law would be amply rewarded by one year of such an exquisite
serene life as this--such skies!' looking up--'such crimson and
amber foliage, so perfectly motionless as that!' pointing to some
of the great forest trees which shut in the garden as if it were
a nest.

'You must please to remember that our skies are not always as
deep a blue as they are now. We have rain, and our leaves do
fall, and get sodden: though I think Helstone is about as perfect
a place as any in the world. Recollect how you rather scorned my
description of it one evening in Harley Street: "a village in a
tale.'

'Scorned, Margaret That is rather a hard word.'

'Perhaps it is. Only I know I should have liked to have talked to
you of what I was very full at the time, and you--what must I
call it, then?--spoke disrespectfully of Helstone as a mere
village in a tale.'

'I will never do so again,' said he, warmly. They turned the
corner of the walk.

'I could almost wish, Margaret----' he stopped and hesitated. It
was so unusual for the fluent lawyer to hesitate that Margaret
looked up at him, in a little state of questioning wonder; but in
an instant--from what about him she could not tell--she wished
herself back with her mother--her father--anywhere away from him,
for she was sure he was going to say something to which she
should not know what to reply. In another moment the strong pride