meat. In all things, however, there is give and take, and the take had been a right good catch.

They sank into contemplative silence. Suddenly Mrs. Bagnall looked up and said, "Amy, did you ever have an offer?"

"No," Amy answered quite simply, "I never did."

"They say that every woman has had one chance."

"I don't know what became of mine then."

"Some other woman got two, I suppose. Were you ever at all pretty?"

Mrs. Bagnall was certainly a most uncircuitous person. But she asked her blunt questions with a chirpy innocence that almost gave her the immunity of childhood.

"Yes," said Amy, stimulated to unconventional candor; "yes, I think I was."

"Ah," Mrs. Bagnall answered, "there's no telling. One claims, after a certain age, the right to have been a beauty. It's the brevet rank we receive on retiring. Of course," she added, "one need not be pretty to be pleasing. Yours, my dear, is a very good face." That dry and belated crumb of comfort did not content Amy.

"I wish you would believe me," she said; "I tell you I really was."

She rose and opened an old mahogany desk that stood upon the table.

"There now," she said, blushing rather prettily, "judge for yourself," and she placed a photograph in Mrs. Bagnall's hand.

It had been taken in London fifteen years ago, during Amy's historic plunge into the deeps of fashion. An early example of some permanent process, it was quite fresh and unfaded. It represented Amy in a Dolly Varden dress-the livery of a certain splendid bazar.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Bagnall, in hushed surprise. "What owls the men

must have been! You were a lovely child-absolutely lovely."

"I certainly was pretty," Amy answered. "But you know there were troubles. Papa got into difficulties . . . and I had a long illness . . . and they made me wear glasses . . . and . . . it's all fifteen years ago. What with one thing and another-well, you see what happened."

Amy dropped a curtsey and laughed, but her spectacles grew misty all the same. She stooped down and poked the fire.

"My dear," said Mrs. Bagnall, “you are very well as you are. And what, after all, are looks? Good looks do not make good people. We must not look at looks."

At this point the maid fell in with the lamp, and Mrs. Bagnall became conscious of urgent claims at home.

"Come again tomorrow," said Amy, as she kissed her bosom-friend, "and we'll go on with the marking."

The photograph lay upon the table. Amy took it up and looked upon it long. Then, moved by what thought who shall say?-in farewell or in assertion of identity still maintained: in sad surrender or in sadder clinging-Amy brought a pen and on the white border of the picture inscribed her name. Her caligraphy was her greatest accomplishment. It suggested, as caligraphy sometimes does, delicacy and grace, which Amy's voice and presence quite failed to convey. More often than not handwriting is a mere misfit, belying all the contours of character. Once in a way it is their very essence and distillation. It expresses the soul as does the tremendous allegory of an Eastern faith the astral body-that body which is a man's veriest self, the fabric of all his deeds and dreams and desires.

Having thus impressed her sign-manual upon the old portrait, Amy put it away, and clearing her mind of cobwebs, took out the potted meat.

The next day when Mrs. Bagnall returned to the charge upon the pockethandkerchiefs she noticed something unusual in Amy's manner. It was nothing very striking-only a kind of halfabstraction, and, once and again, the hovering of an inward smile.

"Amy," said Mrs. Bagnall, when her friend had lapsed into silence with her needle threatening society in the thickness of an unfinished B, "there is something on your mind. Are you in love?" Amy started. "What do you mean?" she said, blushing a little.

"Dear me!" exclaimed her friend. "I meant with your own picture; but really, my dear, I shall think it is with somebody else's."

"I was going to ask you a question," Amy said after a short pause, "but I think I sha'n't now."

Mrs. Bagnall applied the expected degree of cajolery, and Amy drew from a drawer a postal wrapper.

"It is mere curiosity," she said, “but should you call this a lady's or gentleman's hand?"

"Oh, a lady's-no, a gentleman's. Really, I could not be sure. It's a very pretty hand, anyhow. Dear me, Amy! how interesting. Would it be discreet to ask how the correspondence began?"

"Oh, it is not a correspondence at all. We arranged an exchange of papers through the 'Bazar.' She-"

"Oh, Amy, don't let the romance ooze away like that."

“Well, then, the person. The person sends me Black and White in return for the Graphic. The only thing that matters is the address. It would be very awkward to write Mrs. H. Austin if it really were a gentleman."

"You must be satisfied with H. Austin.”

"But that sounds rude."

"Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Bagnall, "It will goad him on to declare himself."

"Really, Emily," answered Amy, as

she rose and secreted the wrapper, "What things you do say."

"My dear," said Mrs. Bagnall, "I only meant his identity."

From that time forward Miss Finch's ami inconnu became a favorite theme of delicate banter.

