wandering race fared luxuriously. He lent them old rick: covers for tents, and whatever barn he had empty was placed at their disposal. Grace took an interest in the little children, spent all her money in cakes, and robbed the baskets in the apple-loft for their benefit; carried the women great jugs of cold tea in the evenings, and helped and comforted them in many small ways, at the hazard of catching a fever, as her aunt had frequently reminded her. In this particular season she was more than usually active in these small charities: that great sorrow in her heart was wasted as you might a'most see through 'em. And she such a sweet young thing, too! It do seem hard that such as she should be took, and my old father, wot's a trouble to everybody, and no more use of his limbs than a new-born infant, left behind to worrit." One night, after a day spent almost entirely in the hop-fields, Grace discovered a great calamity-her locket was gone. The ribbon worn every day had been worn through at last by the sharp edge of the ring. It was round her neck when she undressed, with the two ends hanging loosely. Late as it was, she would have gone out and hunted for the treasure by moonlight-would have roused the hop-pickers, and bribed them to hunt for her; but the house was locked, and the keys under Mrs. James's pillow, and it was more than she dared to awake that vigilant housewife. So she went to bed quietly, and cried all night, and came down-stairs next morning ashypale, and with red, swollen circles round her eyes, to tell of her loss. Mrs. James flew into a passion on hearing the news. "Lost it! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What call had you to wear it on a workaday?" she cried. Grace blushed crimson. "I knew it was very foolish of me, Aunt Hannah; but-but without avail. Poor Grace wandered about the bare fields -I was so fond of it!" "Was there ever such a baby? Fond of it, indeed! You're fond of the piano that your father gave you: I'm sure I wonder you don't wear that hanging round your neck-you're silly enough. And, of course, some of your blessed hop-pickers have stolen it; and serve you right. That comes of consorting with such low rabble." where the hopvines had lately flourished, with her eyes fixed on the ground, like some melancholy spirit haunting the scene of an unhappy life. Aunt Hannah reprimanded her sharply from day to day for such foolishness. "If the locket's lost, it's lost," she said, philosophically; "and there's no use in grizzling about it. There's more lockets in the world than that; and if the balance is on the right side "They couldn't have stolen it, aunt; I wore it under my next quarter-day, I dare say your uncle will buy you a new one, dress; they couldn't have known anything about it." "Stuff and nonsense! They're cunning enough to know anything. If you'd swallowed a sovereign, they'd know it was inside you. Besides, I dare say you took and pulled it out of your bosom to show to some of their rubbishing brats. You'll nurse yourself into the typhus fever, or the small-pox, one of these days, with nursing those ragamuffins; and a deal of use you'll be in the world without your good looks, considering as you can't so much as set the sponge for a batch of bread." Grace was silent with the silence of guilt. Sitting under a hedge yesterday with one of those waifs of humanity in her lap, while its mother and a brood of bantlings from three years ld upward clustered round a hop-bin a few yards off, she had drawn the locket from her bosom and dangled it before the little one, half to amuse the child, half for the pleasure of looking at the thing which was the sole token left of her brief lovestory. perhaps, with both our portergrafts, one on each side; and they'll be worth taking care of as a family keepsake—something to show your children by-and-by." Grace gave a little involuntary shudder. A portrait of Aunt Hannah, whom photography made unutterably grim, instead of that splendid face, those godlike eyes!" "It's very kind of you to think of that," the girl said, half crying; "but I should never care to have another locket, please." "Oh, very well! I suppose you think we couldn't give you anything as handsome as that; but, for my part, I should have thought you'd have set more store by a keepsake from one of your own family than a stranger's present." "It isn't that, aunt. I've got your photograph and uncle's in my album, and I'm sure I value them. But I'll never wear another locket. There's something unlucky about them." The year waned. October came to an end; and for various Aunt Hannah, though unsympathetic in manner, was by no reasons, that visit to the London physician which James Redmeans minded that the locket should be lost. After having given relief to her mind in this manner, she dispatched Jack and Charley and a farm-laborer to scour the country, under Grace's guidance. The girl was to point out to them every path she had