vivid. Still, during his long absence she had passed from childhood

to womanhood, while he had only gone on from an earlier to a more advanced stage of young manhood; and it was by no means so easy for her as for him to drop at once into the old grooves of intercourse.

"Yes, much older. I do not feel myself the same."

"And Hermione?"

"Hermione? Oh!" Marjory's whole face lighted up. "You will find Hermione everything that you could wish. She is—no, I can't describe her. There never was any one like Hermione."

"Angelic, in short. You and Sutton seem to be of the same opinion."

"Yes; and you will not wonder when you see her. So lovely, so unlike other girls. There are not two opinions about Hermione. At least—no, not really two; only, of course, people see differently. But I cannot tell you how she is beloved in the village—almost worshipped. The surliest man there can't say a rough word to Hermione. We all look up to her. Yes, she is younger than I am; but what of that? One looks up to another because of what she is, not because of any particular age."

"Well, perhaps—no. And Hermione is pretty?"

"She is—no, I will not describe her. You must see for yourself."

"She could be an arrant little fury, I remember, if anybody crossed her will. You were the victim occasionally."

"Was I? I have forgotten. Nothing of the kind ever happens now."

"Why, no. At nineteen one doesn't expect tornadoes of wrath."

"But there is no temper—no readiness to be vexed. She is sweetness itself. Nothing ever puts her out. If she had a temper as a child, that is all over. You had better not set me off about her, because I shall not know when to stop. I think—I almost think I could die for Hermione."

Marjory spoke the last words under her breath, and the downcast eyes glowed with a fervour of devotion. Harvey was touched, yet entertained. His easy and pliant nature, though not without its reservoirs of strong feeling, was hardly capable of understanding Marjory. Before he had decided what to say, she added, "But I ought to go home, and I must not keep you from them longer."

Harvey lifted his hat, and shook hands. In the act of turning away he stopped short, faced her once more, his sunburnt cheek slightly flushing, and said, "My old friends will have to congratulate me."

Marjory's voice and eyes alike asked, "What for?"

"On my recent marriage."

The eyes opened more widely. Harvey had not the smallest doubt that, in her mind, as in old Sutton's, he had been the destined husband of Hermione Rivers.

"Well?" he said, smiling, though not so much at his ease as usual.

"I never know how to congratulate," Marjory replied abruptly. "We don't learn that sort of thing in this rustic place—as a matter of form, I mean."

She turned off with so decisive an air that he had no choice about pursuing his solitary way.