es dreadful shipwrecks occur."

"You must bring them to our house. I am very fond of little boys, when
they begin to forget to be shy, and let you become acquainted
with them."

"Well," said Lavender, "I don't know many of the boys who sail boats in
the Serpentine: you will have to make their acquaintance yourself. But
I know one boy whom I must bring to the house. He is a German-Jew boy,
who is going to be another Mendelssohn, his friends say. He is a pretty
boy, with ruddy-brown hair, big black eyes, and a fine forehead; and he
really sings and plays delightfully. But you know, Sheila, you must not
treat him as a boy, for he is over fourteen, I should think; and if you
were to kiss him--"

"He might be angry," said Sheila, with perfect simplicity.

"I might," said Lavender; and then, noticing that she seemed a little
surprised, he merely patted her head and bade her go and get ready
for dinner.

Then came the great climax of Sheila's southward journey--her arrival in
London. She was all anxiety to see her future home; and as luck would
have it, there was a fair spring morning shining over the city. For a
couple of hours before, she had sat and looked out of the
carriage-window as the train whirled rapidly through the scarcely
awakened country, and she had seen the soft and beautiful landscapes of
the South lit up by the early sunlight. How the bright little villages
shone, with here and there a gilt weathercock glittering on the spire of
some small gray church, while as yet in many valleys a pale gray mist
lay along the bed of the level streams or clung to the dense woods on
the upland heights! Which was the more beautiful--the sharp, clear
picture, with its brilliant colors and its awakening life, or the more
mystic landscape over which was still drawn the tender veil of the
morning haze? She could not tell. She only knew that England, as she
then saw it, seemed a great country that was very beautiful, that had
few inhabitants, and that was still and sleepy and bathed in sunshine.
How happy must the people be who lived in those quiet green valleys by
the side of slow and smooth rivers, and amid great woods and avenues of
stately trees, the like of which she had not imagined even in
her dreams!

But from the moment that they got out at Euston Square she seemed a
trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade
her--clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of
guidance. She