taken, and every spot where she had rested throughout the previous day. "But it's about as likely you'll find the moon lying in the grass as that locket," Aunt Hannah remarked, despairingly, as they set out. She proved only too true a prophet. The young men searched diligently under Grace's direction-searched till dinner, and after dinner began again, and went on unflinchingly till teatime; but without result. After tea the early twilight shrouded the farm, and it was too dark to look any longer. Uncle James had the hoppers collected at nightfall, and told them what had been lost, offering a reward of a couple of sovereigns to the man, woman, or child who would restore it; but they all made the same declaration, with every form of asservation common to their class. No such thing had they seen. "That's a lie!" said James Redmayne, sturdily. "Some of you has seen it, and some of you has got it, or made away with it since last night. The locket's almost as large as the palm of my hand. You couldn't fail to see it lying anywheres; and my sons have been over every inch of ground my niece walked upon yesterday. It's hard you should take anything as belongs to her, for she's been a good friend to you all." "That she have, sir!" the women cried, with tremendous energy, and a desperate emphasis on the last word. And then came a confusion of shrill voices, all protesting that the owners thereof would not wrong Miss Redmayne to the extent of a sixpence. Grace went to her room quite worn out by that weary daythe pacing to and fro, with lessening hope as the hours wore on. It was gone-the one solace that had cheered her life. mayne and his wife had talked about, had not yet been made. To those who saw Grace every day, the gradual change in her was not so obvious as to cause immediate alarm. Nor were hard-working people like the Redmaynes on the watch for such slight symptoms as awaken terror in those who have sufficient leisure to be anxious. The girl rose at her usual time, took her place among her kindred at meals, went patiently through the routine of the long, dull day, and never uttered a complaint. She was completely unhappy, nevertheless. She had no companions of her own age, who might have taught her to shake off this foolish sorrow; no innocent gayeties to distract her mind. The slow, level life of a farm-house was about the best possible existence in which to foster a sorrow such as hers. She had written that epistle which her Uncle James had spoken of as "a pretty little letter"—a very formal composition, supervised by the whole family. James Redmayne would fain have had her begin, "This comes hoping," a formula which he had used all his life, and firmly believed in as the essence of polite letter-writing. She had written to thank Mr. Walgrave for his very kind present, which was indeed very, very beautiful, and which she should value very much all her life. There were a great many "verys" in the letter; and it was written in her best boardingschool hand-with long loops to the g's and y's, after a spécialité of Miss Toulmin'ss-on the thickest and creamiest note-paper to be procured at Tunbridge Wells. Uncle James would have had a view of that polite resort at the top of the first page, but this his niece condemned as vulgar. "Mr. Walgrave knows Tunbridge Wells, uncle," she said. "He can't want a picture of it on a penny sheet of paper-such bad paper, too, as they always print the views on." No answer had come to this letter, which, indeed, needed none; but for a month after she sent it, the girl had hoped, faintly, for some acknowledgment. With the dying out of this hope, and the loss of her locket, all was over; there was nothing left her except the blank future, in which that one beloved figure could have no part. And her father- her father, whose letters had been more "I shall never see his face any more," she said to herself. hopeful of late, telling of increasing good fortune, hinting even "There is a fate against me." at the possibility of his return before another year was ended, with all the objects of his expedition fully realized; the father whose exile she had lamented so bitterly only a year ago—was he forgotten? No, not forgotten; only deposed to the second place in her heart. She thought of him very often, with a guilty sense of having wronged him by her love for another. But that first love of girlhood is an all-absorbing passion. She had hardly room in her mind for her father's image beside that other. If he could have returned at this moment to cheer and comfort her, she might perhaps have struggled bravely with her grief, and conquered it. He had been all the world to her in years gone by-father, mother, companion, friend; the pride and delight of her life; and in the rapture of reunion with him, that other image might have grown pale and shadowy, until it became only the memory of a girlish sorrow. But he did not come, and she went on thinking of Hubert Walgrave. She