three years back, when I came here, but not in
the same spirit nor with the same light hope in
future good within my heart as I had then.
Amongst the plans which I laid as I sat thus by
the fire and saw the light playing on the mouldy
furniture of Rosebower, my garden held a chief
part, but William Gibson's zeal forestalled me
there. Long before I was up the next morning he
was working and toiling for me, setting flowers,
trimming hedges, and doing all a gardener's
part with far more than a gardener's zeal, I
would have protested against this if I could
have seen him, but I could not catch a glimpse
of my kind brownie. Neither that day nor the
next, not till his mother and sister returned
and I called upon them, did I see William
Gibson again. I could but thank him then;
protest, when he had done all he could do and my
little garden was one mass of blooming flowers,
came too late, so I thanked him cordially; he
heard me with a shy nervous smile, then glanced
up at me with such frank adoration in his grey
eyes that I should have been very blind
indeed if I had not known the meaning of that
look. So from the first I saw that William
Gibson loved me. He never said it, not a
word that fell from him ever implied it, but
I saw it, and seeing his goodness I loved
him too.

I loved him, but I did not know it, and was
the happier for my ignorance. No thought
of the future marred the sweetness of the
present time, or passed like a cloud over the
bright sunshine. I sometimes wondered why,
though Mrs. Gibson was so prosy and Ellen
so flippant, the evening I spent with them
seemed so delightful, but even that wonder
did not enlighten me. At last I learned the
truth.

I used to speak of my brother with William
Gibson, whose nervousness had much worn off.
He listened to me with a marked attention
that bespoke interest, and once he said, " You
love your brother very much?"

"Of course I do!" I exclaimed, amused.
"He is such a darling," I added. " Oh, if you
were to see the letters he writes to me!"

"I should very much like to see them,"
promptly replied William Gibson; then, looking
at me, he added, "Of course he is like
you."

We happened to be alone in his mother's
parlour, I sitting on a low chair, looking at the
fire, he standing by the chimney, looking down
at me. I felt myself turn crimson when he
spoke thus. Why should William be like me,
and why did William Gibson care for that
likeness? Ah! I knew it, I knew it very well,
and knowing it I was glad, in a vague,
confused way, which I did not quite understand as
yet. But, as I said, the knowledge came at
last. I went as usual to Mrs. Gibson's on the
next evening. My heart felt light and joyous;
I had received a letter from my darling that
morning; he was working hard to be a credit
to me yet, and he was already quite fluent in
German. How could I but be glad? In that
bright mood, and with my letter to show to
Mr. Gibson, I entered his mother's parlour,
and, as usual, that dull, low room, so shabbily
furnished, looked gay to me as a fairy palace.
There was an antique charm about the old
chiffonier; perfumed oil burning in a silver
lamp could not have shed a purer light in my
eyes than that of Mrs. Gibson's moderator.
Everything was dear, everything was delightful
about the place where I thought to meet
William Gibson.

At once I missed him, at once I saw Ellen's
red eyes and Mrs. Gibson's woful face, and
with a cold chill at my heart I guessed what
had happened.

"My dear boy is gone," plaintively said
Mrs. Gibson — " gone to Poland for two
years."

William Gibson was a civil engineer, and
once or twice he had said something about
going to the north of Europe, but still I had not
anticipated a departure so sudden. I had been
out rambling all day, and during my absence
the summons had come, and been obeyed at
once.

"Willie asked to be very kindly remembered
to you," resumed Mrs. Gibson, in the same
dolorous tone.

I heard her with my useless letter in my
hand. He had asked to be very kindly remembered
to me. He could not say more; but he
could not say less either. This was his adieu,
this our parting. By the keen pang I felt I
learned how dear he had become to me, and by
the changed eyes with which I viewed the
house he had left, and the rooms in which I
saw him no more, I knew how delightful had
been his presence.

I was very sad when I went home that evening,
and I cried myself to sleep. I was sad
for many days; then I rallied, and Hope, who
had folded her wings awhile, came and
whispered some of her sweet nonsense in my ear.
I was sure that William Gibson loved me; I
was sure that he would be true to me; and I
was sure that my love was his for ever. He
was not rich, indeed, and his mother and sister
were dependent upon him. I also had William
my darling to see and to help on, but for all
that we were not too poor to marry. Why
should not my brother be a civil engineer,
later? Happy dreams, happy hours, in which
you came near me, turning Rosebower into a
paradise. Two years did you last—two blissful
happy years— during which all I knew of William
Gibson was that he was well, and begged
to be remembered to me whenever he wrote
home.

He had been gone two years, and I knew he
was expected home shortly, when my darling
came back from Germany. I had sent for him,
but he arrived a day earlier than I anticipated.
I was sitting alone, thinking of him
as I looked at the coal fire, when the parlour
door opened, and a blithe voice said, " Sister
Anne!"

I started up and saw him—tall, handsome,