Well, we have had enough of it," cried the haughty beauty, "and I have some people to see and some things to do, and—in fact, I am tired."

"Tired!" Mr. Wood said, a little reproachfully. He was conscious that he had been doing his very best. He had not been dogmatic, or snarling, or contradictory: on the contrary, he had been assiduous, humble, and devoted. He felt he had risen above the new Mr. Wood in bearing, manners, and conversation, and his reward for all this was that word of two syllables-" Tired."

Miss Brackenbridge saw the pain, at a glance, and, likely enough, she was proud of it.

They had not yet returned, and the shadows of the trees fell trembling on their way, while the sun looked down gloriously, calling out the primroses in the hedges, and making the silver surf of the sea laugh in the new summer's joyousness. The birds began to proclaim the happy time their own, and even the frog among the ferns whistled for the grasshopper to come, and join the new summer concert. It was a time for happy thought, and if the thought were wise, the time would make thought holy.

On their return, they diverged from the common road, and having gone through a small gateway, gradually descended by a declivity towards a stream. Proceeding onwards, they found themselves under a high and shelving hedgeway, crowned on the top with stunted trees, irregularly planted, and here and there relieved by a poplar or an elm. The whole scene above them was most regularly irregular, and one of the illustrations of nature's power in realizing the ideals of perfect taste. The brown and rather rough pathway below contrasted with the fresh green and the bright water, and, winding along it, imparted to the road that undefined sense of the mysterious which hangs over twisting ways when they creep along in shadow, and vanish without ending. The place was the place for the hour, in a word, and was made for a stroll.

Mr. Wood and his companion stood looking into the stream. Above them, at some distance, on the left, was the arch of a bridge; far away on the right was heard the splash of the waters of the great river, the ringing of bells, the screaming of whistles, and the consolidated voices of the thousands upon thousands far away, and now heard like the unceasing moan of a mighty

sea.

Mr. Wood turned towards Grace Brackenbridge, and looked into her fine face. She returned his look in a dreamy and abstracted manner; but after a moment Grace smiled-she smiled even softly on him then.

Mr. Wood looked on the ground, and paused. The pause brought his resolution to life.

"Grace!" he said.

It was the first time he had called her by her Christian-name. Grace Brackenbridge did not shrink, or tremble, or faint, but

the rich cheeks bloomed in her blushes, and the eloquent eyes. looked out in radiant power.

"Well," she answered.

"Well, Mr. Wood."

'Grace, you are too observant not to have divined my thoughts, and read my ambition. You have known for weeks what I have known for months; that

Stay, Mr. Wood. Do stay, pray; I know what you would say. I can understand it, and,"-after a pause-"I can value it."

"Value it! Thank God. 'Value it !'" Mr. Wood cried, greatly moved.

He approached, as if to take Miss Brackenbridge's hand; but she drew back, and smiled one of her meaning smiles.

"Oh! Mr. Wood," she said; " mind, mind the 'gushing' must begin at my side."

Wood's courage seemed to fall with his repulse.

"Nay, but," she said; and now she made a most emphatic pause, and looked solemn, solemn and earnest. "But, Mr. Wood," she continued, "I have no hesitation in saying that no word of yours, or kindness. . . . or affection," she said slowly, "has been lost upon me. I understand all, and I value and return every feel

ing; but

"But what! what!" cried Mr. Wood, with his usual impetuosity. "Oh! do say what," what."

Psha! psha!" cried the beautiful American. culous!" she cried.

"We are ridi

"Come, Mr. Wood!" she resumed, laughingly; and now she laid her fair hand upon his shoulder. "Come, Eardly Wood!" she went on while Mr. Wood burned with excitement and delight. "Can you tell me the interest of two hundred thousand dollars at five per cent. per annum ?”

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Certainly," answered Mr. Wood, and endeavouring vainly to return the pleasantry.

"I will tell you," the beauty replied. "It is ten thousand dollars a year. What think you of that sum, Eardly Wood? Well, on less than that fortune Grace Brackenbridge shall never live—cannot."

"Well then, my dear friend; the only man I ever knew, unless my father, whom I did not nearly contemn! I have met. Eardly Wood, if I am ever to like a man, I have met him; and I shall not easily change; but money-money, I must have. Oh! enough of poverty!" she cried-" enough! enough!"

Grace, I do not despair; Brackenbridge, your uncle, has promised to place me in a career which ought approach your figure in five years but then, five years!"

"Do not mind!" she interrupted passionately, "With Grace Brackenbridge, five years, or fifty, or five hundred are nothing; because," and now she seized his hand, and, like a prophetess, looked

up to heaven-" because," she said sadly, "with me 'tis Eardly Wood or nothing!"

"Tell me, Wood," she said, again laughing, and suddenly flinging off every shadow of passion, or even excitement," tell me what religion do you profess?"

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Religion?" Wood demanded.

'Yes, you very stupid young gentleman," she said. "Have I not a right and duty to find and weigh your tenets, and to keep you straight and consistent?"

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'Well, dear Grace, I am of your religion," he replied.

"Mine!" she said, and laughed most buoyantly. "Mine! oh, well. Then I am of the Brackenbridge faith-pure and simple." 'Brackenbridge faith ?"

"Yes. We have two grand precepts in the Brackenbridge creed-Succeed in all your projects. Do what you think is right." “And you find what is right by

?"

'By finding what is most successful and most convenient, or at any rate the least inconvenient.”

"'Pon my word, Grace," Mr. Wood replied, "you are fit to be President of the Great Havanna Club,' in which I graduated some years ago! One would think you studied under our professors of political economy."

Well, Eardly," she answered, giving him her hand again, "it grows late; but now we understand one another, and the explanation is worth a half score years."