Messages were intrusted to Amy to be faithfully given when next she was writing to Henry, Hubert, Hugh, or Harold. The postman was made accessory to much circular archness relating to furnishing and to continental tours. Volumes containing respectively "Mr. H." and "The Lang Coortin" were pressed upon Amy's perusal. Altogether she enjoyed quite an Indian summer of matrimonial allusion.

It must not be thought that any vulgar publicity attached to these proceedings. They were esoteric and discriminating, and strictly kept from masculine profanation.

It happened one afternoon, however, that Mrs. Sedgwick, having occasion to despatch her son Augustus to Amy's rooms with a basket of Jerusalem artichokes a present wherewith she was wont inexpensively to promote the gaiety of her friends-thought it would greatly heighten the humor of a sly innuendo to make the innocent youth her medium. Articled clerks, in Mrs. Sedgwick's view, were exceedingly innocent. Mind you she was not so confident about solicitors.

"Bring back the basket," she said, "and give her my dear love; and I wish she would lend me Byron's enigma on the letter H. Say it begins,

'It was whispered in heaven"."

"It is not Byron's," said Gus, "it is Miss Fanshawe's. But what's the point of the allusion?"

"Goodness!" exclaimed his mother, amazed at the learning and acuteness that she had evoked-"What is the boy talking about?"

"Why, the handle is tied up with.

string," said Gus inconsequently; "really mother, I think this mission would be better discharged after nightfall. However, as you please."

With good-natured disgust the lad took up his mother's bounty and departed.

Asked to wait in Amy's room (while the maid threw the artichokes away) Augustus looked round for means of amusement. On the table lay the works of Charles Lamb. He took the book up, and it opened at "Mr. H.." "Ah," he thought "H. again. There's a mystery about this. More is meant than meets the-halloa!"

Gus's eye fell upon a postal wrapper whereon the address was hardly dry. It lay upon a Graphic which had been rolled up, and then allowed to uncurl. It was obviously designed for the post. The address, in Amy's beautiful hand, was, "H. Austin, The Nest, Ripon."

"Oh, ho!" said Gus. "This lets the cat out of the bag. Good old Amy. What a lark. The Nest, too! That beats Jerusalem artichokes. Go in and win, Amy, and you'll have the little teapot that's spoiling in mother's box, and live very happy ever-"

Again the lad's meditation was cut off short. Half-hidden under a little lady-like inkstand there lay a photograph.

"The plot thickens,"" he said, and dragged the thing out.

"Well, I'm shot!" exclaimed Augustus, as he recognized the face. "I never suspected that old Amy had been a beauty in her day. If only I had been twenty years earlier in the field, I should have lost my heart. Where were the men's eyes, I wonder?"

table. Miss Finch, hurrying in a moment later with the empty basket, found him studying intently "The Monarch of the Glen."

"How kind of your mother," said Amy. "But she must not rob herself, you know."

"Oh, don't be afraid," Gus answered. "Mother is very honest in that way. She gave me a message for you, Miss Amy-it was-something about-never mind! you can ask her to-morrow."

And rather red and confused, Gus made for the door.

"Oh dear," said Amy, "he has forgotten the basket. I must take it up this afternoon, I suppose. How queer he was about the message."

Conscience had made a coward of the articled clerk. Any reference to the letter H seemed like confession of the Graphic's secret enclosure.

That evening the young fellow encountered Miss Amy at the post-office. She was forcing into the box a stubborn and protracted roll. As he raised his hat he reddened again, and felt an inward questioning.

"Practical people," he said, "should be kept out of the joke department." It was almost an epigram, and he made a note of it.

Two days later Amy Finch stepped into Mrs. Bagnall's drawing-room with the look of a woman walking in her sleep.

"Emily," she said, "am I mad? Read this, and tell me."

"Well," said Mrs. Bagnall, when in silence, save for inaudible ejaculations, she had extracted the essence of a fourpage letter, "that depends on the answer you mean to give."

"Then it is-it really is what it seems to be?"

"That again depends. If it seems to be an offer of marriage, there is no doubt it is what it seems. 'Hubert Austin.' You see I was right. Oh, Amy, I am so glad."

"But, Emily, it is so sudden, SO strange altogether."

"Why, you poor little thing, you are shaking like a leaf. Sit down here and I'll rub your silly cold hands. Why, I daresay it is not so sudden as you make out. How long have you been writing to one another?"

"We have never written a word except our mutual address-I mean our two addresses. The most that ever we have done has been to mark a passage that we liked,"

"All about love, of course."

"You know, Emily, I wouldn't do anything of the kind. I should not have gone so far as I did . . . it was only criticism of books. if I had known

for certain that it was a man." "Well, you know now," said Mrs. Bagnall, "and that is enough. Of course you saw the line written across?"

