the vicar. ''When Sir John was thrown
opposite the garden gate, he was in a half-
fainting condition, yon must remember.
But it was not then that the mischief was
done. It was an ugly fall he got earlier in
the day from a fresh, hot-tempered beast,
He changed horses afterwards, and
persisted in continuing to 'assault the chase,'
as Mugworthy says. So I do not think we
are justified in concluding anything to the
disadvantage of his horsemanship."

"But don't you know, papa," Veronica
put in, " that Joe has inoculated Maud
with the true Daneshire notion that only
Daneshire folks born and "bred, can ride?"

Maud smiled and shook her head.

"Sir John charged me," said the vicar,
with ' a thousand heartfelt thanks to my
amiable daughters.'"

"Thanks?" exclaimed Veronica.  "Truly
we have done nothing for him. Paul takes
care that his master shall lack no service.
So then, Sir John thinks that Maud is your
daughter as well as I?"

"I suppose so. It matters nothing. In
a short time he will go away, and in a—
perhaps—rather longer time, will have
forgotten all about us; so that it was very
unnecessary to trouble him with family
details."

"If he forgets all about you, it will
be very ungrateful, Uncle Charles," said
Maud.

From the earliest days of her coming to
the vicarage, Maud Desmond had been
used to call Mr. Levincourt and his wife
"uncle" and "aunt;" although she was,
of course, aware that no relationship really
existed between them and herself.

"Ungrateful? Well I don't know. It
would scarcely have been practicable to
leave him outside the garden gate all night.
Do you know any one who would have
shut the door and gone in quietly to bed
under the circumstances?"

"Forget us!" cried Veronica, with an
impatient shrug of her shoulders; "no
doubt he will forget us! Who that once
turned his back on Shipley would care ever
to think of it again?"

"I would," replied Maud, very quietly.

"Would you? I am not sure of that.
But at all events the cases are widely
different. Sir John is wealthy. He can
travel. He has seen many countries, Paul
says: France, Italy, the East. He can go
where he pleases: can enjoy society. O,
Shipley-in-the-Wold must be a mere little
ugly blot on his map of the world!"

The vicar sighed, uncrossed his legs, and
stretched them out straight before him, so
as to bring his feet nearer to the fire.

"What made him come to the little ugly
blot, then, when he had all the sunny
places to choose from?" demanded Maud,
indignantly.

"He came for the hunting, I suppose."

"Very well, then; you see there was
something in Shipley that he couldn't get
in his France, and his Italy, and his East!"

Veronica burst out laughing. She seated
herself on the rug at Maud's feet, and leaning
back looked up into her face. " What
a child you are, Maudie!" she exclaimed.
"His France and his East! Yes: I
suppose rich people find good things
everywhere—even in Shipley."

"And they get pitched off their horses,
and are bruised and cut, and burnt by
fever, and prostrated by weakness, in spite
of their riches," observed Maud, philosophically.

"Children," said the vicar, suddenly,
"do you want to go to Lowater on the
nineteenth?"

"Of course we do, papa. What is it?
Have you had an invitation?"

Veronica's eyes sparkled, and her rosy
lips smiled, and she clapped her slender
hands together joyously. Maud, too, looked
eager and interested.

"Yes," answered Mr. Levincourt; "I
have had an invitation for us all to dine
with the Sheardowns on the nineteenth. It
is their wedding-day."

"How exquisite!" cried Veronica, seizing
one of Maud's hands that rested on her
shoulder, and squeezing it hard. " A
dinner party! A well in the desert! A
tuft of palm-trees in a barren land!"

"I suppose we must go," said the vicar,
plaintively.

"I 'suppose we must,' indeed. Why,
papa, you know you like the idea of it as
much as we do."

"I am always charmed to meet Mrs.
Sheardown and the captain."

"No doubt of it," cried Veronica, now
in a full glow of excitement. " We know
that you are Mistress Nelly Sheardown's
most devoted cavalier. But it isn't only
that, papa mio. You like the idea of a
change, a break in the monotony, a peep
at something beyond Shipley. You would
like to go, if it were even to dine at
Haymoor with' old Lady Alicia. And quite right
too, say I."

The vicar made an attempt to assert his
prerogative of victimhood, but in vain.

The varying thermometer of Veronica's