for him to choose from; and after the paper
and brushes had been duly selected, the two
set out in the merriest spirits in the world.

"Now, please, just stop here for a minute
or two," said Margaret. "These are the
cottages that haunted me so during the rainy
fortnight, reproaching me for not having
sketched them."

"Before they tumbled down and were no
more seen. Truly, if they are to be sketched
—and they are very picturesque—we had
better not put it off till next year. But where
shall we sit?"

"Oh! You might have come straight from
chambers in the Temple, instead of having
been two months in the Highlands! Look at
this beautiful trunk of a tree, which the
woodcutters have left just in the right place for the
light. I will put my plaid over it, and it will
be a regular forest throne."

"With your feet in that puddle for a regal
footstool! Stay, I will move, and then you
can come nearer this way. Who lives in these
cottages?"

"They were built by squatters fifty or
sixty years ago. One is uninhabited; the
foresters are going to take it down, as soon as
the old man who lives in the other is dead,
poor old fellow! Look—there he is—I must
go and speak to him. He is so deaf you will
hear all our secrets."

The old man stood bareheaded in the sun,
leaning on his stick at the front of his
cottage. His stiff features relaxed into a slow
smile as Margaret went up and spoke to him.
Mr. Lennox hastily introduced the two figures
into his sketch, and finished up the landscape
with a subordinate reference to them, as
Margaret perceived, when the time came for
getting up, putting away water, and scraps of
paper, and exhibiting to each other their
sketches. She laughed and blushed: Mr.
Lennox watched her countenance.

"Now, I call that treacherous," said she.
"I little thought you were making old Isaac
and me into subjects, when you told me to
ask him the history of these cottages."

"It was irresistible. You can't know how
strong a temptation it was. I hardly dare
tell you how much I shall like this sketch."

He was not quite sure if she heard this
latter sentence before she went to the brook
to wash her palette. She came back rather
flushed, but looking perfectly innocent and
unconscious. He was glad of it, for the
speech had slipped from him unawares—a rare
thing in the case of a man who premeditated
his actions so much as Henry Lennox.

The aspect of home was all right and bright
when they reached it. The clouds on her
mother's brow had cleared off under the
propitious influence of a brace of carp, most
opportunely presented by a neighbour. Mr.
Hale had returned from his morning's round,
and was awaiting his visitor just outside the
wicket gate that led into the garden. He
looked a complete gentleman in his rather
threadbare coat and well-worn hat.
Margaret was proud of her father; she had
always a fresh and tender pride in seeing
how favourably he impressed every stranger;
still her quick eye sought over his face and
found there traces of some unusual disturbance,
which was only put aside, not cleared
away.

Mr. Hale asked to look at their sketches.

"I think you have made the tints on the
thatch too dark, have you not?" as he
returned Margaret's to her, and held out his
hand for Mr. Lennox's, which was withheld
from him one moment, no more.

"No, papa! I don't think I have. The
house-leek and stone-crop have grown so
much darker in the rain. Is it not like,
papa?" said, she, peeping over his shoulder,
as he looked at the figures in Mr. Lennox's
drawing.

"Yes, very like. Your figure and way of
holding yourself is capital. And it is just
poor old Isaac's stiff way of stooping his long
rheumatic back. What is this hanging from
the branch of the tree? Not a bird's nest,
surely."

"Oh no! that is my bonnet. I never can
draw with my bonnet on; it makes my head
so hot. I wonder if I could manage figures.
There are so many people about here whom
I should like to sketch."

"I should say that a likeness you very
much wish to take you would always succeed
in," said Mr. Lennox. "I have great faith in
the power of will. I think myself I have
succeeded pretty well in yours." Mr. Hale
had preceded them into the house, while
Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses,
with which to adorn her morning gown for
dinner.

"A regular London girl would understand
the implied meaning of that speech," thought
Mr. Lennox. "She would be up to looking
through every speech that a young man made
her for the arrière-pensée of a compliment.
But I don't believe, Margaret,—Stay!"
exclaimed he, "Let me help you;" and he
gathered for her some velvety cramoisy roses
that were above her reach, and then dividing
the spoil he placed two in his button-hole,
and sent her in, pleased and happy, to arrange
her flowers.

The conversation at dinner flowed on
quietly and agreeably. There were plenty of
questions to be asked on both sides—the
latest intelligence which each could give of
Mrs. Shaw's movements in Italy to be
exchanged; and in the interest of what was
said, the unpretending simplicity of the
parsonage-ways—above all, in the neighbourhood
of Margaret, Mr. Lennox forgot the little
feeling of disappointment with which he had
at first perceived that Margaret had spoken
but the simple truth when she had described
her father's living as very small.

"Margaret, my child, you might have
gathered us some pears for our dessert," said