"No," answered Amy. "What does it say?"

"Oh," said Mrs. Bagnall, "nothing of any importance, only, 'I shall arrive tomorrow at 12.30.'"

"Oh, dear, dear," said Amy, with tears in her eyes, "what shall I do?"

"First," said Mrs. Bagnall, “you will take a glass of sherry and a slice of cake. And then you and I will walk back to your house. Why, bless you, if you had only refused them once and twice a day as I used to do in India, you would not worry yourself about an offer."

"Then I suppose I must refuse him, you think?”

"My dear," said Mrs. Bagnall, "we are not in India, and . . . we'll see. Give the poor man a hearing; I tell you, we'll see."

So they went to Amy's room and waited.

The knock came. Then Mrs. Bagnall pressed her friend's hand and withdrew upstairs.

"Mr. Austin," said the maid, with

awful curiosity rounding her eyes, and there stepped into the room a young man of twenty-eight or so. A pleasantfaced fellow, frank and kindly; a gentleman all over.

The room was dark under the brightest conditions, and that was a day of cloud. Amy, sitting at its farthest extremity, was only dimly visible from the doorway.

"Forgive me," said the young man, as, hardly sure of his way, he advanced slowly; "I ought to have prepared you. Say that you forgive me."

He stood, and tossing away his cap, held out his two hands.

Trembling and in silence Amy came to meet him. But there was such generous sweetness in the impulsive face as made her feel that she should not long be afraid. She put her hands into his, and let her eyes fall. Then she felt the hands that held hers close with a convulsive clasp.

She looked up, and fancied that the young man's face had grown a little pale. Then, before she could say anything, before she could even think anything, Austin was pleading his cause, as ardently as the most exacting maiden could desire.

asked in some alarm. "Not, of course, that I have any secrets."

"Oh you must not take me quite literally. But in soberest truth there is a singularly personal quality in your hand. It has a perfume of its own. It made me think of violets."

"I daresay," Amy remarked. "Rhine violets."

"No, no, it was purely spiritual suggestion. As a matter of fact I hate the smell of violets-you might as well put mud upon your handkerchief."

"Oh dear," said Amy, "I got a new bottle to-day!"

"Why do you say 'Oh dear?' From this time forth you will not smell of violets, but violets will smell of you."

"I don't like compliments," said Amy, unsuspicious of a plagiarism from Her

rick.

"When the truth is a compliment you must learn to bear it. But, Amy, it was not only your writing that made me love you. You talked to me in little crosses with blue pencil. I never knew such judgment as yours. You drink the spirit of a book like wine."

"I never drink wine," said Amy. "All our family were abstainers."

"Yes, yes," Austin answered; "but that is not the point now. You are the very pope of critics, and infallible whether you speak from chair or sofa. That made me love you, Amy-your amazing literary instinct-for good books are my life-blood. I want to write a good book myself. You will help me, won't you?"

"Oh dear," said Amy, "I am very slow and dreadfully shallow."

"It is at your slow and shallow feet-"

"Oh, my feet are well enough," said Amy.

"Yes, yes; but figuratively. Let me sit at the feet of a good woman while the critics snarl and wrangle. I believe in the wisdom of the pure heart."

"I think you are very impulsive," Amy said, after a momentary pause. "Did I not begin by confessing that? But I have shown you that I am calculating, too."

you

I have

"I think . . . if I were to would be sorry by-and-by no money, except . . ." "Money! If I had been a fortunehunter do you suppose I should have made no inquiry?"

"I only wanted you to know how things are. And then I am older than you-a great deal older, I should think." Amy hesitated for a moment, and then went on with a little gulp of difficult resolution. "My birthday will be on Tuesday, and I shall be-"

"Don't tell me," Austin broke in, "I won't hear;" his fingers went up to his ears-"positively and absolutely I won't. Amy, your present shall be the engagement-ring."

"Nonsense," said Amy, "I will save you from your own rashness. Besides I shall want a long time to think."

Yet on Tuesday the ring came-and stayed. For the two young people had met many times, and Mrs. Bagnall and Mrs. Sedgwick, having made searching inquiry, both of the lover himself, and also of lawyers, bankers, and a clergyman or two, had with one voice delivered their judgment.

"Amy," this emphatic pronouncement ran, "if you don't say 'Yes,' an asylum is your place."

So the engagement was announced, and Kirkholm almost lost its head. Never since Carry Whitworth "went off" with that disreputable reporter had there been such talk. Excitement and tea ran high. Scones and wigs and apple-cake, pairs of fowls and ham with pink frills, made the hospitable tables groan-possibly also one of the guests.

But, groaning or gay, Mr. Austin made an excellent impression. He gave himself no airs, professed his devotion