letter two or three times before you take a glance at hers.

"Hers! Whose?" I asked, looking at the letter that lay in my lap. "Oh, it is from Grace West!" I added, as recognised the small, delicate writing, clear as copperplate. "Did you see that it was from her?"

"I-I fancied it looked like her writing," he said, rather falteringly.

"Why, she is at Interlaken!" I exclaimed, as I began to read the letter. "They are all there, Mr. and Mrs. Dugdale, and Ralph too. Ralph is coming on here to-morrow. There's good news for you."

But my brother did not look so pleased as I expected. He did not smile, nor even turn towards me; he sat with downcast eyes, his face very pale. Instinctively, I felt that he was putting some restraint on himself.

"Is Ralph coming alone?" he asked, very quietly.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. Grace says nothing of anyone else coming. Did you think that she might accompany him?"

"Well, yes, I fancied that she might like to see this place."

I discerned that it cost my brother an effort to answer my question with an appearance of indifference.

"I wish she would come," I remarked; "but Grace and her parents are going on to Grindelwald. It is a favourite place of Mrs. Dugdale's. She says it would be nice if we could meet there. Would you like it, Edmund?"

The faint glow which instantly kindled in his cheeks gave me a truer answer than his careless, "Perhaps; we must think about it."

Then the truth flashed on me. There was little to demonstrate it; Edmund had guarded well his secret, yet at that moment I knew intuitively that Grace West was to him what Leonard Glynne was to me. Stay, let me speak the truth as I know it now—my brother loved Grace with a pure, strong, selfless love of which I was incapable.

I recognised the fact beyond all doubt. One memory after another revived to confirm it, till I wondered that I had been blind to it so long. Grace was some years older than my brother, but that was no hindrance to his loving her. He was the man to be attracted by a woman's spiritual rather than physical beauties. He had a high ideal of womanly excellence, and the woman he chose must be one whom he could reverence as well as admire. How could he help loving her? I say to myself now. "We needs must love the highest when we see it." And all who could really understand Grace, not everyone could, failed not to love and honour her.

But I was hardly conscious of loving Grace at that moment. The truth came home to me with a sharp and selfish pain. All my latent jealousy was roused. Amidst my trials and disappointments, I had ever consoled myself with the thought that my brother at least was all my own. He needed me if no other did; I was everything to him. What a blow shattered this belief when I discovered that another had the first place in his heart! Grace West stood between us.

I cared not whether Edmund noticed how abruptly I left him. It was not yet time to prepare for the midday meal, but I went away and shut myself in my own room till the bell sounded.

Edmund did not call me back.

"He will not miss me," I thought, "he will like to sit alone and think of Grace, and count on seeing her at Grindelwald."

After luncheon, Edmund lay down for a while, hoping to get a little sleep. Unhappy and restless, I wandered forth alone, carefully avoiding the company of any of the ladies who were lodging in the pension.

Instinctively I chose the easier, the downward way, and descended one of the steep little paths that ran down the mountain side into a little valley lying between the mountains to the right of our pension. It was a pleasant path I followed, and soon led me into the shade of pine trees. Steeper and steeper grew the way as I drew nearer to the torrent that roared through the valley, being fed by a glacier at its head. Gradually my walking was exchanged for climbing; but by the help of my alpenstock, I was able to press on, scrambling through bushes and over boulders till at last I gained the high bank above the stream.

Here I found myself in a wilderness of lovely things, old moss-grown trees about whose roots the fragile oak-fern and sturdier beech-fern were growing luxuriously; patches of ground on which the low whortleberry bush grew thickly, tempting me with a profusion of its purple black fruit; a few wild strawberries lingering here and there, finer and redder than any I had seen before; brambles throwing their amber and vermilion-coloured leaves across the path, and scattered everywhere flowers of the loveliest and most varied hues—large, silvery thistles, grand enough to deck a queen, purple gentians, turquoise-blue forget-me-nots that would put our English ones to shame, with blue and white campanulas, as fine as any a garden could show.

Wild, angry, rebellious thoughts had been working in my mind as I made my way down. It was very hard, I told myself, that I should be robbed of all that was most dear to me in life. One precious love after another had been taken from me. Howard Steinthorpe had supplanted me in my sister's affections, death had deprived me of my father, Rose Carsdale was filling my place with Mrs. Lyell, and charming Leonard Glynne into forgetfulness of any faint interest he might have felt in me, and now Edmund, whom I had believed to be my very own, in whose life I could yesterday have declared that I stood first, had given his best love to another! How wronged and wretched I felt! There seemed no longer any place for me in the world. No one loved me best; no one wanted me. My feelings were none the less bitter that I knew them to be utterly unreasonable.

