heart of all that was luxurious and lovely, lay hid the key of the secret that was tormenting the peasant girl's heart.

Nell reached the mansion, making her timid way by winding, sheltered, shrubbery paths, entering through a back door, and being conducted by the servants' staircase into the private sanctum, where Mrs. Flamborough transacted business of a morning with such of the simpler neighbours as might desire to have a word with her. The room was empty when she was ushered into it, the lady was occupied at the moment elsewhere; and Nell took up her stand upon a certain rose on the pretty carpet, and surveyed the elegant arrangements of

the room.

Her eyes, wide and dark with her own dismay and sorrow, had yet glances of girlish curiosity to cast about the chamber, glances which flew from the roses on the carpet to the butterflies on the wall, and from weird bronzes on the mantelpiece to the wet pen on the welllittered writing-table with its comfortable circular chair. The tiniest brackets holding minute scraps of china twinkled on the walls, between well-chosen photographs of scenes which make a feast for the eyes. Among the latter, and placed as if in a position of honor, hung one of a different size and subject from the rest. It was a beautifully executed vignette of the head and shoulders of a very handsome youth; and as Nell's gaze fastened on it, a sharp line of anguish cut suddenly through the dignified trouble on her brow. Her eyes were fixed on it, and did not remove themselves even when Mrs. Flamborough swept into the room. What the lady said to her, Nell did not know, and her answers were either wanting or completely astray. But the mother followed the direction of her eyes, and required no explanation of her conduct.

"That is the likeness of my son," said the great lady, with a regal wave of her hand; "I see that you recognise it and are convinced. You did well to come here and put an end to this painful affair."

Nell turned an absent glance on her for one moment and said: "I will first step across there, and make sure whether it is Jack or not."

Walking softly, as if afraid of waking some one, Nell came under the portrait and looked full in the laughing eyes. Yes, there could be no mistake; it was certainly he, looking out into a world in which she never could have part, with the self-same glad and winning gaze which she had believed could only shine upon her. Jack-yet Jack no longer; only Gentleman Edward Flamborough, smiling in utter recklessness of her existence.

The observant mother saw the dawn of her own peace of mind in the expression of Nell's proud lip, and was glad to say graciously: "If he were at home at present, I should force him to speak to you, and apologize for his unpardonable conduct. But he is at present out on a pleasure-trip in his yacht. It is expected in the bay to-night; and perhaps―"

An involuntary gesture from Nell cut short the lady's well-meaning speech. Here, then, was the secret of his love of, and acquaintance with, the sea. Here was the cause of his absence. A yachting gen

tleman, pleasuring in his yacht, he had commissioned his mother to do him a service in the meantime, by taking measures for the breaking of a faithful heart!

A burning blush seemed to glow through the girl's entire frame, and in an instant became extinct. She drew off the diamond ring and hung it on the cornice of the picture; and then turning slowly away, crossed the room, as if in a dream, and went out of the door in silence, completely forgetful of Mrs. Flamborough's presence. Proud, humiliated, lonely, and downcast, Nell took her way out of the mansion as quietly as she had come.

CHAPTER V.

THE SQUALL.

NELL'S little boat brought her all too quickly back to the Point, and wakening up out of a painful dream she saw with dismay that she was close to her home. She was not willing to re-enter that home; her face would be strange, and she had no ready words with which to answer remarks that would be made. Kitty would come tripping in to question her, and she was not yet in the mood to confess her pain and amazement, not even to the trusty little friend whom she loved. She would wander about the bay a little longer, drifting aimlessly between sky and sea, in a solitude where there was no one to interfere with her grief.

