and tell it to me--to nobody in the world but me. Remember."

"I will."

Dr. Grey leaned forward and kissed his wife in his inexpressibly tender
way, and then they went in together.

Letitia and Arthur occupied two little closets leading out of the nursery,
which seemed spacious enough, and ancient enough, to have been the
dormitory of a score of monks, as very likely it was in the early days of
Saint Bede's. Phillis, sewing by her little table in the far corner, kept
guard over a large bed, where, curled up like a rose-bud, flushed and
warm, lay that beautiful child whom Christian had thought of twenty
times a day for the last fortnight.

"Well, Phillis, how are you and your little folk?" said the master, in a
pleasant whisper, as he crossed the nursery floor.

He trod lightly, but either his step was too welcome to remain
undiscovered, or the children's sleep had been "fox's sleep," for there
arose a great outcry of "Papa, papa!" Oliver leaped up, half laughing,
half screaming, and kicking his little bare legs with glee as his father
took him in his arms; Arthur came running in, clad in the very airiest
costume possible; and Letitia appeared sedately a minute or two
afterwards having stopped to put on her warm scarlet dressing-gown,
and to take off her nightcap--under the most exciting circumstances,
Titia was such an exceedingly "proper" child.

What would the Avonsbridge dons have said--the solitary old fellows in
combination-room--and, above all, what would the ghosts of the