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Elfride was al herself that her father's reserve on his business justified her in secrecy as regarded her own--a secrecy which was necessarily a foregone decision with her So anxious is a young conscience to discover a palliative, that the ex post facto nature of a reason is of no account in excluding it

The intervening fortnight was spent by herthe shrubs and trees, indulging souine anticipations; s All her flowers seemed dull of hue; her pets seeer stood in the same friendly relation to her as forazed at sunsets, and talked to old men and women It was the first time that she had had an inner and private world apart from the visible one about her She wished that her father, instead of neglecting her even more than usual, would make some advance--just one word; she would then tell all, and risk Stephen's displeasure Thus brought round to the youth again, she saw hi her, his eyes full of sad affection, hopelessly renouncing his attempt because she had renounced hers; and she could not recede

On the Wednesday she was to receive another letter She had resolved to let her father see the arrival of this one, be the consequences what theyher lover by this deed of honesty prevented her acting upon the resolve Five minutes before the postman's expected arrival she slipped out, and down the lane to le, which hid her froly handed oneon to hand another, a circular from some tradesman

'No,' she said; 'take that on to the house'

'Why,what your father has done for the last fortnight'

She did not comprehend

'Why, co, all writ in the sao on to the house' And on the postman went

No sooner had he turned the corner behind her back than she heard her father meet and address the man She had saved her letter by two h precisely the sauilty of herself

This stealthy conduct of his was, to say the least, peculiar

Given an ilected as to her inner life by her only parent, and the following forces alive within her; to determine a resultant: First love acted upon by a deadly fear of separation fro onward a frantic wish to prevent the above-nas as to propriety, nation at parental inconsistency in first encouraging, then forbidding: a chilling sense of disobedience, overpowered by a conscientious inability to brook a breaking of plighted faith with a inning: a blessed hope that opposition would turn an erroneous judges would mend thereby, and wind up well