was the mistress of the situation, and more magnificent sympathy was offered to her in consequence. In the old times there had been public days at Kempton Court, such as the old king's birthday, by which George the Third was meant, when a flag waved from the porch tower, and the place had been thrown open to all who had an established right to come. But as time went on the days were changed. The accession of Queen Victoria had been kept; and in my time it had always been Lady Margaret's wedding day. After Sir Geoffrey's death there was much wondering about these public days. For six years Kempton Court was a house closed to all but particular friends; and during all that time the wondering as to the possible fête days of the future was every year renewed. During all this time Lady Margaret had been the angel of our house. She had won my mother out of her desponding grief for my father's early death, and she made me love her as I could not hope by any description to make anybody understand. I quite worshipped Lady Margaret. The most perfect lady! I could echo the village judgment now from my own heart, and because of my own experience; and generally Lady Margaret was even more delighted in as a widow than she had been as a wife-our perfect lady! Lady Margaret used often to have me to stay with her at Kempton Court; and rather more than six years after her husband's death, when I was her guest-it being February, and in fact, St. Valentine's eve, she said, 'Mary; the people have been six years without their public days in the park. I am thinking this year of beginning them again. I wonder if it would be liked?' I spoke positively of the pleasure it would give; and when I looked at her beautiful young face-she could not have been more than twentyseven, I think-I felt glad that she would no longer deprive our little world of so much loveliness of person and mind. 'And you will go out again-see friends, I mean.' VOL. XV.-NO. LXXXVI. 'Yes,' she said; but I shall not go to London this year, I think.' Then I knew that by degrees the old ways were to be returned to, and I was glad. Yet with my gladness there mingled a girlish regret, because I felt that Lady Margaret might become something elsesomething not known to methat I, who had only known her so very well since her widowhood, might lose a something, and that what I lost others would gain. I had begun to be jealous of the world already. She talked very merrily that evening; she spoke of her maiden life, of London, of my 'coming out'— for I was seventeen-of people who had been beauties and heiresses; of some who had married well and others who had married ill; of love in a cottage, and of those who had agreed that, considering the chances of this mortal life, "tis best repenting in a coach and six.' I was amused and interested beyond measure. She spoke with a brilliant familiarity of the life of her youth. It came back to her in memory with evident pleasure, and stayed up gossiping much beyond our usual bed-time. we As we stood at last on the landing of the stairs, saying good-night, she said, 'Shall we walk to the Beeches tomorrow?' 'Oh, yes,' I exclaimed; for the Beeches was a wooded hill-side, dotted about with huge masses of granite, at the foot of which a rapid river ran, with most picturesque windings; and there Lady Margaret had already given me two lessons in sketching, the spot to which we went being both sheltered and sunny, and so very agreeable for the time of year. To tell the truth, I dreamt of the things we had talked about, and when Lady Margaret met me in the hall, after breakfast, in her short black serge, and said, 'Come, Mary, or the morning sun will be gone. And do you know it is Valentine's day?' I coloured up to my eyes, because I had said to myself over and over again, I hope K she will not marry again-oh, I hope, I hope!' Away we went; the day was the brightest that ever dawned on any Valentine, I am sure; the sun was like summer, the birds were singing, the primroses were showing in the sheltered places, and when we got to the Beeches, there was the dry rustle of the beech mast beneath our feet, and gay green patches where the leaves of the blue hyacinths had pushed their way. 'Oh, this is exquisite !' cried Lady Margaret. 'See the light on those glittering rocks-look how the shadow of those great boughs gets painted on them. But we have not the river- yet; let us get up the bank and see how it looks from above-I declare it is hot.' Lady Margaret was quite right. We had walked fast, we were in a place at once sunny and sheltered, and it was a moment of as much enjoyment and promise as any ladysketcher could desire. She had got beyond me now, by a rough path up the steep bank, and she stood waiting. 'Oh, Mary, it is delicious! So peaceful, so pretty! It seems odd to think of so much beauty going on, whether or not there be any to look at it. Nature is a prodigal. Here we are quite alone, not a creature have we seen-not a Valentine!' And then she laughed like a girl. She took one or two steps more, so as to command the other side of a granite rock, and then she came back quickly to me. 'Oh, I hope he did not hear. There is a man there, sitting down, drawing in water colours-what shall we do?' peculiarly sweet voice that he said 'I know I am on Lady Margaret Caryll's grounds. But I hope I have not trespassed too far-too near the house, I mean.' 'You are nearly a mile from my house,' said Lady Margaret. The stranger again gave a little bow. 'Do not leave your sketch unfinished. The scenery here is very fine, and you will not often get so good a day at this time of the year.' "Thank you!' he said. And once more touching his hat, he turned away, as if to go back to where Lady Margaret had seen him. We, too, turned away, and I thought Lady Margaret looked disturbed. 'We will come some other time,' -then she added, after a pause, with an odd short laugh, as if vexed at being disappointed of our sketching hour-when there are no Valentines about;' and I, a little chafed, perhaps, by her mannerfor the first time in my life it vexed me-said quickly 'Nay, it was your Valentine-you saw him, not I!' 'Child!' I started; stood still; took her hand, and kissed it. 'I wish I had never uttered the word,' I cried. 'So do I,' she said, 'and I said it, as well as saw it first; so the whole fault of this is mine-kiss me, Mary. There! Now no more!' And so we did not speak of it just then any more. But before the day was ended we had both laughed heartily over the Valentine, the vexation, and the adventure. We called the sketcher the Valentine;' we wondered about him a little, and finished the day by colouring up our morning walk till it glowed as a good story when we told it at 'little tea' to my mother. There it seemed to end. Yet, again and again, as weeks passed by, I felt an unaccountable vexation rise in my breast because Lady Margaret had seen the Valentine.' At last, when June was come, there was something else to think about. The return to the old public days was announced. The people were to have their fill of pleasure, and once |