night; we are the same friends as ever; it is not to make the smallest difference?"

"Nothing ever could," Cecil said, holding out both her hands. "Now, good-bye! Mrs. C is wondering why we are whispering together, and thinking that such a long hand shake is not necessary, even when one is going to the wars, and does not know when one shall see one's friends again."

"I shall see you again before very long, for, if you leave, I shall follow to England as soon as possible. I have been reading over that letter, and things have grown wonderfully clearer to me since last night, and I think I see my way. Here are two letters I sat up nearly all night to write-one to my father, and one to Miss Berry. The answers to them must bring certainty of some sort; and meanwhile I have taken out a new lease of hope. You will see to their being posted, won't you? I leave them with you."

He was gone the next moment; but Cecil saw him turn round after he had left the

house to wave another good-bye to her as she stood out on the balcony with her guests. She was glad to have that last bright, upward look to recall in a time of fearful suspense and anxiety that followed.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

NEWS.

THE younger Mrs. Adams did not forget the promise she had made to Elsie on the occasion of their chance meeting at the Museum, to call on her occasionally and bring her news of Miss Berry and of Oldbury. Whether it was curiosity, originally excited by the gossip about the Blakes she had been used to hear in Oldbury, or simple kindness of heart that drew the busy, self-important lady from her home at Clapton all the way to the sombre lodgings in Bloomsbury Street where old Mr. Blake and Margaret had fixed their abode, mattered very little to Elsie. She had the satisfaction, not once only, but again and again during the ensuing summer, of seeing in their own sitting-room a face that she had previously

seen in Oldbury, of hearing familiar names, Oldbury names, spoken with an approach to adequate interest and circumstantiality; and of putting questions which her visitor could answer satisfactorily without drawing all the conclusions from her asking them that a native of Oldbury would undoubtedly have drawn.

Mrs. Adams had all the right of a born and bred Londoner whose husband's relations lived in a country town, to smile at Oldbury peculiarities, and profess contempt for Oldbury gossip; but if Elsie's tender feelings were a little wounded sometimes by slighting remarks on old friends, there was compensation in the belief that her own history was not as constantly in her companion's mind as she would have known it must inevitably be if one of her old fellow-townswomen had been seated opposite to her. She could gratify herself by ascertaining that the mulberry tree in the Rectory garden had withstood the severe gales of the last winter, and even venture a timid question respecting Mr. Pierrepoint's health and spirits; and Mrs. Adams could answer

indifferently without relaxing her stealthy watch from the window for the return of the hired brougham that had taken her daughter on to pay another visit while she sat with Elsie.

Such absorption in one's neighbours' concerns as comes naturally enough in Oldbury, is not easily reconciled with the necessity of getting over a great deal of ground, and crowding a number of visits into one afternoon, which regulates intercourse between acquaintances in London.

Still, there was a sufficient degree of interest aroused to prevent the intercourse languishing ; and in the hot August days, when everybody was leaving London, Mrs. Adams and her daughter came together to tell Elsie that they were about to take their departure for Oldbury, where they were to spend the autumn, and to offer to convey any message or token of remembrance she might wish to send to her friend Miss Berry.

Elsie collected some of the prettiest of the illuminations she had copied at the Museum,