I ever see her dressed for me with a gar- woman's shoulders, even if it were laid
land, like that one we saw yesterday?" upon you, Charlia, and nobody has a
she whispered almost to herself.
right to choose it for themselves. He is
There had been a ship in the little port ten years older than you are: didn't you
the day before, adorned with flags and tell me so?- and you are such a young
streamers, and a garland at the mast-girl to think of guiding others."
head, in honour of the captain's marriage.

"I believe if he really cares for you, and is steady, your father might come to think differently; but if he isn't what he ought to be, you ought not to think of him, Charlia," said I, with infinite sense and propriety.

"But I have a duty to him now, surely," she said in a still lower voice.

"If you come to weighing incompatible duties, dear, must not the lifelong one to your own two come at least first ?"

She did not reply, but stood outside the door for a moment irresolute, before she closed it.

"They slander him and tell lies of him," replied she, with flashing eyes. Things went on very quietly in the "He only just does what other young house after this. I used to find exquisite men do" (she was evidently quoting from little nosegays on my table — the flowers a text), "and he's ever so much better were beginning to fade, it is true, but than they are. He's a gallant fellow, he after one or two hints as to colours and is, and out and out the best master-mar-arrangement, and the sight of the berries iner going; and so much thought of by and leaves she saw me bring in - bits of uncle and all down there; and once he red Virginian creeper glowing among yelhelped to man the life-boat coxswain, lowing maple and brown beech, or they said when one of the sailors bunches of fern and moss, seemed to wouldn't go. How dare they say such grow of themselves in my room. things to father about him? And for the wax-flower epoch had clearly vanished; minister, too, who scarcely knows him!" there was a natural refinement about her It seemed to me as if the excessive which only wanted a word to develop. contrast between the two had been a She did her duty by her mother with all great bond of attraction; the daring, her might, fetched and carried, and restless, pleasure-loving man of action sewed and mended indefatigably and pahad a charm for her concentred poetic nature, cultivated all on the wrong side, and probably she had interested him much in the same way.

"Dear! your father and mother love
you so that if he goes on well they'd be
If he's patient and con-

sure to consent.
stant to you," I added.
Her face fell, and she turned away
suddenly.

Was it a doubt whether the gallant and
gay Captain Roberts would be patient
and constant to her? although she would
have suffered any torture rather than
confess the feeling even to herself.

I must say that I doubted more about the man at that moment than from anything her mother had told me; and it was with a real pang that I said, as she went towards the door

66

Mind, dear, you've no right to wreck your life. God gave it you to do better with than that, even if it did not break your parents' hearts along with your own. If Captain Roberts is not good, you ought to try to give him up."

I might help him to do right-he told me so," she said very softly and humbly.

"And suppose he only helped you to do wrong? it is too great a burden for a

The

tiently, and was very tender to her old
father when he came home at night. He
was never weary of listening to her voice,
and I could hear her singing to him half
the evening. In general he asked for
his beloved hymn-tunes, but also very
often for the old Welsh airs which I, too,
had learned to love: "The Rising of the
Lark," "The Valley of the Folding of the
Lambs," "Maid Meggan
many of
which I found that the "Sasneg
cribbed without acknowledgment of their
origin and had set to ugly English words,
"Cease your funning,"
"Poor Mary
Anne," &c.

"had

The most cheerful of them sounded sad however, I thought, as she sang them; there was a strange pathos in her voice, as if it carried with it the echoes of the old historical sadnesses as well as her own, which made me thrill. I used to open my door to hear her, and she would sometimes come and sing to me I saw a great deal of her by snatches; she cared for all that I was doing and all that I was reading, which was not very much, though my niece had sent me down a great parcel of books-the circulating library of the place possessing nothing but novels. My solitary rambles and the sitting on the beach in the open

air for hours were very tiring, and I came in generally too much exhausted to do more than lie on the horsehair sofa with a book of travels. Besides which, the period for much reading for most of us is not when we have all our time to ourselves, and "nothing else to do," as is supposed, but when one is at least mod-a brig and a brigantine. I thought her erately busy for other people.

stayed with me for some time while we watched the passing vessels, and undertook my education, hitherto much neglected, as to the characteristics of schooners, smacks, flats, cutters, barques, and coasting-luggers and explained most scientifically the difference between sadder than ever, poor child - perhaps with their associations, and determined to see Mr. Davies that night when he came home and to ask him if nothing could be done to help her.