had no hope-positively none-of ever seeing his face again. Day after day, in the misty November mornings, she awoke with the same void in her heart. The pain was almost worse than the pain of her awakening in the days that followed her father's departure. That grief had at the worst been brightened by hope; this was quite hopeless. Her aunt sent her to Kingsbury one fine afternoon in November, on some small errand to the single shop of the village-an errand which was designed rather to rouse the girl from her listlessness, and give her the benefit of a brisk walk, than to supply any positive need of the household. Anything's better for her than lolloping over a book," remarked Mrs. Redmayne, who regarded reading in every shape and form, except the ponderous Henry's Bible on a Sunday afternoon, as more or less a vice. The walk was through those lanes and by those fields which she had walked so often with him; the way by which they had come together on that first Sunday afternoon when he joined her in her return from church. How well she remembered it all! The landscape had changed since then, but was hardly less beautiful to the eye of a painter. The shifting shadows on the broad fallow, the tawny gold and crimson, brown and dun-color of the still lingering foliage; the very weeds in the hedge, and the dock-leaves in the ditch, fringed by dewdrops left from the morning mists, which a November sun had not been strong enough to disperse-all were beautiful. A robin was singing with all its might on one of the bars of a gate Grace had to pass. She lingered for a few minutes to listen to him, watching the joyous bird with sad, dreamy eyes. "I wonder if birds have any sorrows," she thought, and then opened the gate gently, and went through into the lane. It was a narrow gulley between two tall, neglected hedges, where the blackberry-bushes grew high and rank, mixed with hazel and hawthorn, upon steep grassy banks which were bright with primroses in April. At the very entrance of the lane Grace stopped suddenly, with a little cry-stopped and clasped her hands upon her heart, which had a trick of beating furiously when she was agitated. There was a figure advancing toward her-the tall figure of a man-the image that haunted all her thoughts-Hubert Walgrave. He saw her, evidently, and came on with swifter footsteps to meet her. She would have behaved with the utmost propriety, no doubt, had he come to the gate at Brierwood, and she been prepared for his appearance ever so little; but at his coming upon her suddenly like this, all her fortitude left her; she fell upon his breast, sobbing hysterically. "My darling! my darling!" For a few minutes he could hardly say any more than this, trying all the while to soothe and comfort her, as if she had been a frightened child-waiting very patiently until that violent emotion had worn itself out. Then he lifted her face tenderly, and looked at her. Why, Grace," he said, "how sadly you are altered!" "Am I?" she asked, smiling faintly. "I have not been very happy lately" "Has anything troubled you, my sweet one? has anything been going wrong at Brierwood ?'' Oh, no, no; it is not that. They are all well, and we have hopeful letters from my dear father. Only-" Only what, Grace?" "Yes." "And to see me again, and to be with me, and to be my own forever-would that be happiness ?”’ The soft eyes looked up at him-oh, so tenderly! "You know that it would." He bent down, and kissed her. Then it shall be so, Grace," he said, softly. But, oh, you know it can never, never be! There is the other-the lady you are to marry." "That lady shall not come between me and this faithful heart," he answered, holding her in his arms, and looking down at her with a proud, happy smile. "Were she ten thousand times the woman she is, she should not part us, Grace, seeing that you are true to me, and that I love you with all my strength." "True to you!" she murmured, sadly. "I have lived for nothing except to think of you since you went away." "And I have made it the business of my life to forget you, Grace, and have failed dismally. I made a vow never to look upon your face again; but the sweet face has never left me. It has followed me by day and night; and at last, after so many wasted struggles, I come back, just to se you once more— hoping to find you false, Grace; asked in church with some stalwart farmer; so that I might be disenchanted, and go away cured of my folly. Are you false, Grace? Is there any redcheeked young farmer in the case?'' "A farmer!" the girl cried, contemptuously. "If Sir Francis Clevedon asked me to be his wife, I should refuse him for your sake." Hubert Walgrave gave a little start. "Sir Francis Clevedon !" he said. name into your head ?" "What fancy puts that 6. It was the name I used to think of oftenest before I saw you," she answered, with a smile. I suppose every woman has her hero, and Sir Francis was mine. I have never seen him in my life, you