and that was to keep Hoppytop in cheek, to fill him up, and leave Mrs. Hoppytop in possession.

We got into a quiet corner. The brandy was good, so was the apollinaris water. Hoppy. glad to get a chance of taking a gentlemanly drink, went ahead. Then he became cautious, but was ashamed to hint that it was time to turn in.

Then he grew reckless, and offered copious libations to auld lang syne; and then he relapsed into a maudlin condition, and wept as he unfolded to me that Mrs. H. had already commenced to show the cloven foot.

ON the 5th of June, 187-, Dame Nature awoke in a particularly fine humor. The day was fit for Elysium or Fairy-land. The sun shot golden shafts through the deep foliage of stately elms; the white clouds drifted lazily along the intense blue heavens, and the light Summer wind tossed the leaves about until they seemed moving in happy time to some graceful measure.

It was a day calculated to lighten hearts and brighten faces, a luxurious, smiling, munificent day; and yet nearly every man, woman and child at the Gray Hotel was in an unenviable humor.

I say "nearly," for there was the usual exception. A woman, in spite of the contagious ill-humor among her associates, had yielded to the kindly influence of nature, and was as bright and sweet as the morning itself. Her happiness was constitutional, and grew out of a mind which, like her body, was perfectly sound and healthy. She was filled with pleasant thought and feeling, and she enjoyed her surroundings with a childish disregard of past annoyances or future cares.

She was scarcely young enough for such careless cheerfulness. It was her birthday, and it might have shadowed a mind less wholesome than hers. She was away from her home, at a dull little inn where she had been delayed in her journey to one of the great lakes. Her two sisters and her other fellow-passengers were vehement in their regrets because of the delay, while she stood at her window and enjoyed her situation with the utmost good-humor.

She was twenty-five years old that day-the round, ripe age of wifehood, or young motherhood, but what she called "the old age of girlhood."

She was refreshing to look at, as all whole some, honest people are pleasing, but she was

not handsome. She had a pair of fearless gray eyes which looked you fairly in the face, a straight nose, a rather wide mouth, and really. beautiful teeth. The younger Misses Ward had little, regular features, and were far prettier than their elder sister. They had delicate rose-tinted complexions, and they made a point of reminding Miss Ward, the elder, that she had a few freckles on her otherwise irreproachable nose. They had pretty golden hair, but Jean's was like night, and while she had an abundance of it, she did not imitate her sisters' elaborate topknots, but wore her hair in a careless manner, of which they gravely disapproved.

It was a deplorable fact in the history of the younger Misses Ward that. in spite of their superior attractions, their sister received more than two-thirds of the attention paid their family. They were the elegant Misses Psyche and Daphne Ward, who wore the latest fashions, if they had to go in debt to do so; who walked, waltzed, sang and talked in the very newest and most approved style. She was only plain Jean Ward (half the time called "Jane"), who went fishing in a flannel suit, and who sang English ballads in polite circles where she should have soared to the heights of Italian Opera; yet it was true that Jean received more bouquets than both of her sisters, and was "invited everywhere."

At one time they hoped Jean would marry, and so be placed out of their way; but she had disappointed them until Psyche, in a fine pet, said that only one man in a thousand could become permanently resigned to Jean's wide mouth and queer ways.

Jean Ward was still standing at the window, when a man came across the meadow toward her. When she saw him she drew a quick breath of pleased surprise, and stepped out on the piazza, where the air was heavy and sweet with the odor of roses and honeysuckle.

The man had stopped, knee-deep, in a cloverbed, in which the bees and humming-birds held high carnival. He was a tall, well-knit, muscular-looking fellow, with square shoulders and formidable fists; but he had the grace and easy bearing of a gentleman.

As he perceived Miss Ward, he renewed his walk, scanning her face with quick interest. There was no recognition in their glances; but it was a fixed conviction in the mind of each that somewhere they had met before.

He went to the office of the inn and registered the name of Paul Redmond. She returned to her sisters to talk about him.

"I heard you saying that you would not dress well to go to breakfast," she said. "If you had seen the gentleman I saw arrive a minute ago, you would at once change your opinion and your apparel."

What is he like?" asked Psyche.

"He is a man with brown hair, brown eyes, a brown beard and a brown face. He is 'as mighty-thewed as Samson was, dark-browed as kings in iron cast, broad-breasted as twin gates of brass!' He has the brow of a scholar and the fist of a pugilist. He is handsome and huge. You had better breakfast in your very best dresses."

"We will do no such thing for such a savage as you describe," Daphne said; "and, besides, you would only make fun of us if we took your advice."

Jean did not appear in the breakfast room that morning. She astonished her sisters by saying that she was indisposed, and by having her meal served in her room.

The idea of Jean being ailing was absurd. She was teeming with perfect health and vivacity; but she may have had a different meaning than they understood. Certainly, for an invalid, she ate a very substantial breakfast.

It would have been plain to any one watching her that she breakfasted alone to give herself time to arrange a little plan which had possession of her mind.

