came up. Christmas began to develop to her a variety of views of life which an hour before had never occurred to him. He told her of his life and of the places he had seen, and she listened to him and stimulated him to more talk, and became greatly interested in his boyish simplicity and his masculine combinations of reading and experience.

"I am so glad you came here," she said at last, "and that I knew you. We are dull here now and then, and we are glad when an interesting new comer brightens our lives. I hope we shall be

friends."

"Are you faithful in your friendships?" Christmas asked, plucking the grass up and not looking at her.

"Oh, did any one say I was not? Come, now, do tell me. I do believe somebody did."

"Nobody did. I only asked."

"I thought perhaps Miss Lyle had been warning you against me. I think I am very faithful in my friendships; but there are so few people whom any rational creature could care to have for friends. I am her friend, and that's one reason why I should like to be a friend of yours."

"Should we not wait a little ?" Christmas asked. "You and she, I mean, until you see whether I am worth having as a friend."

I"

"She believes that you must be, because of your father. And

"Yes, and you"- ?

"I take her opinion in everything. And besides "——

"Besides; yes?"

"You seem to me a friend whom I could like. But perhaps you don't like me?"

"I like you immensely."

"Do you? I am very glad. But do you know that we ought to have returned long before this. I see that it is three o'clock, and we have a long, long way to get back. And I forgot all about poor Natty Cramp. He was to have come to see me, and he is probably there now; and only think of the time he will have to wait!”

Christmas had a vague idea of having heard her and Miss Lyle that morning talking of Natty Cramp, and he felt very angry with Natty, and cordially wished that he were in some other and distant part of the world-say at Saucelito, within sight of the Golden Gate.

They were very pleasant, however, and full of talk as they came down the path through the woods, and Miss Challoner talked with such openly avowed perplexity about her embarrassment on account

of Natty Cramp that Christmas at last grew to have only a friendly feeling for poor Natty. When they reached the strand a little embarrassment awaited them. They found Merlin gesticulating and calling to them.

"None-quick! Slow-all right-halt!"

The tide had fallen, and the boat could not get so far up on the shore but that a yard or two of clayey surf several inches deep lay between the dry part of the strand and the little craft. Merlin's gesticulations and his rapid preparations showed them that he was trying to get the boat into some favourable position preliminary to doing something, Christmas did not know what.

"It's nothing," Miss Challoner said, composedly. "Merlin will come out and carry me in when he has got the boat all right. It often happens; but I am sorry for you. Do you mind having your feet wet ?"

"Come with me," Christmas suddenly said, the colour all rushing into his handsome boyish face. He lifted the girl off her feet, and bore her in his arms through the surf, stepped into the boat, and did not put her down until he could place her securely in the stern. She looked a little surprised and amused, but was not at all discomposed.

"Thank you," she said. "I did not mean to have given you the trouble; but you are very strong."

Christmas had never felt such a thrilling little moment before, and

he was thankful for his strength.

66

CHAPTER VI.

ONE WRIT WITH ME IN SOUR MISFORTUNE'S BOOK."

POOR Natty Cramp had, indeed, a good long wait of it. The worst thing about his waiting, or, at all events, one of the worst things, was that he did not precisely know in what capacity he was waiting. His mother, who accompanied him, was in a manner free of the house, and went down among the servants at once, and made herself quite happy. But Natty was left to wait in the library, and was shown in there evidently as a matter of favour to his mother, instead of being allowed to remain, as he had modestly proposed to do, in the hall. He found the long delay very trying. He might have felt happy enough if he had been an ordinary visitor; but there was his mother going about among the servants, and he had already been presented to the servants as "My son Natty-don't you remember Natty ?" All this was humbling. To be called Natty by Miss Challoner had

a certain delight about it, even though it reminded him of the social gap between them; but to be called Natty by the cook had no delight in it at all.

So Natty walked up and down the library, and now and then took up a book and tried to read. He could not read. Every sound he heard seemed to him to announce the coming of Miss Challoner, and made him start with fear and hope. There was a great deal of fear mingled with the hope, for poor Natty trembled at the thought of being alone with her, and not knowing what to say to her, and stumbling over his words, and seeming uncouth and clownish. There in that library, how many imaginary conversations did he not go over, in each of which he said fine things, brilliant things, witty things; in which he proved that he had a lofty, aspiring soul, and convinced Miss Challoner that, despite low birth and iron fortune, he had in him the material that makes great men! As time wore on, however, and she did not come, the style of the imaginary dialogue began to change, and he found himself growing rather sarcastic and proudly scornful, and saying bitter things, to let the disdainful lady of rank know that Nathaniel Cramp held himself not inferior to those on whom fortune, and not their own desert, had conferred the accidental boon of social position.

"This is no country for a man to live in," Nathaniel at last exclaimed. "I'll not be the slave of caste ! The Old World is used up. For men of spirit and soul, the only Republic of the West. She shall hear this

His mother had interrupted him, coming

room.

home is the giant Oh, I say!"

softly into the

"Were you saying poetry, Natty dear? You must say one of your poems to Miss Challoner."

