all overtures from Clemmy to join their play, he seated himself on a
sloping bank at a little distance,--an idle looker-on. His eye
followed Lily's nimble movements, his ear drank in the music of her
joyous laugh. Could that be the same girl whom he had seen tending
the flower-bed amid the gravestones? Mrs. Emlyn came across the lawn
and joined him, seating herself also on the bank. Mrs. Emlyn was an
exceedingly clever woman: nevertheless she was not formidable,--on the
contrary, pleasing; and though the ladies in the neighbourhood said
'she talked like a book,' the easy gentleness of her voice carried off
that offence.

"I suppose, Mr. Chillingly," said she, "I ought to apologize for my
husband's invitation to what must seem to you so frivolous an
entertainment as a child's party. But when Mr. Emlyn asked you to
come to us this evening, he was not aware that Clemmy had also invited
her young friends. He had looked forward to rational conversation
with you on his own favourite studies."

"It is not so long since I left school, but that I prefer a half
holiday to lessons, even from a tutor so pleasant as Mr. Emlyn,--


"'Ah, happy years,--once more who would not be a boy!'"


"Nay," said Mrs. Emlyn, with a grave smile. "Who that had started so
fairly as Mr. Chillingly in the career of man would wish to go back
and resume a place among boys?"

"But, my dear Mrs. Emlyn, the line I quoted was wrung from the heart