"Second question," added Mr. Brandon : "What is a school? Answer: A place where they teach boys to be pagans every day, and tell them to be Christians once a week."

He then walked up to the window, and saying what a beautiful morning it was, asked if we should like to have it open, and was just opening it, when I, having nothing to do, ran up-stairs for my workbox. In less than three minutes I came down again, and outside the door, which was shut, stood Valentine panting on the mat. "It's locked," he said; "the door's locked, and you can't get in." "Locked?"

"Yes; that villain Giles,-how he comes to be so strong I can't think;-I was as quiet as possible, reading away at my French, and he came behind me, and in the twinkling of an eye, before I could speak, he folded me up, and I was outside the window sitting among the tulips and things. Look at my coat. I'm all covered with tulip-dust."

"Dear me, I wish I had seen it. Did he send you flying out, or only lay you down like a parcel?"

"O, how base some people are! Giles, Giles, sir" (he called through the keyhole)," you've locked out Miss Graham."

"No, stop," I said, "as we are locked out, suppose we steal a march on them, and go for a walk this lovely morning?" "You won't do it?"

"I will, if you will."

He expressed his delight in some strange fashion. I ran up-stairs, was soon equipped, and off we set, on one of the sweetest spring mornings that ever smiled itself away.

The shadows of dark-green leaves are sweet and solemn, but the shadows of pink and white blossom are the rarest and most delicate in all nature. We heard all about us the piping of blackbirds, and the near humming of contented bees. We got into the orchard and down to a little stream that bordered it, and when I saw the glittering water-buttercups, the mosses, and all the trees so ghostly fair, I felt what an ecstasy there is in youth and spring.

Then we got under a great pear-tree, smelt its blossom, and looked up through it to the pale blue sky, and I was so oppressed with happiness, that I could hardly speak, and for a long time could not leave the enchanted spot; the common world I felt would seem so plain and chill after it.

But we did leave it, and I found the fir-wood beyond almost as beautiful; it abounded with the nests of thrushes and linnets, and round its edges we gathered violets; then we came back to the orchard, sat down on a bench, and my heart kept repeating, "How great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!" Then suddenly Valentine said

"Do you think people are better or worse than they appear?"

"Do you mean people in general, or ourselves?"

"O well, I suppose I meant you and me.”

"I think just now we must be better than we appear, we must have some better thoughts than any words we have said."

"But this is such a wonderful morning, so lovely that it makes one feel quite solemn."

"Yes, and everything so happy and so good."

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Ah, well, I wish I did not live with such extremely good people— such people I mean as my father, and Giles, and Miss Dorinda When you see how they go on you will wish the same, unless you are a very excellent person yourself, and I don't see that you

are."

'Oh, but I always thought it helped one on to be with such people."

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No, it doesn't. They have found out all sorts of ways, both of doing good and being good; they go into motives, and they think they must govern their bad feelings. Well, I should never have found out such things if I had been let alone, therefore it would not have been my duty to practise them. Now they stare me in the face, and I often feel miserable for fear I ought to be different." Oh, you are quite a child in spite of your height," was my thought; 'you have no reserve, even with a stranger." But I answered,Surely that is better than not thinking about it."

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"It is very disagreeable," he replied, "to feel that one gets worse as one gets older."

"Disagreeable,” I replied; "how can you use a word so inadequate to express the feeling?"

"Yes; but when we feel that, we know that we can have help to become better if we will ask for it."

"Ah, yes," he answered, naïvely; "but then, you know, you would have to ask for it quite sincerely, and without any reservation. Do you think I look as if I was going to be a clergyman?"

"Not in the least, as far as I can judge."

"But I am; at least if I can make up my mind to it. Mamma always wished it so much, and so does my father."

"I do not see that your being so fond of fun is at all against it." "No-so Giles says-and some fellows must be clergymen, you know. I've got to decide during the next few months, and if I really feel I ought not, Giles says he shall back me. Isn't it odd, my talking in this way to you?"

"Very odd; I was just thinking so."

"I never do, excepting to him, and not to him if I can help it, because he takes advantage of me afterwards; when I don't work he reminds me of things we have talked about. I have no business to be out here now with you. I ought to be doing my Greek."

VCL. XI.

D

"Bring it here then, and we will do it together."

"Ah! I want to hear you read Greek; but will you promise to wait for me?"

I promised, and while he was gone sat under the pear-tree delighted with life and spring.

Tramp, tramp, came a slow foot. I wished Valentine had not been so expeditious; but I did not look round. Something was being read or said aloud, and I soon observed that it was by a far different voice from the cracked one I had been listening to that morning.

The steady foot came on; there was a narrow path before the bench, and I saw Mr. Brandon advancing, looking grave and abstracted. He was conning or reading a speech from some written notes in his hand, and was perfectly unconscious of my presence as I sat buried among the bending pear-boughs.

I heard a sentence as he advanced. He did not look up, and would have passed but that he had to push aside a branch, in doing which he glanced off his notes, and beheld me within a yard of his face.

He started up again with no little surprise, and sent the bough swinging in his haste, so that it scattered me and the grass with a shower of little flower pearls.

"Miss Graham! who would have thought it?—and all alone.” "All alone: that is no misfortune. I am very happy."

"Yes," he answered, "I see you are. Set in a white world of blossom, and lost in maiden meditation; but why did you come here?"