"Perhaps she isn't coming," Natty faintly said, with sinking heart, and all the proud resolves gone at the sound of her name.

"Oh, she'll come, dear; for she said she would. She's quite too much the lady not to come. Something has kept her unexpected; but she'll be here soon."

"Mother," Nat exclaimed, bitterly, "you don't understand these people!"

"What people, Nat?"

"People who boast of their rank-people like Her! What do they care for us ?"

"My dear boy, why do you talk in that sort of way? Me not know my Miss Challoner? Why, God bless you, I know her since she was a child! Of course she cares for us-that she does, believe me.

We're not like her in rank, Nat, but we're content-and she don't mind, bless you."

"Contentment,” replied Nat, "is the virtue of a slave." "Gracious!" exclaimed his mother.

"Of a slave," repeated Nat; "and the days of slavery are "

He stopped in his eloquence, however, for a civil maiden appeared at the library door, and said Miss Challoner had come in, and please would Mrs. Cramp and Mr. Natty walk up stairs.

Natty's face grew red, and his hands became nervous; and he followed his mother upstairs as unheroic a being, to all appearance, as ever hugged a chain.

Miss Challoner was in a little room, her own, which looked over the gardens and the trees. The Hall ended off at either side with a rounded projection, which might, perhaps, be described as a tower, and in one of these projections Miss Challoner had chosen her room. It looked, therefore, inside like a room in a castle or a turret, with its rounded form and its windows opening every way; and this peculiarity enhanced immensely in Nathaniel's eyes the romantic effect of his presentation to the young lady in her home. The furniture was somewhat massive and heavy, newly made for Sir John Challoner after the most approved mediæval fashion. The fireplace was low, broad, antique; the curtains were dark; the glass in the windows was of lattice panes. It seemed to Nat as if he were introduced into a castle chamber at the bidding of the châtelaine. There was the châtelaine herself. She had been reclining in a great tall-backed arm-chair, with one of her feet on a footstool, and as she entered and rose to receive him, Nat could see the foot itself in a pretty shoe, with a high heel, and a great buckle and rosette of ribbon across its instep; and then she stood up and rested inadvertently one hand upon an ebony table, whereon it looked white enough to have belonged to the white-armed goddess herself of whom Nat had read in Pope's translation. But at that moment Nat was not thinking of anything classic. His soul was filled with the Middle Ages, and with castles, and with sweet peerless ladies, who smiled even on lowly squires from the sombre surroundings of feudalism. Miss Challoner stood with such unconscious ease and dignity, and smiled upon Nat with such kindly dark eyes that he saw in her a very châtelaine and Lady of the Land, and a benignant patroness; and when she held out the white hand to him, he felt as if he ought to have dropped on one knee and pressed the hand to his lips.

Miss Challoner's friendly words, however, and much more the voice of his mother, in unconstrained though very respectful fluency

of talk with the châtelaine, recalled him to modern life, and he was able to take a chair and enter into conversation, and show himself, as his mother afterwards told him, quite the gentleman. Miss Challoner was fond of good photographs of foreign buildings, and from picture galleries, and had many fine specimens to show him; and Nat's discursive reading furnished him with something to say about each of them. She had, also, a book filled with photographic likenesses of living celebrities; and this proved a great thing for Nat. He had seen nearly all the eminent Englishmen, and she had seen none of them. He had had orders again and again for the Strangers' Gallery of the House of Commons, and he had attended all manner of public meetings in St. James's Hall and Exeter Hall; and he had heard all the great preachers, and never, when he could help it, missed a chance of hearing Professor Huxley, and he knew Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Browning by sight. Therefore Natty started off in a description of each one of these great persons, whom Miss Challoner only knew by reading and by hearsay. He told her whether each photograph was a good likeness or not, and if not wherein it differed from the original; and whether or not it accurately conveyed the expression of the original, and how that expression varied when the original was speaking, and so forth. Nathaniel's favourites were the poets, the preachers, and the philosophers. But he was especially eloquent and instructive about the preachers and the philosophers. He had heard them preach and lecture, whereas he had only seen and read the poets; and he generally contended mentally with the preachers, and strove to be the faithful appreciative disciple of the philosophers. He had, therefore, a great deal to say of both these classes of public instructors, and he grew quite warm and animated in his descriptions.

Miss Challoner listened to him with a great deal of genuine interest, and envied him his chances of seeing and hearing such men in London. Mrs. Cramp afterwards declared that to see her there listening to Natty, quite interested and respectful-like, as if she was learning from him, was something she could never have believed.

It was beyond measure delightful, inconceivable to Nathaniel. When in the course of his descriptions his eyes suddenly looked into hers, and he saw in these such kindly, genuine evidences of interest in what he was saying, a new page of life seemed to open for him. How many times after did he recall the memory of that bright day! Indeed, it never left him. Surely My Lady Disdain or the Princess Badroulboudour had made two youths very, very happy that day! If so, she ought to have all the praise, for she meant nothing else.