n the perilously sentimental position of two
young people strolling home together in the soft twilight of a Midsummer
evening: likewise occasionally stopping to look westward at a new moon,
which peered at them round street-corners and through the open spaces of
darkening squares. But nothing could make these two at all romantic
or interesting; their talk on the road was on the most ordinary
topics--chiefly bears.

"You seem quite familiar with wild beast life," Agatha observed. "Were
you a very great hunter?"

"Not exactly, for I never could muster up the courage, or the cowardice,
wantonly to take away life. I don't remember ever shooting anything,
except in self-defence, which was occasionally necessary during the
journeys that I used to make from Montreal to the Indian settlements
with Uncle Brian."

"Uncle Brian," repeated Agatha, wondering whether Major Harper had ever
mentioned such a personage, during the two years of their acquaintance.
She thought not, since her memory had always kept tenacious record of
what he said about his relatives--which was at best but little. It
was one of the few things in him which jarred upon Agatha's
feelings--Agatha, to whose isolation the idea of a family and a home was
so pathetically sweet--his seeming so totally indifferent to his own.
All she knew of Major Harper's kith and kin was, that he was the eldest
brother of a large family, settled somewhere down in Dorsetshire.

These thoughts swept through her mind, as Agatha, repeated
interrogatively "Uncle Brian?"

"The same who fifteen years since took me out with him to America; my
father's youngest brother. Has Frederick never told you of him? They two
were great companions once."

"Oh, indeed!" And Agatha, seeing that Nathanael at least showed no
dislike, but rather pleasure, in speaking of his family, thought she
might harmlessly indulge her curiosity about the Harpers of Dorsetshire.
"And you went away with Mr. Brian Harper, at ten years old. How could
your mother part with you?"

"She was dead--she died when I was born. But I ought to apologise for
thus talking of family matters, which cannot interest you."

"On the contrary, they do--very much!" cried Agatha; and then blushed
at her own earnestness, at which Nathanael brightened up into positive
warmth.

"How kind you are! how I wish you knew my sisters! It is so pleasant to
me to know them at last, after writing to them and thinking about them
for these many y