat for
another quarter of an hour, each busy with his own thoughts, then rose and
parted for the night.

A week later, when I returned to London, Ireton was still living at the
little inn, and a letter I received from him at the beginning of October
told me he had just left. 'The country was exquisite that last week,' he
wrote;--and it struck me that 'exquisite' was a word he must have caught
from some one else's lips.

I heard from him again in the following January. He wrote from the Isle of
Wight, and informed me that in the spring he was to be married to Miss
Ethel Armitage, second daughter of Humphrey Armitage, Esq., of Brackley
Hall.

CHRISTOPHERSON

It was twenty years ago, and on an evening in May. All day long there had
been sunshine. Owing, doubtless, to the incident I am about to relate, the
light and warmth of that long-vanished day live with me still; I can see
the great white clouds that moved across the strip of sky before my window,
and feel again the spring languor which troubled my solitary work in the
heart of London.

Only at sunset did I leave the house. There was an unwonted sweetness in
the air; the long vistas of newly lit lamps made a golden glow under the
dusking flush of the sky. With no purpose but to rest and breathe, I
wandered for half an hour, and found myself at length where Great Portland
Street opens into Marylebone Road. Over the way, in the shadow of Trinity
Church, was an old bookshop, well known to me: the gas-jet shining upon the
stall with its rows of volumes drew me across. I began turning over pages,
and--invariable consequence--fingering what money I had in my pocket. A
certain book overcame me; I stepped into the little shop to pay for it.

While standing at the stall, I had been vaguely aware of some one beside
me, a man who also was looking over the books; as I came out again with my
purchase, this stranger gazed at me intently, with a half-smile of peculiar
interest. He