o have a lover. In the
morning she was thinking that when three years were past he would hardly
care to see her ever again. And now they were together among the falling
leaves, and sitting about under the branches as though there was nothing
in the world to separate them. Up to that day there had never been a word
between them but such as is common to mere acquaintances, and now he was
calling her every instant by her Christian name, and telling her all his
secrets.

"We have such jolly woods at Carstairs," he said; "but we shan't be able
to sit down when we're there, because it will be winter. We shall be
hunting, and you must come out and see us."

"But you won't be there when I am," she said, timidly.

"Won't I? That's all you know about it. I can manage better than that."

"You'll be at Oxford."

"You must stay over Christmas, Mary; that's what you must do. You musn't
think of going till January."

"But Lady Bracy won't want me."

"Yes, she will. We must make her want you. At any rate they'll
understand this; if you don't stay for me, I shall come home even if it's
in the middle of term. I'll arrange that. You don't suppose I'm not
going to be there when you make your first visit to the old place."

All this was being in Paradise. She felt when she walked home with him,
and when she was alone afterwards in her own room, that, in truth, she had
only liked him before. Now she loved him. Now she was beginning to know
him, and to feel that she would really,--really die of a broken heart if
anything were to rob her of him. But she could let him go now, without a
feeling of discomfort, if she thought that she was to see him again when
she was at Carstairs.

But this was not the last walk in the woods, even on this occasion. He
remained two days at Bowick, so necessary was it for him to renew his
intimacy with Mr. Peacocke. He explained that he had got two days' leave
from the tutor of his College, and that two days, in College parlance,
always meant three. He would be back on the third day, in time for
"gates"; and that was all which the strictest college discipline would
require of him. It need hardly be said of him that the most of his time
he spent with Mary; but he did manage to devote an hour or two to his old
friend, the school-assistant.

Mr. Peacocke told his whole story, and Carstairs, whose morals were
perhaps not quite so strict as those of Mr. Puddicombe, gave him all his
sympath