In the afternoon I strolled out again alone, and farther than usual from the town, in the excitement of my last enjoyment of such a beautiful nature. At

There was not very much perhaps in Charlia's extreme desire to know more about "foreign parts and languages' Captain Roberts probably had been, or might have to go, abroad; but she had appetite for better things, and she was so interested in all which we did together that I was quite afraid of keeping her from her other work. She was left won-last I found a sheltered corner under a derfully free, however, as to her time and her doings, by her loving mother, who would have made up for the one thing denied to Charlia by every tender indulgence that she could lavish upon her, while her father interfered with her liberty only on this one to him necessary point of discipline.

Charlia's moods varied extremely: she had asked me to help her in her French, which, like that of Chaucer's prioress, was after the scole of Stratford atte bowe, for Frenche of Paris was to hire unknown," but sometimes she could hardly keep up her attention to what we were doing for more than a moment. Occasionally she looked so excited and restless that I wondered her parents were not more uneasy-probably, however, she controlled herself more when with them than alone with me. I had tabooed all talk about Captain Roberts — it seemed to be worse than useless; but, to do her justice, she did not seem to wish to enter much on the subject - she felt it too deeply.

rocky bank, where the stunted old oak and ivy and fern made a pleasant warm nook, into which the sun shone almost hotly. It might have been summer but for the colour of the leaves, and that peculiar still feeling,

the harmony In autumn and the lustre in the sky, Which through the summer is not heard or

seen,

As if it could not be, as if it had not been Shelley's lines went running on in my head. I had a book with me, but the world was far too fair to look at anything but the exquisite pictures before my eyes. Suddenly there was a rustling above my head, and a man swung himself down the almost perpendicular bank by the branches of a tree: it was too steep to climb down. He must have got over the wall from the road above, which was in a shelf in the hill. As he set foot on the beach he turned in the direction of the town, and I saw him quite distinctly: he was a tall handsome fellow, with a bright, halfcareless, half-daring look, and a merry It was very near the end of my time gleam in his dark-blue eyes, for a mowhen one morning the sun shone out ment, I thought at his success so far in most gloriously, the whole earth seemed whatever he was intent upon. I do not to glow. A pale blue haze hung over the know whether he saw me or not, but he distant mountain headlands, which dipped was not a man likely to care much either down into the sea with great scarped way; I was only a "tourist," a “visitor," cliffs; the nearer hills seemed an intri-a thing not much regarded in those parts. cate network of still purplish heather, Presently he turned again and walked the yellow gorse, and the brown fern- slowly round the next point of the woodthe sea was "shot" with green and lilaced bank, which jutted far out into the hues the white gulls hovered above, and vessels of every size and variety of rig, and of white and brown sails, came stealing out round points and into distant little ports. All was calm and peaceful and exquisitely lovely in its stillness. Charlia carried my camp-stool and a book and settled me in a sunny corner: she

narrow beach. The way led in fact nowhere, for, farther on, the rocks came quite down into the sea; he by no means looked like a man given to solitary meditation, and my curiosity was roused. In a few minutes there was a quiet quick step on the shingle close to me, and Charlia appeared from the side of the

I

town. She passed close to me without | Captain Roberts under the cliffs. She is
seeing me, walked straight before her, very sorry, and
looking neither right nor left, past the
same point behind which I had seen the
man disappear. It was very clear who he
was. I was sadly puzzled to know what
to do. Would it be any use to interfere
at such a moment? had I a right to do
so?

While I was deliberating, however, Charlia appeared once more round the point and alone; the man had probably gone up the bank as he had come down. They could not have been more than a quarter of an hour together.

As she came back fronting my nook, looking very pale and resolute, I got up in her absorbed state, I doubt whether otherwise she would have noticed me at j all. She coloured up like fire; not the beautiful blush of a girl, but the painful outward effect of some vehement emotion.

I could get no further, for the old man's outbreak of anger was terrible to see. He came of a hot-tempered race, passionate when roused, and the storm of violent words, in what was to me a foreign language, quite frightened me. But Charlia stood by perfectly still and silent and unmoved, though she was as pale as death.. I am not sure that she even heard the words; she was simply bracing herself up to endure. Mrs. Davies entreated me in a low voice to leave the room - she was very proud of her husband, and could not bear that I should see him "out of himself." I was very wretched, and stood about with my door open, till in a few minutes Charlia rushed past me up to her room.

"Is there nothing can be done?" I whispered to her mother, who came to the foot of the stairs looking after her. "If “Charlia,” I said, "how can you de- Mr. Davies could give her hopes for the ceive those good people, who trust you future, supposing Captain Roberts is so entirely? Dear, you owe them some-steady; if he could but let her have thing better, surely, for all these years something to look forward to!" of affection. I should not have thought you would meet Captain Roberts under

She turned on me like a wild animal, and then broke down again, sobbing pitifully as she said, "Do you say it; do you Say it."