There was within me a dim consciousness that when my mental emotion should subside, my better self would reproach me. For had not Edmund as much right to feel injured as I? What if he craved the first place in my heart, could I honestly say that it was his? How many hours of the past had been filled with thoughts of another! And how often even now did the image of that other cross my mind!

Only gradually, however, did these considerations bring me to a better frame of mind. I was still possessed by perverse, angry imaginations as I strolled amidst the greenness and beauty by the riverside, though nature's sweet influences were beginning to soften my mood.

Presently I came to a woodcutter's shed beneath the pines, and seated myself on one of the felled trunks that lay beside it. It was a lovely spot. A few feet below where I sat rushed the torrent, foaming and dashing over the stones with a roar which was delightful to my ears. On the opposite side of the deep gorge, through which the river cut its way, rose tall pine trees, tapering one above the other, till at a vast height their delicate pinnacles were pencilled against the sky. Here and there a bare, precipitous mountain side showed through their sombre foliage, with other tiny firs fringing its summit.

The sun was shining brilliantly on the stream, but beneath the pines there was welcome shade, and a deliciously cool breeze blew from the mountain heights, odorous with the delightful perfume of the pines. The woodcutter's shed was deserted, and I enjoyed perfect solitude, broken only by those voices of nature, which, as Keble truly says,—

"Make deep silence in the heart, For thought to do her part."

In that stillness, I experienced a swift reaction of feeling. My proud sense of injury gave place to shame and contrition.

I was heartily ashamed of my outburst of temper; I despised myself for the mean, selfish feelings of which it was the outcome. As I thought of Edmund now, my heart throbbed with emotion of another kind. To think that self-love should have made me oblivious of all that this discovery I had made, meant for him. Poor Edmund, whose life was so uncertain! My own experience taught me that this love of his must cause him much silent suffering. It would have done so probably in any case, but his circumstances were such as would intensify the suffering.

Had he not been the invalid he was, had his position been such as would justify his seeking Grace's love, I could not believe that he would win it. From what I had seen of her, and from a few words she had once said to me, I felt convinced that Grace was one of those with whom to love once was to love for ever, and that she would not tolerate the idea of a second marriage. But what of that?

Alas! Alas! I could not hide from myself the truth. Too surely my heart told me that there could be no such union for Edmund. He was drifting, drifting away from all the loves of earth. And in the presence of that sore fact, what did it matter whether Grace or I were the dearest to him? With the thought came a shower of blinding tears, shutting out all the beauty that surrounded me.

The tears soon passed. Something prompted me to lift my head, and look around. Then I saw a glorious sight. From above the mass of dark pines, which lay behind, looked down on me a mighty, snow-crested peak, shining in purest radiance against a cloudless sky. It was the Jungfrau, of which I caught a side view, and peeping over her shoulder as it were, appeared the unsullied, resplendent dome of the Silberhorn.

Wonderful seemed the vision that broke so suddenly on my view. It had for me the force of a revelation—a revelation of the majesty and holiness of God, and my own utter vileness and meanness. What could I do but cry unto Him who made me and made also the magnificence I beheld?

"Oh, Thou who art all purity, power, love," my heart cried, "have mercy on me, Thy unworthy creature; deliver me from my low, mean, selfish feelings, the feelings which I know to be hateful, even whilst I cherish them. Lift me out of myself. Raise me to a higher, purer, nobler life. Make of me something better than I am."

I waited, yearning for some response, some whisper from above that should promise deliverance. As I watched, the clouds slowly drifted again across the snowy mountain, and its glory vanished from my sight.

The wind rustled the pines, the torrent roared, the foaming water gleamed in the sunshine; all was as before. Yet was my prayer heard, for no such prayer is vain.

When I rose and took my way back to the pension by an easier path than the one I had descended, my heart was quiet, my selfish cravings had ceased.

As I approached the house, there came into sight on the path which ascended on the other side of it, a traveller, attended by a peasant carrying luggage. The gentleman's appearance seemed familiar, and at the second glance, I recognised Ralph Dugdale.

Apparently, he saw me at the same moment, and we hurried forward to greet each other.

"I am so glad you have come," I said, warmly, as we shook hands; "Edmund will be so pleased. We did not expect you till to-morrow."

"Why, how is that? Did not Grace tell you?"

"Yes, but she said to-morrow."

"I expect her to-morrow meant to-day," said Ralph, smiling.

"Oh, to be sure! How stupid of me to make such a mistake! And I misled Edmund too! But come in."

"First, tell me how your brother is," said Ralph, pausing on the threshold of the house. "Has he been getting on as you hoped?"

The question, put with evident anxiety, overwhelmed me. Tears rose to my eyes, my lips quivered; for a moment I could not speak.

Then I said, falteringly, "You will see for yourself."

He looked at me, his eyes full of grave, sad comprehension, and asked no more. We went indoors.