me."

Alban accepted this apology in a manner which at once won the heart
of the North-countrywoman. He shook hands with her. "You're one of the
right sort," she said; "there are not many of them in this house."

Was she alluding to Francine? Alban tried to make the discovery. Polite
circumlocution would be evidently thrown away on Mrs. Ellmother. "Is
your new mistress one of the right sort?" he asked bluntly.

The old servant's answer was expressed by a frowning look, followed by a
plain question.

"Do you say that, sir, because you like my new mistress?"

"No."

"Please to shake hands again!" She said it--took his hand with a sudden
grip that spoke for itself--and walked away.

Here was an exhibition of character which Alban was just the man to
appreciate. "If I had been an old woman," he thought in his dryly
humorous way, "I believe I should have been like Mrs. Ellmother. We
might have talked of Emily, if she had not left me in such a hurry. When
shall I see her again?"

He was destined to see her again, that night--under circumstances which
he remembered to the end of his life.

The rules of Netherwoods, in summer time, recalled the young ladies from
their evening's recreation in the grounds at nine o'clock. After that
hour, Alban was free to smoke his pipe, and to linger among trees and
flower-beds before he returned to his hot little rooms in the village.
As a relief to the drudgery of teaching the young ladies, he had
been using his pencil, when the day's lessons were over, for his own
amusement. It was past ten o'clock before he lighted his pipe, and began
walking slowly to and fro on the path which led to the summer-house, at
the southern limit of the grounds.

In the perfect stillness of the night, the clock of the village church
was distinctly audible, striking the hours and the quarters. The moon
had not risen; but the mysterious glimmer of starlight trembled on the
large open space between the trees and the house.

Alban paused, admiring with an artist's eye the effect of light, so
faintly and delicately beautiful, on the broad expanse of the lawn.
"Does the man live who could paint that?" he asked himself. His memory
recalled the works of the greatest of all landscape painters--the
English artists of fifty years since. While recollections of many a
noble picture were still passing through his mind, he was startled by
the sudden appearance of a bareheaded woman on the terrace steps.

She hurr