cely
featured young girl, wearing a cap,--her hair had been lately cut short
in a fever,--entered the room, and, with a sudden flush that made her
positively handsome, held out her hand to young Butler, saying, "Oh,
Tony, I never expected to see you here! how are all at home?"

Too much shocked at the change in her appearance to speak, Tony could
only mumble out a few broken words about her father.

"Yes," cried she, eagerly, "his last letter says that he rides old
Dobbin about just as well as ever; 'perhaps it is,' says he, 'that
having both of us grown old together, we bear our years with more
tolerance to each other;' but won't you sit down, Tony? you 're not
going away till I have talked a little with you."

"Is the music lesson finished, Miss Stewart?" asked the thin lady,
sternly.

"Yes, ma'am; we have done everything but sacred history."

"Everything but the one important task, you might have said, Miss
Stewart; but, perhaps, you are not now exactly in the temperament to
resume teaching for to-day; and as this young gentleman's mission is
apparently to report, not only on your health but your happiness, I
shall leave you a quarter of an hour to give him his instructions."

"I hate that woman," muttered Tony, as the door closed after her.

"No, Tony, she's not unkind; but she doesn't exactly see the world the
way you and I used long ago. What a great big man you have grown!"

"And what a fine tall girl, you! And I used to call you a stump!"

"Ay, there were few compliments wasted between us in those days; but
weren't they happy?"

"Do you remember them all, Dolly?"

"Every one of them,--the climbing the big cherry-tree the day the branch
broke, and we both fell into the melon-bed; the hunting for eels under
the stones in the river,--was n't that rare sport? and going out to sea
in that leaky little boat that I 'd not have courage to cross the Thames
in now!--oh, Tony, tell me, you never were so jolly since?"

"I don't think I was; and what's worse, Dolly, I doubt if I ever shall
be."

The tone of deep despondency of these words went to her heart, and her
lip trembled, as she said,--

"Have you had any bad news of late? is there anything going wrong with
you?"

"No, Dolly, nothing new, nothing strange, nothing beyond the fact that
I have been staring at, though I did not see it three years back, that I
am a great hulking idle dog, of no earthly use to himself or to anybody
else. However, I _have_