"You must be there, then, and promise them that you will never do this again. I cannot satisfy them," said I, at my wits' end.

"Promise I will not do this again?" she moaned, in a strange low questioning tone, almost inaudible.

She shook her head sadly. 66 Father's one who is so set if once he's made up his mind. But I must try later on," said she, sighing.

There was no singing that night, and as soon as work was done the poor girl disappeared again into her own cell.

The next day was a busy one to me. The only acquaintance I had anywhere in those parts had asked me to pay them a visit when I left the place. I was to start next day, drive across country half the way, and be met by their horses. It was a gloomy, dismal morning, with showers of cold rain at intervals -the brief de St. Martin was clearly over, and it was quite time to be gone. The sky was grey, the sea was grey, the mountains were blotted as with a veil, except where a spectral outline appeared occasionally high up, as if among the clouds. The

Eté

I cannot undertake this for you," re-little ships, passing and at anchor, all peated I.

We came out on the open beach and then on the road, and walked home side by side without uttering another word.

I went straight into the body of the house. My own courage was beginning to fail at facing the stern old father and the loving mother with the story, but I thought I might help poor Charlia in what seemed her hard strife with herself.

"Mr. Davies," I said, in rather a trembling voice," Charlia has been meeting

loomed black through the mist-the hulls, the rigging, the sails, which looked so bright in the sunshine, all now took the same funereal hue in the grey autumn weather.

All the final bits of business — the packing, the paying of small bills, which cannot be persuaded to come in till the last moment, the tiresome odds and ends which take so much time — occupied me

Welsh, "The little summer before winter."

all day. I had to go into the town once or twice, and could not help feeling to what a forlorn winter I was leaving poor Charlia, and began to devise plans of sending for her later to join me, and give some sort of diversion to her thoughts. She had never been near me all the morning, although twice I had sent to ask whether she could not come up. Once she was "just going out on an errand," and another time she just "had got her gown off," and altogether I saw that she intended to avoid me. I had done my best for the poor girl as far as I knew how, and I had cared for her very much, which was more, and her evident feeling against me grieved me sorely.

It was growing dusk I sent down my letters for the post, and I heard Charlia's voice down-stairs say that she would take them to the office herself. Presently I saw her with a shawl over her brown hat pass towards the town.

It was quite dark, and a couple of hours perhaps after this, when I heard a bustle in the house, and Mrs. Davies came hurriedly in to ask me whether I had seen or heard anything of Charlia. "She had not been home since she went to the post," she said, miserably. Her father was evidently beginning to be alarmed at the possible consequences of the outbreak of the night before, and was going out to inquire about her; and then she looked into my face piteously for comfort and counsel.

It all flashed upon me. the quiet little bay open to the sea and the ship, where there were half a dozen places from which she could be taken up in its boat-the meeting of the two, when all probably had been arranged.

"Had we not better look into her room first?" said I.

There were some signs of packing, though all was very neat in the room. We opened the drawers; all were empty; but in one lay a letter, directed to her mother. By this time, however, her eyes, and those of her husband, were so blinded with tears, that she put it into my hands to read.

"Dear Father and Mother, When this gets to you, I shall be far away over the sea. Don't search for me I shall be beyond reach. Don't be too angry, dears, or think too ill of me, I couldn't help it. I had promised him so faithfully, and sworn it, too, on a broken ring I've got round my neck. You shall hear as soon as we are married where we are. I hope we are going to Scotland. They say it will be done quickest there. Dears, I am sure you may trust him. .

"And that's just what I never have done and never shall do," cried the father, savagely striking his clenched fist on the chest of drawers near which he stood. The blow was so violent that it nearly broke the top, and must have hurt even his hard hand.

"That isn't all, surely?" inquired the mother eagerly.

"And now, dears, forgive me if you can you will love me still, I know that, for as angry as you are. I couldn't help it- I couldn't help it, indeed! and I'm sure he's a good man! God bless you, my own dears."

