served the purpose for Elsie. It came into her mind when Mr. Pierrepoint spoke most kindly to her, and when Miss Berry indulged in visions of having everybody she most cared about settled in Oldbury. It was almost a relief when at the end of the week a letter arrived from Margaret begging her to return to London immediately. She had already been away longer than they had at first anticipated, and her grandfather missed her sadly, Margaret wrote. Miss Berry was obliged to give way to this urgency, and, to Elsie's intense surprise, Mr. Pierrepoint insisted on making a journey to London on purpose to give her back himself into her aunt's charge. He would not hear anything about her being quite able to travel alone, or of her having always of late years had to take care not only of herself, but of her infirm grandfather. He seemed to consider that circumstances were greatly changed with her now. She had grown to be a personage of great importance in his eyes, and must consent to be made much of.

CHAPTER XLII.

A LAST WALK UNDER THE ELMS.

INEVITABLE delays occurred. Public business obliged Sir Cecil Russel to remain at Shanghai longer than he had expected; and as his health had been much impaired by the anxiety of the last few months, he could not dispense with

Stephen Pierrepoint's services. Every letter

that came from Stephen or Cecil to Oldbury was full of impatient longings for home; but it was not until the autumn of the ensuing year that news of their having actually sailed for England reached the Rectory. And even then Mr. Pierrepoint's joy in the prospect of their return was somewhat damped by a passage in Sir Cecil's last letter, which expressed his belief that Stephen had not taken his final leave of the country, for that the

prominent part he had lately taken in the business of the consulate, and the great ability he had shown, would probably lead to his appointment to the post Sir Cecil intended to resign.

Meanwhile several changes had occurred in Elsie's life. In the spring of the year, old Mr. Blake died suddenly while sleeping in his chair, with no one but his grand-daughter near him. The sleep of life slid into the death sleep so gradually and tranquilly, that for some time Elsie did not suspect the change that had taken place.

His death broke up the house in Wilton Street. Margaret carried out a project she had long entertained, and became a member of a small community of women who, without parade or distinction, were devoting their time and means to missionary work in the poorest and most neglected districts of London-"Sisters of the Poor" in reality, as well as in name; and Elsie went to live with her grandmother, Mrs. Neale, till Stephen Pierrepoint should come to claim her.

Their first meeting, after so many years of separation, took place in the gloomy house through which Elsie had once wandered with such despair in her heart.

She was sitting upstairs in Mrs. Neale's room, reading a novel aloud to her, when a little pencil note in Stephen Pierrepoint's handwriting was brought to her. She had had no opportunity of consulting the newspapers to see if the vessel by which he was expected was telegraphed, and she was wearying for news.

"I landed only a few hours ago," the note said, "and I must be at Oldbury to-night! Will you not see me at once?"

Mrs. Neale, impatient at the long interruption to the reading, looked over Elsie's shoulder and read the words aloud before the handwriting had left off dancing before her eyes. "Yes, of course you will go," she said. "Go down and get it over. You may as well give me the book, and then you need not hurry. I shall live very contentedly with the heroine through all the vicissitudes of her

history, while you are acting out a single page or so of yours down there. It belongs to the difference in our ages, my dear the vicarious stage of love-making is the most enjoyable of the two, I assure you; and you will come to it by and by. What! I am to kiss you before you go! There! Don't lose that little bit of rose colour in your cheeks before you reach the drawing-room, and he will see at a glance that you are twenty times handsomer than you were four years ago, and be very much obliged to me for having routed you out of the quaint way of dressing Margaret had brought you up to. When you have had your first talk, bring him up for me to see what he is like. go; the longer you linger, the worse it will

seem."

Now

Elsie ran down-stairs, but paused with her hand on the lock of the sitting-room door, The four years stretched themselves out in her thoughts like a great plain of distance, and the recollections behind looked dim and unreal. It would be, after all, a stranger's face-to whom she should look strange-that