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Probably the result would, after all, have been nil, had not the following few remarks been made one day at breakfast

Her father was in his old hearty spirits He smiled to himself at stories too bad to tell, and called Elfride a little scaht to have been drowned After this expression, she said to him suddenly: 'If Mr Smith had been already in the fa he had poor relations?'

'Do you e?' he replied inattentively, and continuing to peel his egg

The accu, as much as the affirmative reply

'I should have put up with it, no doubt,' Mr Swancourt observed

'So that you would not have been driven into hopeless melancholy, but have made the best of him?'

Elfride's erratic mind had fro her father by hypothetical questions, based on absurd conditions The present seemed to be cast so precisely in the iven to syntheses of circumstances, he answered it with customary complacency

'If he were allied to us irretrievably, of course I, or any sensible man, should accept conditions that could not be altered; certainly not be hopelesslyin the world wouldmake you so, either'

'I won't, papa,' she cried, with a serene brightness that pleased hi that the brightness caer fro he drove away towards Stratleigh, quite alone It was an unusual course for hiain als to pour out all

'Why are you going to Stratleigh, papa?' she said, and looked at hily

'I will tell you to-morrohen I come back,' he said cheerily; 'not before then, Elfride Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know, and so far will I trust thee, gentle Elfride'

She was repressed and hurt

'I will tell you my errand to Plymouth, too, when I come back,' she murmured

He went away His jocularity hter, as his indifference made her more resolved to do as she liked

It was a fae-yellow sky These sunsets used to te teh the field to the privet hedge, clahs After looking ard for a considerable ti eastward to where Stephen was, and turned round Ultiround