So, shipping her oars, Nell put her face between her hands and allowed herself to drift with the tide. This drifting mood when indulged is apt to grow upon one, and Nell, not seeing reason for any immediate action, made no effort to shake it off. Shifting her position after a time, she hid herself in the bottom of the boat, and leaning her head upon a coil of rope, continued her reflections. All the schooling among clever people, all the reading and tutoring in the world could not have taught this ignorant girl a more useful lesson of the value of things in life than did Nature in this moment of her first cruel experience. What had seemed fair, and sweet, and delightful, was proved hollow, while that which had before appeared rugged and homely shone out now with all the glory of truth. Peter would never have behaved to her like this, was her bitter reflection; and she might have loved Peter if this other had never come in her path. But now, of her happy heart, there was nothing left to her but a wound. She was incapable of loving anything anymore.

Heavy with sorrow, and rocked by the waves as if in a cradle, her senses became dull, and she fell into a troubled sleep. While she slept, the day changed, the sparkle left the water, the soft blue veil disappeared, bit by bit, from the hills; the face of Nature became first of an ashen gray, and afterwards darkened with a terrible frown. Rain fell, and the wind rose, squall after squall coming down with fury from the top of the mountains. When Nell, shaken rudely out

of her sleep, rose up and looked around her, it was to find herself far out on the sea and in the very whirl of a storm.

Chilled and frightened, as she well might be, she was yet not paralysed with terror, as most women would have been in her place. She had strong, young arms that had been used to ply the oars since they were the arms of a child, and had rendered good service in a storm before now. Gathering up all her wit and strength, she grappled with the difficult task that lay before her, and, setting the prow of her boat towards the most approachable point of land, headed the breakers with vigilant skill. Thunder rolled along the mountains, and the dangerous lightning seemed to hiss as it flared into the seething foam. Two hours ago Nell might have asserted to herself that it mattered little what more sad things befel her; but as deep, gaping hollows of death yawned around her, and as her eye refused to look into them, but kept fixed on the glistening crests that capped them, and the still attainable green-rimmed rocks beyond them in the gloom, she was wildly conscious that there was still something precious to be clung to in life. Her father, Peter, Kitty-was she to be lost thus miserably to all these friends of her years, for the whim of a stranger whom but yesterday not one of them had ever seen? He would not be troubled for her; but oh, how these would grieve! Instinctively keeping such thoughts at bay, lest the mist of tears should blind and destroy her, she won her way steadily, bit by bit, towards land; a sob of thankfulness breaking at last from her lips as she neared the opening of the creek in which were safety and rest. A few more strong, brave strokes and she would have been landed with her boat, high and dry on the little strip of beach that looked so friendly, though lonely and far from home, when suddenly she was aware of noises reaching her ear which were not altogether the whistling and shrieking of the storm. Prolonged, steady shouts were repeated, sometimes loudly, sometimes faintly, from behind her, and carefully turning her head she beheld a sight which banished the momentary joy of relief from her heart. A ship was burning out there in the fury of the storm, near the Harbour Bar, the lightning had caught it, and it was flaming and smoking like a bonfire on the ocean; and from this fiery point of despair in the distant gloom had come those long, strange cries which had startled her ear, rending her trembling heart in the very moment when the nightmare of her own danger was past.

Nell was a coastguard's daughter, reared upon stories and experiences of danger, witness of many desperate scenes, and sharer in many efforts for the salvation of the forlorn; and in a moment she had seized upon all the points in the situation. The coastguards would be out, but their station was a long way off, and would they be in time? The ship must be a small one; or had its own boat been lost? It might be a hooker, or it might be a yacht. Good heavens had it not been said to her in the morning: "his yacht is expected in the bay to-night?" Without waiting to reason further, Nell turned her boat and began her fierce struggle with the breakers once more. The burning vessel lay at the distance of nearly a mile out seaward,

the storm was abating, but the waves were swarming and snarling round Nell's little boat like hosts of ravening wolves. Had she stopped to think about the matter, it might have seemed hopeless to her the idea that she could again traverse a space on that angry ocean as great as that across which she had already fought her way, but she followed her impulse on the instant. This time the tide was in her favour, and she remembered, as she hurried along, that should she succeed in reaching that terrible spot the guidance of the boat on its return would fall to the share of stouter arms than hers. Cheered by this reflection she strained her anxious eyes and weary arms to the utmost, and struggling resolutely with a dizziness which threatened to overwhelm her, she felt herself swept along the waves as if some power beyond her own had impelled her. The ghastly flames loomed nearer and nearer, she felt the heat upon her face, she heard the joyful cries of those who had endured the horrors of so hideous a peril; she saw them clinging to the prow of the vessel now almost enveloped in fire, and caught the rope which they flung to her to draw the welcome footing within their reach. Three men jumped down from their perch, and Nell, having resigned the oars, fainted away quietly in the bottom of her boat.