She had learned that morning that the party in whose company she was would certainly be detained at the Gray Hotel another night. A stage and a tally-ho" coach were to have taken them the remainder of their journey, but a broken wheel on the one vehicle, and a drunken driver on the other, made their progress for the time impossible.

She had hoped to meet her father at the lake, and with him to celebrate her birthday; but she made light of her disappointment, and planned a little celebration of her own.

She resolved to spend the day out of doors, and in the evening to have a dance at the Gray Hotel. There were no guests at the inn excepting her intimate friends and the gentleman who had arrived that morning.

In case no better music was accessible, there was a rattling little piano in the parlor, but Jean determined to have what she called "an orchestra of native talent."

By making inquiries of the innkeeper, she learned the names of some half-dozen amateur musicians in the place, and she started out to engage them.

She was unaccompanied, for the ladies were all occupied, and the gentlemen were to be kept in profound ignorance of her plan until evening. Daphne and Psyche had objected vigorously to the whole affair. A dance at a country hotel to the rasping tunes of unskilled fiddlers was something to be contemplated with horror.

She was out of doors the entire day, coming home at dusk with her hands full of ferns and wild-flowers, and flushed and hungry from excitement and enjoyment. She found her sisters more resigned to her arrangements for the evening. Her party had become popular among the guests at the inn, and they had decorated the walls with ferns and filled the vases with roses and lilies-of-the-valley.

Psyche and Daphne had become acquainted with Mr. Redmond, and were consequently in better spirits. He was slightly known to a Mrs. Dacre, who was one of their party, and the obliging old soul had introduced him to the girls.

They were much impressed by his good looks and easy elegance, and told Jean she had no right to give them such an offensive description of a polished, high-bred gentleman as she had given of him. She had actually made them suppose that he was a retired prizefighter!

They had greatly enjoyed themselves while Jean was away. They had worn their pretty Swiss dresses, and sat on the piazza and coquetted to their silly hearts' content. Enjoyment to them meant masculine admiration, pretty costumes and freedom from Jean's criticism. Enjoyment to Jean meant her simple existence. Town-bred though she was, she knew every bird in the forest and every flower in the fields. Her sisters' sole object was to be admired; but her mission was to love unselfishly, and to do homage to God's creatures.

She dressed herself with unusual care that evening. She had an India mull dress, trimmed with delicate embroidery, and she surprised her sisters by wearing it. She had protested against packing it in her trunk, and declared it should remain at home all Summer and appear only at parties in the Fall. It was too pretty, she said, to be packed away in the coarse company of flannel dresses and stout boots. She and her sisters had arguments on the subject earnest enough for a much more important

cause.

"My India mull is the poetry of material." she had said, nonsensically. "It is fit only for strolls through flower-scented conservatories like Mrs. Dacre's, where it is associated with faint ballroom music, and where I and the dress are admired by Mrs. Dacre's poetical sons. Still, I will take it to the lake if it will be any comfort to you to have me to do so, but remember, girls, I shall not wear it out of its legitimate sphere."

And yet most inconsistent woman!-ten days later she donned the self-same dress for a dance in a country tavern.

Her sisters were not well pleased with her appearance. Their sharp little eyes detected the fact that Jean's costume was too dangerously becoming for so small a party, and that the shapely arms and shoulders gleaming through the fine texture of her dress were smooth and white as ivory.

She half-apologized for her appearance. It was her birthday, she said, and she must decorate in honor of the auspicious occasion.

You have had so many birthdays," Psyche said, spitefully, "that I should think you would make them as unconspicuous as possible. At twenty-five, the prefix miss is & positive disgrace."

But Jean was irrepressible.

If my sister had studied Cicero. instead of flirting with her teacher, she would have noticed that the author says: 'I had rather be old only a short time than be old before I really am so. My sympathies are with the great Cicero."

When Jean went down-stairs, the scene which met her eyes filled her with delight. The members of her "orchestra" had arrived," and were favoring the company with a preliminary exhibition of their musical skill. They were a half-dozen country lads, dressed in their Sunday clothes. who evidently regarded the present as a stupendous occasion. They vigorously played on various instruments, every one of which was out of tune; but they performed their few selections in roystering time, and ended them with a blast and a flour

ish which provoked much laughter and applause from their hearers.

The ladies had dressed themselves in holiday attire in honor of Jean's birthday, and some of them were dancing; but Daphne and Psyche were contemptuous spectators, and were talking with Mr. Redmond.

"It is a shame that we have to remain so long in this wretched place." Psyche said. "We hoped to reach the lake to-day."

This entertainment must almost reconcile you to your disappointment," the gentleman remarked." It is worth a day of a man's life to witness the enthusiasm of our six musicians."

"Do you like it, really?” she asked. "Such things amuse my sister Jean, who will take un limited satisfaction in dancing to the scraping of those violins; but to me it seems a pity that music should be so caricatured."

That is as it must appear to a person who appreciates the sublime in art," he said, blandly; "but to an untutored mind like mine, the 'scraping' you despise is pleasurable. We are so differently constituted, that the self-same rasping discord which tortures your delicate nerves sounds like melody in my ears, and is communicated to my tip-toes. I know more of dancing than of music, Miss Psyche-at least, I dance better than I sing. Will you favor me, despite the bad accompaniment?"