The letter sounded almost like a despairing cry, and the poor mother sank down on a chair and sobbed as if her heart would break, while I read a little postscript, nearly illegible, where the great tears had fallen; how they were

to thank the dear kind lady and say how badly it made me feel not to go to her when she sent for me; it seemed so She called her husband, and we all ungrateful, but I couldn't go or I know I three went into the little upper chamber should have spoken." Oh, if she had! which was called Charlia's, and which but it probably would have been useless. they had taken great pains to make nice We looked round the room once again the neat white dimity hangings to the before we left it. There was an old-fashbed the hanging bookcase, the pretty ioned sentimental novel left on the booktables, all which her father had put up shelves, “All for Love," with a pirate himself; pathetic evidences of their care for hero and lover; "Voices of the and love for her in every direction. IHeart, by M. Jones, second edition," a knew the room well, for our two little girls great poet, whose name I was so ignorant had slept there, the house having been as never to have heard of the passionfilled to overflowing during their stay. ate passages all underlined and scored; What a contrast to the poor heart-sick" Dew-drops of the Affections," "from inmate who had just left it! With a sort her tender friend and school-fellow, Eleoof dull pang I remembered our Janet's nora M. Dobbs ; some sea-songs, and a vehement longing to see and know smart Bible, evidently not much used. "But she's taken her old Bible, that was

Charlia.

once mine," said her mother eagerly; "she couldn't mean any harm and take that with her!"

What could I say, but that I was quite sure that she "meant no harm"?

with her fate as dark and troubled as the night. I was thankful when daybreak came and the dreadful night was overit seemed better at least for any one to die in the light.

When I came down-stairs next morn

"I don't think I ever remember a worse storm, and this is a frightful coast to be

"I can't think how she sent off her clothes," went on Mrs. Davies anxiously;ing, "We shall have some terrible stories but there had been no real difficulty in to-day of vessels ashore," said my hostthis it was known that I was going to ess anxiously. leave, and there was nothing remarkable in packages being sent away from the house. We found afterwards that Char-lost on," said my host. lia had stopped a friendly cart, and brought out a box directed to her aunt, to be left at the little inn near the landing-stage two miles down, "to be called for." Probably the " Northern Star" had by this time picked it up.

I was off early the next morning. I would have waited a day or so, to try and comfort my poor hostess, who, as an Englishwoman, felt herself sometimes rather lonely, and somewhat as if in a foreign country, but I could not break my engagement, and went off low and dispirited.

"There was a poor girl at sea last night in a little merchant vessel whom I am much interested in," said I, sadly. "Heaven help her," replied he solemnly.

In the course of the day flying rumours of disasters came in from all sides -no one seemed quite to know.how or from where as such rumours always do. Here a ship had been altogether wrecked and half the crew had gone down with her; there another had gone ashore, but the men were all safe. The worst news was from the nearest port, where a vessel had parted from her anchor and had drifted down upon another, which lost "hers also, and the two entangled together had broken up on the rocks, and every soul on board both had been drowned.

"Write and tell me as soon as you hear- we must hope the best for her, and that you'll have good news soon,' said I, sadly, as we got into the fly.

It was a most disagreeable journey the wind had been rising fast the whole night; the rain swept by in fine drifts; the mountains were completely blotted out by a veil of mist; we should have seen as much of them in Hyde Park. It was painful to me to expose other people's horses in such weather for my service. I was overdone when we arrived, and kind as my hosts were, it was difficult for me to rally, as I thought of poor Charlia. The wind went on rising all day, and though the house was not on the coast, we could hear it all through the evening, blowing great guns.

At night it increased to a gale; my room was to windward, and it was impossible to sleep. The window seemed at every moment about to be driven in; the wind roared in the chimney, and howled and wailed and screeched ́in an almost unearthly way. I seemed to hear voices calling to me in agony if I dropped into a doze for a moment- the house quite rocked -the rain beat in torrents, and sobbed and cried against the casements, as if entreating to be taken in. I thought of all that must be going on upon the sea as I lay the vessels driven hither and thither like chaff, and my poor Charlia

Later came more details. One was a brigantine, the "Northern Star," which had taken refuge in the port, it was said, as the night came on. The body of a young woman had been washed up with those of some of the sailors.

66

Probably she was the captain's wife," said my hostess.

|
I was silent the port was not on the
road to Scotland-but in such a gale
perhaps the "Northern Star" could not
choose her own way. It was not for poor
Charlia's death that I grieved - what
could the "fitful fever" she had made
of life give her even at the best, but sor-
row and remorse in such circumstances ?-
The tempest had ended her perplexities;
she was in more merciful and loving
hands than ours where she was now gone.
But what a sad fate, when such a death
was almost a relief!

The poor parents went off, as soon as
the rumour reached them, to identify the
body, and give it decent burial, and I
saw them once again when they had
reached home after their terrible journey.
But such things are not of those which
can bear the telling.
F. P. V.