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Listless leaves were tossing in the light wind or borne doard in the swirl of the flooded Midburn, to the weary shallohere they lay, beached high and sodden, till the frost nipped and shrivelled their rottenness into dust A bleak, thin wind it was, like a fine sour wine, searching the ht snodered the earth, the grey forerunner of storms

Alice stood back in the shelter of the broken parapet The highith its -place was some hundreds of yards up stream, but here, at the burn littering Avelin, there was a grass-grown track, and an ancient, broken-backed bridge There were few passers on the high-road, none on this deserted way; but the girl in all her loneliness shrank back into the shadow In these minutes she endured the bitteron a certain but unknown grief

She had not long to wait, for Lewis cae His alert gait covered his very real confusion, but to the girl he seeed to an alien world of cheerfulness He could not know her grief, and she regretted her co

His manners were the same courteous forreeted her with a conventional ease

"It was so good of you, Miss Wishart, to giveis such a sudden affair, that I ht have had no time to co you"

The girl ood tiue-tied

The two stood before each other, aard and silent--two bethom no word of love had ever been spoken, but whose hearts were claates of speech

Alice's face and neck were dyed crimson, as the impossible position dawned on her mind No word could break down the palisade, of forled for the most calm and inept words He spoke of the weather, of her father, of his aunt's es

Then the girl held out her hand

"Good-bye," she said, looking away from him

He held it for a second "Good-bye, Miss Wishart," he said hoarsely Was this the consu? The steel hand of fate was on him and he turned to leave