They had not proceeded more than a few hundred yards when Captain Brackenbridge came in sight. He seemed quite delighted at the tête-a-tête, which he saw had been going forward; and he rallied his niece and her companion.

"Getting into troubled waters, Mr. Wood?" he said, laughing. "Beware of Grace; there are breakers all around the enchanted islands where some beauties dwell."

"There are spring-tides of hope!" answered Wood.

"And even among breakers," Grace added, "a way of safety is found by observant patience."

"Well! well!" Brackenbridge answered, and he shook his head laughingly. "Mr. Wood," he said, "I have been to see Dr. Conway, and I have asked him and honest Captain Malin to dine on Sunday. Malin's wife will come; and if I can, we shall have Mr. Waters, the baptist clergyman, too.”

"We make a circuit of them, Mr. Wood," said Grace, giving Mr. Wood a look of significance, to explain the "Mr."; "but I believe Dr. Conway is uncle's favourite. We go all round, however But," she asked, what of the yacht-sail ?"

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"Well, Monday is fixed," answered the captain.

"Six miles?" Grace demanded.

"Seven to eight," answered her uncle.

"I intend to go!" said Grace,

"Do you so?" Brackenbridge asked.

"Yes; I must see Mr. Wood in a stiff wind; and Ned, that wonderful specimen-man of his."

"A clever fellow is Ned," remarked the captain. "The Yankees are piqued and puzzled by him. They have no chance with Ned."

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Well, PAT," one says.

Faith, 'tis you are pat," was the answer; "I'm Edmund, my friend."

"You brought a large property into the United States, sir," an impudent fellow remarked, yesterday, near the Catholic Church. "Faith, I brought much more thin you," answered Ned. "I brought a shute o' clothes an' a characther into this country, an 'you came into id bare an' naked! you fool, an' no wan ever saw your face afore."

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'You should have seen the perfect prostration of Ned, the yachtman's opponent," remarked Captain Brackenbridge.

Mr. Wood had "turned the corner." The following Sunday he went to the Methodist Church, and in the evening proposed to go to the Baptist Meeting; but the company did not break up sufficiently early. Mr. Wood had only one figure before his mind, and one desire in his heart. Grace Brackenbridge was the form, and money the desire. 'Recte si possis; sed quocunque modo rem," was Mr. Wood's morning maxim and resolution. How he became possessed of the fortune we shall see.

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CHAPTER XI.

SHOWING THREE IMPORTANT THINGS-A HISTORY, A DINner Party, aND A YACHT RACE.

GRACE Brackenbridge's father, like her uncle, Captain Brackenbridge, belonged to the sea. He lived nearly all his life in one of our North-American dependencies, from which he made his voyages, returning at intervals, to look after whatever local interests concerned him. He had been twice married-once to a woman of the United States, and subsequently to a female of the dependency above alluded to. The second marriage was solemnized before the woman had attained her fifteenth year, and, unfortunately, before the demise of Brackenbridge's first wife had been at all clearly established. But Brackenbridge was a young man still. He had plenty of money, appeared to be also able and temperate, and was a great attraction to a family not well to do, like the family from whom he got his wife, Ellenor-Leonora, she was called by small pride, and no comm on sense to balance it; and she attracted Captain Brackenbridge the first time he laid eyes upon her.

Leonora may have felt a pang at parting her doll or her tortoiseshell cat, and her canary; but it must be admitted that she had no great attachment to hard work and third-rate dresses. So that whatever feelings of bereavement tried her little soul when Brackenbridge's suit was presented, were drowned, and more than swallowed up by the imaginary triumphs of her new silk dresses, her watch, and her Indian shawls, scarfs, and ivory fans-all ready to be married to her with the captain.

Leonora was not very strong; but she was graceful, and not forward. She "held her own," to employ the vulgar term once more; but she was neither overbearing nor offensive. It is to be lamented, considering all the circumstances, that Leonora and her family were Roman Catholics; and that in receiving Brackenbridge as a connexion they had been as careless of the ecclesiastical law as of the experience which life had bestowed upon them. They thought that God and conscience could supply one set of rules, and the utilities or necessities of life supply another. And they took a temporary hold for guidance upon the latter. They fared, of course, as all people fare who follow such wisdom. But we are moralizing. The fruit of Leonora Keenan's marriage was two children, both girls, and one of these girls was Grace Brackenbridge.

When Grace was eleven years old, her mother was just sevenand-twenty, and her sister was twelve. The sister was extremely like her mother. Grace was in every feature and movement like her father, the captain. Even as a little thing, when we remember her, she was imperious, dictating, and self-willed.

Captain J. Brackenbridge had been three months away. The period fixed for his return had elapsed a week or two before. His wife, Leonora, never very strong, had been much agitated. She asked excitedly from time to time, "what signals were up," and almost before the messengers left her presence, she cried again, "what are the signals? oh! tell me what are the signals ?"

The paroxysms would, to the superstitious, impart something startling or trying to poor human nature; and, as it sometimes happens, accident, if we are so to name it, gives superstition a chance of living.

Almost simultaneously with the signalling of J. Brackenbridge's ship came the news of his first wife's existence, alive and well, in the Far West of the American States.

Leonora's illness became alarming, and her husband had not arrived. She yet had a mother-a mother who had lived to weep over the worldly maxims that gave her daughter silk gowns and a watch, and took away a conscience.

To prepare Leonora for death became necessary; and as almost ever happens," the priest, the priest !" was cried out by a voice in agony. "Oh! bring me the priest !"

The priest came. He saw Leonora almost for the first time. A creature she was to be pitied, whose look would give living life