know." Mr. Walgrave's face, so bright before with a lover's triumph, had clouded over at the sound of the Clevedon name. "You have never seen him? I have no ground for jealousy, then, I suppose? I dare say he is a very good-looking fellow; fr Fortune rarely measures her gifts when she is in the giving mood. Nothing is too much for her favorites. But we won't waste our talk on him, Gracey; we have sweeter things to think of. My own, my dearest, is it really true that you love me, that this pale, changed face has grown wan from sorrow for me?" "There has been no other reason," she said, shyly. "And you are my own, Grace-all my own?'' "You know that I am," she answered, looking up at him with clear, candid eyes, that smote him to the heart with their innocence, "if-if you are willing to sacrifice those prospects you spoke of, and to give up the rich lady." 66 My beloved, there is hardly anything in the world I would not surrender for your sake." "And you will marry me?'' she asked, falteringly, the pale face covered with a burning blush. Even in her little world she had learned enough to know that all love-making, such as this, does not tend toward marriage. Every village has its stories of broken faith, and man's dishonor; and there had been such stories to be told of Kingsbury, even within Grace Redmayne's brief experience. "I will do all that a man of honor should do, dearest. I will do everything that a man can do to make you happy, if you will only trust me." "You know that I cannot help trusting you," she said; "I love you so much." "Then it cannot be too soon, darling." "Our union." "Oh, no, no; it must not be soon. It is too great a sacrifice for you to make. You might regret afterward; and it would know that I had come between you and the And then there is my father-dearly as I "I am so foolish, so wicked. I could not help being miser- break my heart to "And was that thought enough to make you unhappy, love you, I could do nothing without his knowledge." secondary to a father? Think how very little old Capulet stood for when once Juliet was in love with Romeo." Grace smiled a little at this appeal. They had read Romeo and Juliet" together one long Summer afternoon in the orchard; and her lover had taught her to appreciate the beauties of the text with a fuller comprehension than she had ever brought to it before. "But I think Signor Capulet was rather a disagreeable kind of father," she said. "Mine is so good." "My pet, I have no doubt he is as good a fellow as ever breathed; but he is at the antipodes, and I have a horror of long engagements. Life is not long enough for that kind of delay. Rely upon it, Romeo's and Juliet's was the true philosophy-wooed and won to-night, and wed to-morrow." "Remember how fatal their marriage was!" the fervor of our love, our utter trustfulness in each other. And now let us talk seriously. Take my arm, dear, and let us walk on a little way. Mild as the afternoon is, you are shivering." He drew her shawl closer round her, pressed the little hand under his arm, and walked gently on, looking down at her. "What a lucky fellow I was to meet you here just now-promiscuous, as my servant says! I took a fly from Tunbridge to Kingsbury, and walked on, meaning to invent some excuse for presenting myself at the farm as I came along. But I need not do that now; it will be wiser, on the whole, that I should not appear at Brierwood. We can arrange everything, you and I, darling, in half an hour, and carry out our plans afterward, without arousing any one's suspicion." The girl looked at him wonderingly; and then, little by little, overcoming her objections one by one as they arose, he unfolded his scheme of their future. He was prepared to make great sacrifices for her love -he did not define them; but to declare his marriage with her would be to blast "To London!" echoed Grace, with a little shiver. to be married in London ?" 66 "Are we My dearest, everything is possible in London; there is no place like London for keeping a secret. But don't imagine that I am going to mew you up in a smoky city. I shall find a pretty nest for my bird somewhere in the suburbs between this and Wednesday." The whole scheme seemed fraught with terror to Grace. She loved him-oh, so fondly! but even her love could hardly conquer her fear of that dim future. To leave the old familiar home-all the world she knew-and go forth with him an alien from her kin! If the marriage was to be secret, they might believe she had gone away to dishonor, and the thought that she should stand disgraced in the minds of her kindred was more than she could bear. AN ADVENTURE IN THE CLOUDS.