"Because I was locked out of the morning room."

"A sufficient cause, and one that ought to make me ashamed of myself, but does not; for, if I may judge by appearances, you are very much indebted to me."

"Yes, it is so long since I set my feet on the soft delightful sward, that I wish I might stay here all day."

"You were led here by instinct?"

"No, by Valentine; and he is now gone to fetch his Greek books, to do some construing with me."

"What a delightful camaraderie seems to be established already between you two!"

"Birds of a feather, you know."

"You are joking; you cannot really feel any similarity and equality."

Being touched here on a weak point, I replied that I felt myself to be a grown-up woman while he was only a boy. "But he is a very delightful boy," I went on, "for he likes me, and likes to be with me."

"In my eyes he is a charming young fellow, a joyous, idle, frank,

unreasonable young dog; but is every one, even a boy, charming in your eyes if he likes you, and likes to be with you?"

"I don't know. I should think not. But this sudden friendliness I have not met with hitherto; it has the charm of novelty."

"That charm," he said, quietly, "will most likely soon wear off."” He stood before me pressing the moss with his foot, and with the faint shadows of the blossom flickering on his face. I think he was a little impatient to go on, but he could not very well leave me by myself any more than I could him. I liked just as well to be alone. "What a time that boy is!" he presently said, looking along the path, and lo! the expression of his face changed suddenly to one of considerable embarrassment, his open forehead flushed slightly, and he made a hasty movement as if he would have retreated, but checked himself.

At the same instant I heard several voices, Mr. Mortimer's among them, and presently the fine white head emerged from the entanglement of blossoming boughs; then Liz and Louisa appeared, and lastly Valentine.

Giles stood his ground.

"Bless me," exclaimed Mr. Mortimer, "how pleasant it is out here! I thought you were getting up your lecture, Giles," and thereupon he sat down by me and cleared his throat loudly, and I thought significantly.

"So I was," answered the step-son, "and, coming accidentally down here, I found Miss Graham sitting all alone."

At that ill-advised, but most true word, "accidentally," both the sisters and Mr. Mortimer openly smiled. I was not at all put out of countenance, "the endeared outlines of those chimneys" were present to my thoughts, if not to theirs.

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Well," said Valentine, excusing himself for having left me, "I am sure I have not been gone a quarter of an hour, and I should have been here before, only that I could not find my lexicon."

"We must try to forgive you, my boy," said Mr. Mortimer, with a twinkle in his eye, "and so must Giles. A quarter of an hour is not long, after all, for him to be kept from his lecture."

Here taking up the defence of the oppressed, I made a remark as to how I had been locked out, and this gradually drew on the whole story.

"Locked him out!" exclaimed Mr. Mortimer, with a puzzled air. "Yes, papa," said Lou, "Giles put the Oubit out of the window, for making game of him at breakfast-time, and then locked the door to prevent his getting in again."

"And I brought Miss Graham here," said Valentine; "and we were so happy."

"But when we unlocked the door," observed Liz, bolted on the outside."

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we found it

"Naturally you did," said Valentine.

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"And we did not like to ring," she continued ; 'we thought it would look so odd to the servant to find us bolted in, so we waited, hoping Dorothea would come to the outside."

"Where is young Graham?" asked Mr. Mortimer.

"He is in my room," said St. George, "hunting up something about the currency. We are going to dine with John Mortimer

to-morrow, before the lecture."

"Oh, he will go with you to the lecture, will he?” said Louisa. "Yes; are you going?"

"We shall if Dorothea would like to go."

"There are to be some stunning illustrations, I can tell you," said Valentine, and Mr. Brandon withdrew.

"You'll see it reported in one of the county papers next Thurs'day," remarked Valentine. "St. George will figure as our talented What's-his-name. 'We have to report another successful effort from the son of that spirited magistrate and consistent Pink, who, living not a hundred miles from Wigfield, in patriarchal comfort,' &c. Then at the end you will read how St. George held his audience enthralled, and surpassed himself in lively eloquence and appropriate illustration: We are happy to find that Mr. Brandon has entirely recovered after his late battle with the turbulent waves of the Atlantic, and that his adherence to the Pink cause in this borough is as staunch as ever.'"

"Sir, you are impertinent," said his father, who had taken care not to speak till he had finished all he had to say.

"Yes, father," replied Valentine, humbly, "I am sorry to say that is too often the case," and he shook his head and sighed.

Mr. Mortimer looked at me with an air of amusement, that seemed to say, Isn't he a funny young fellow ? and continued-" Giles, sir, is an honour to us all; I wonder you are not proud of your elder brother." "I am," answered Valentine; "I think it must be my being puffed up with pride about my relations that makes me so insufferable." Mr. Mortimer now declared himself rested, and his two stepdaughters bore him off, leaving Valentine and me to our task.

So we began to read, and I soon found myself in the position of instructress; his talent evidently was not for languages, and as a pupil I found him absolutely provoking; he would not attend to his book; he stopped so often to talk-to compliment, and in his horribly cracked voice to sing little snatches of songs, that at last we got into a decided dispute, for he was perfectly careless and indifferent, and I was very much in earnest. "Oh, come!" I exclaimed, as with a ridiculously broken voice he sang, "If she be not kind to me, what care I how fair she be!" "if you do not give your mind to what you are about, you will never come to any good." He stared at me with surprise.