hall look just as you please if you will only stay. We are just
going to dinner.'

'Thank you, let me come to-morrow. I shall be better company when I
have had my sulk out.'

His aunt followed him to the stairs, and he turned to her, saying,
anxiously, 'No letter?' She shook her head. 'It would be barely
possible,' he said, 'but if it would only come while I am at home in
peace!'

'Ah! this is sadly trying!' said she, parting his hair on his brow as
he stood some steps below her, and winning a sweet smile from him.

'All for the best,' he said. 'One thing may mitigate another. That
political whirlpool might suck me in, if I had any heart or hopes for
it. And, on the other hand, it would be very unwholesome to be left to
my own inertness--to be as good for nothing as I feel.'

'My poor dear boy, you are very good about it. I wish you could have
been spared.'

'I did not come to make you sad, Aunt Kitty,' he replied, smiling; 'no;
I get some energy back when I remember that this may be a probation.
Her mother would not have thought me man enough, and that is what I
have to work for. Whether this end well or not, she is the leading
star of my life.' And, with the renewal of spirit with which he had
spoken, he pressed his aunt's hand, and ran down stairs.

When he rode to Northwold, the following afternoon, having spent the
morning in walking over his fields, he overtook a most comfortable
couple--James and Isabel, returning from their holiday stroll, and
Louis, leaving his horse at the inn, and joining them, began to hear
all their school affairs. James had thrown his whole heart into his
work, had been making various reforms, introducing new studies, making
a point of religious instruction, and meditating on a course of
lectures on history, to be given in the evenings, the attendance to be
voluntary, but a prize held out for proficiency. Louis took up the
subject eagerly, and Isabel entered into the discussion with all her
soul, and the grammar-school did indeed seem to be in a way to become
something very superior in tone to anything Northwold had formerly
seen, engrossing as it did all the powers of a man of such ability, in
the full vigour of youth.

Talking earnestly, the trio had reached the Terrace, and James was
unlatching the iron gate, when he interrupted himself in the midst of
detailing his views on modern languages to say, 'No, I have nothing for
you.'

'Sir, I beg your pardon!' was the