-PAGE 110. And thus by slow degrees, and with much ten der pleading, he won her consent to his plan. She could not contemplate it without a strange terrorthat rising early in the dim, wintry morning to creep like a criminal from the home of her childhood. But to be with him for ever and ever, with no more parting! She looked back at the sorrowful months of severance, the dreary, dreary days in which she had mourned him as one dead, and cried, with a sudden gush of tenderness: "What is there that I would not do for your sake. Oh, yes, I will come!" "Spoken like my own brave girl! You remember that line I marked in your Tennyson-'Trust me all in all, or not at all'? You shall never repent his prospects. She would hardly desire that, he was pretty your confidence, my sweetest. And we shall soon bring the sure. roses back to those poor pale cheeks. Do you know, Gracey, "Oh, no, no, no," she faltered, piteously; "but my father this dull farm-house life was killing you?" -you will place me right with him?'' "Of course, darling; but your father is a long way off now. There will be time enough to consider that difficulty when he is on his homeward voyage. We need only think of perplexities to be overcome in the present, and those are not many. You must be very secret, darling, very brave, and come away from Brierwood quietly some morning-say this day week. That will give me time for my preparations, and yours need be of the slightest order; for you can bring no more luggage than you can carry in your own hand. I will sleep at Tunbridge on the previous night, and meet you with a fly at Kingsbury at eight in the morning, in time to take the nine o'clock train to London." They parted at last, after settling everything; parted because Grace dared stay no longer, and would have, as it was, a lost hour to account for in the best way she could to her aunt. This was Thursday, November the 4th; on Thursday, November the 11th, Grace was to slip out of the house quietly at seven o'clock, at which hour her uncle would have finished his breakfast, and gone out on his rounds of inspection, and her aunt would be busy in the dairy. She was to slip quietly away by these very lanes. The distance to Kingsbury was an hour's walk at most, and by the turnstile that divided the lane from the road that skirted the common she would find her lover with a vehicle ready to spirit her off. It would be safest for him not to come nearer Brierwood than this, or he would have willingly spared her the lonely walk in the chill Winter morning. Even after her graver objections had been met and conquered, Grace did not yield her consent to this arrangement without some feeble womanly protest upon the subject of wedding-clothes. "To come away like that!" she said. "without any luggage without anything! It seems dreadful. When my old schoolfellow, Amy Morris, the doctor's daughter, married, she had three great trunkfuls of clothes. I saw the dresses-ob, so many! and she was six months having things made. And then there was her wedding-dress--white silk. What am I to be married in, Hubert ?"-her voice trembled a little as she pronounced his Christian name; it was almost the first time she had so addressed him-" what am I to be married in, Hubert, if I come away like that?" she asked, shyly. The question, so innocently spoken, stung him to the quick. It is a hard thing for a man to feel himself a scoundrel, and yet hold firmly, tenaciously, to the purpose which he knows to be infamous. "My dear love," he said, after a scarcely perceptible pauseInterval enough for a whisper from his better angel-" do you think I should love you any better for three boxes of clothes, or for the finest wedding-gown a French milliner could make you? Remember that story of patient Grisel I read you one day. It was in her utter lowliness and humility that fair young wife seemed sweetest to her stern husband. I will love you as her knight loved Enid, dear, in a faded silk. Burden yourself with nothing next Thursday morning. It will be my delight and pride to buy you all manner of prettinesses-from ivory-backed brushes for that beautiful hair to glass slippers like Cinderella's, if you choose; though the commentators tell us, by-the-way, that the famous slipper was made of ermine, and that the glass shoe, so dear to our childhood, is, like Falstaff's babbling of green fields, only a printer's error.' He spoke lightly, anxious to conceal feelings that were by no means of the lightest, and won a faint smile from Grace Redmayne, to whom his most trivial remark seemed the very essence of cleverness. She would come. All her doubts and fears and little difficulties resolved themselves into that one question, "What is there in the world I would not do for your sake?" It was dusk by the time the business was settled. They had walked on to Kingsbury, where Grace gave her aunt's message to the family grocer, while Mr. Walgrave waited for her outside the shop. This being done, he walked back with her through the lanes and fields till they were very close to Brierwood, talking of the future all the time-that future which was to be a very bright one, according to Hubert Walgrave. In sight of the old farmhouse, where lights were gleaming from the lower windows, they parted. |