It was some time before he and Jean met face to face. Gentlemen were scarce in that little company, and he was kept busy ; but his eyes often wandered out to where Jean Ward was the centre of a little group of friends, and he knew she looked fair and sweet, even with Daphne's classic face close beside her.

He approached Jean at last, and they knew each other.

"I recognized you this morning," she told him, frankly ; “ but I feared you would not remember me."

"See how well I recollect," he said in return. "I danced with you seven years ago to night, at a ball given by Mrs. Dacre. It was the anniversary of your birthday, and you wore a dress similar to the one you now wear.' She opened her eyes wide with astonish

ment.

"Tell me more about it, if you can," she said. "Like all selfish people, I am profoundly interested in conversation about myself."

deed," he said, laughing with her. "Do you think we could dance if we tried? If possible, I would like to renew our dancing where seven years ago we left it off."

She knew almost nothing of this man. She had met many people since meeting him who had died out of her memory at once; but this one man had lived there, perhaps, because he had been a prominent feature of that great event-her first ball. She had liked him then

with all of her childish fervor, and with her woman's graver judgment she liked him now. The little party dispersed early, for the musicians were unused to late hours.

When Jean bade Mr. Redmond good-night, she did so cordially, for she felt as though she had been dancing and making merry with an old friend. He was a lucky fellow, for he had left a favorable impression on the minds of three women. Psyche, especially, praised him so extravagantly that she sent Jean into fits of laughter.

"I never before saw so magnificent a figure." Psyche said. "He makes me think of the mighty kings in poetry, and he seems capable of all that is great and manly. Indeed, his strength and size make the man actually sublime."

"From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step,'" Jean quoted.

"Whoever he is, he is evidently a gentleman," Psyche continued, calmly ignoring Jean's quotation. "When he speaks he proves he is a man of letters: when he argues, he shows himself to be a man of sense, and by his choosing the company of Daphne and myself, instead of talking with those disagreeable Dacre girls, he convinces me that he is a man of taste!"

During the evening the sisters had discovered that Mr. Redmond was also going to the lake, and he proposed that the Misses Ward should all ride with him on the top of the "tally-ho," as the scenery was well worth the experience. They had all consented to this arrangement, but Daphne appeared to take less pleasure in the plan than the others. To tell the truth, Daphne was not exactly comfortable in the gentleman's presence.

She had a minute body, but it contained a gigantic spirit of boastfulness which led her into making inaccurate statements. In plainer words, Daphne Ward did not always tell the truth.

"You are making me feel exceedingly oldladified to-night," she said, laughingly. "My little sisters are women now, you see, and I am still celebrating my tiresome birthdays. My first ball was a sort of Declaration of Independence, which freed me from the schoolroom, and it now seems as ancient an affair as the national one."

He looked at her with frank animation in his eyes. She had lost none of her attractiveness in the seven years since they had met.

branch road out to the lake.

She became alarmed as soon as she made the statement, for the gentleman raised his eyebrows the merest trifle and expressed a little surprise. He made no remark, but for some intangible reason the girl was certain that he had not believed her. She was grievously unhappy about the affair-not because she had told an untruth, however, but because her falsehood had been found out.

They all arose and breakfasted early next morning, and prepared for their journey. They were told that the driver of the "tallyhad recovered from the effects of his

debauch, and, as the day was fair, they were likely to have a pleasant excursion.

Mr. Redmond, enveloped in a huge duster, and wearing immense gauntlet gloves, made himself useful by helping the older people into the stage, and by superintending affairs generally.

When the stage drove away, the "tally-ho" was brought before the hotel-door, and was greeted by a shout of mirth and derision. It was a rattling old chariot drawn by four horses, and belonging to a generation dead years before its present passengers were born. But the strangest feature of this remarkable equipage was its driver, for at the minute when the Misses Ward were about to take their places on the coach, they made the appalling discovery that the fine gentleman with whom they had waltzed and coquetted on the previous evening was no other than the driver of the wretched old tally-ho."

CHAPTER II.

They were so overcome by wrath and consternation that for at least five minutes neither spoke, an unheard-of event in their whole previous history. While their obsequious driver still offered to assist them, they treated him to a stony stare, and seated themselves within the coach.

They were incensed at Jean's conduct. She had remained standing while their contemptuous pantomime continued, but now she flushed a little, and allowed Paul Redmond to help her to the place she had at first chosen.

She was a trifle grave when he had climbed up beside her. but her gravity vanished when they started off. The children on the street ran and shouted after them, the dogs barked, the trumpet was sounded. the horses were urged to a canter, and the tally-ho creaked and clattered, while Jean Ward rode away on the car of her destiny.

Oh, merry Jean! do you know your laughter is music in your coachman's ears, and that at least one man in the world is "permanently resigned" to your "wide mouth and queer ways?"

Paul Redmond made no attempt to intrude