Now in the hands of skilled sailors the boat shot away quickly from the side of the burning yacht, while the person known as Jack bathed tenderly the cold face which was unconsciously upturned to his gaze. Nell's swoon was a long one; half the journey to land had been made, and shouts of greeting had been exchanged with the coastguards, whose lifeboat had appeared, and come to meet the fugitives from death, before the girl recovered consciousness and opened her eyes. Her father's voice was the first sound she heard. "Nell!" cried the old man, who had suffered sore anguish on her

account.

"She's here all right," was the answering shout. "You would have been late."

"Why could you not do something for yourselves ?" roared the coastguards.

"Our boat got adrift and was lost, and none of us can swim !" "Good Lord!" groaned old Bart. "Will sailors ever learn to swim ?"

Jack's own face was pale enough, as, obeying Nell's speechless, imploring look, he turned his eyes away from her, and left her in her weakness at peace. When the shore was reached, her father took her from the boat and led her home.

"It was accident," she explained to him, simply. "I was caught in the storm myself, and I was near them."

The old man did not invite the shipwrecked sailors to take shelter in his house, as he might have done in a different case. He had seen his child's late sorrow and was angry for its cause. More proud of her now than ever, he was anxious to keep her apart from the man for whose salvation she had endangered her life. Let the ill-omened stranger seek a lodging where he pleased.

As for Nell herself, when her weary head was resting on its pillow

in her own little room, the chief feeling in her heart was content that she had saved the life of the man whose unkindness she had so sorely resented. She recalled the bitter thoughts that had floated down with her through the sunshine before the storm came over the sea.

"If I had not tried it, I'd have felt his death upon my head!" she thought, looking upon him as a person with whom her life could have nothing further to do; never dreaming that she had done him a service that would bind him to her.

Early the next morning, however, Jack came into the coastguard's kitchen, where Nell was about her business as if nothing unusual had happened.

"My own brave little Nell," he began, eagerly.

But the girl shrank away from him, saying coldly: "You had better go home to your mother, Mr. Flamborough; and you may tell her that Nell sent you back to her without harm."

"What is the meaning of this?" cried Jack, in a tone of annoyance. "Has my mother been here ?"

"She has been here, and I have been there," replied Nell, and, turning away, she stepped suddenly into her little chamber, shutting the door behind her.

CHAPTER VI.

NO AND YES.

NELL was paler in these days than she used to be, and there were darker shades about her eyes, traces of the struggles through which she had passed, and of her consciousness that the neighbourhood was busy with her affairs. It was well known now that the sailor Jack who had lived among them so long, charming some and offending others, was a gentleman whose home lay almost at their doors. That Nell had been cast off by her betrothed lover, who had plighted himself to her only, for a freak, and that his diamond ring had been stripped from her finger by his mother, were facts freely discussed at every cottage fireside. Truly, she had returned good for evil, in saving his life at the risk of her own; and the darkness of his ingratitude made a theme for the indignation of many friends. Old people shook their heads wisely, saying it was a misfortune when a girl set her heart too high; while young people looked on eagerly, admiring the romance of pretty Nell's hard fate. Meanwhile Nell kept her head high and bore her honors as a heroine, with a certain cool unconcern; only, when nobody else was near, she would break down on Kitty's neck, and weep plentifully out of the bitterness of her heart.

"The impidence of him!" Kitty would cry. "I wish to the Lord he had been burnt in his ship !"

A few days passed, and then came another shift in the scenery of