anybody who could put two and two together. But you are just like the rest of them. Since this ankle business, Helen has made a fool of you too."

Here the doctor looked undeniably a little guilty.

While the girls were going about, treating him saucily in their heyday, and doing their worst to mislead his daughters, he had joined the rest of the world in railing at them.

But Helen in her bed and on her sofa, was different.

She was in pain, she was brave, and she was beautiful. She welcomed him with a smile, and bade him good-bye with a petition that he would come again. He was her only break in the day. He took her books, pictures, and all the news he could collect on his rounds.

In truth he

really was kind, and agreeable, and her only resource. He began to like his visits in spite of old Tolleton, who would always come hovering over the invalid, asking foolish anxious questions. Dr Hunt, instead of thinking the better of him for this little trait of honest fatherliness, felt an increase of dislike.

If he could only have prescribed Mr Tolleton's banishment from the sick-room, he was convinced his patient would have improved.

Even as it was, his visits to Freelands were frequent; more frequent perhaps than any one but himself thought at all necessary when there was nothing wrong but a sprained ankle.

Mrs Hunt, in consequence, had more than once found herself set right on points regarding the family in a way that did not suit her at all; and though her husband had in the present instance no thought of standing up for the absent accused, she took this to be the reason of his throwing discredit on her story.

"My dear," said he at last, very meekly, "you ought not to say things like that. What would the girls think if they heard you?"

"Why are you always taking their part, then?"

"I never thought of taking their part. I believe they are quite equal to amusing themselves with Colonel Aytoun, if he chose to amuse himself with them. But I don't think your evidence is strong enough to prove that they have— that's all. What is a blush? Helen has one of those skins

that you can see the blood move through, if she only talks fast. I dare swear it was all in your fancy."

"I suppose what Lily said was all in my fancy too?" "Well, no. But your fancy could change the way of saying it. If it was a joke, as they said, she might very well come in full of it, glad of anything to amuse the poor girl lying there all day long; and you might easily mistake her meaning. You know Lily's excited way. She makes mountains out of mole-hills."

Mrs Hunt pursed up her mouth, and twirled some thread round a button she was sewing on, with the velocity of a humming-top.

"If you choose to take it that way, of course you can ; but I believe my own eyes and ears. It is the way of those three, Helen at the head of them, to flirt with old and young; and you may depend on it, Colonel Aytoun was not too old for them, if Mr Smith was not."

"Old? no," said the doctor, hastily. "Colonel Aytoun's not an old man; a year or two older than I. But what do you mean about Mr Smith? He's Maria's man, not Helen's."

"Well, Maria's man, now," said Mrs Hunt, doubtfully; "if it's all right, as I hope it is. But I must say it looks rather queer his going off without a word to one of us."

"Then what did you mean about him and Helen? I thought you had given up that idea.”

"She was good-natured, I will say that. And they all behaved wonderfully well about it. Whether they ever tried it on with him or not, makes no difference. It was all the better in them if they did."

"You think they did, then?"

"I'm sure I shouldn't like to say positively. I am never the one to take up a report without good grounds for it; I always wish to be fair and just. Ever since Helen spoke to me about Mr Smith and Maria, I have always said I couldn't say to a positive certainty that she had had designs on him herself."

"Did it ever strike you that he had designs on her?" "He! Mr Smith! No, indeed. What put that into your head?"

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Nothing at all. He went every day to ask how she was before he left, but of course he was bound to do that.

.

I wondered if he had ever thought of her—just at the first, you know."

And the doctor hummed a few careless notes, very much out of tune, and scanned his wife's face narrowly.

Her answer was clear and forcible. "If he were thinking of her, how could he be thinking of Maria?"

"Very true. Yes; I suppose he is thinking of Maria?" "Well, we were both of one mind about that, my dear, till now. But I don't know how it is, his going away looks a little odd; or else we are old-fashioned people, and don't understand the way these things are done nowadays.”

"If we are old-fashioned, so is Smith. What could take him off in that way?"

"Did he not give you any sort of hint when he was coming back?”

"Not a word. It was Tuesday week, you know—no, it was Monday, for I was on my way to the meeting, and all he said was, that he was going from home, and might be away some time."

"And you asked him in?"

"I asked him in. I told him you and the girls were at home, and that you would be quite angry if he went away without coming to say good-bye. But he thought I was in joke, and said he could not flatter himself that such would be the case. However, I was to say he really had hoped to call, but business had prevented him.”

"But he had meant it?" "So he said."

At any rate, not a word to I daresay she will be glad again. She shan't have

"Well, I hope it's all right. Maria. I think she misses him. enough to welcome him back another new frock till he comes, any way. After all, one can never tell what may be at the bottom of things. He may think she would never look at him after such a short acquaintance, and mean to go on with it all the same, byand-by. One ought not to lay too much stress on his going off for a month or two, after the roving life he has led. With that house there, he is safe to come back to it again some time or other. He is not like those flibbertigibbets of officers who carry on high-sky up to the very night before they start, and then, whew! off they are, and you hear no more of them! Mr Smith's safe enough, to my mind."

But then she had not seen Mr Smith's face; and Dr Hunt felt that however much the return of their neighbour to his own house might be counted upon, his return to Maria was not so certain.

It took all his fatherliness, looking at her as she entered a moment after, to think that any one would prefer Maria to Helen Tolleton-any mere acquaintance, that is to say— any stranger, any man.

Maria, when she came in, was not indeed a taking object. Her hair was rough; one side of her collar, by no means a clean one, had become loose; and her short dress displayed uncomely feet, badly shod and badly stockinged.

Feet are a point on which fathers, brothers, husbands are invariably susceptible. Dr Hunt remembered a pair he had seen that morning; a pair, not very small, indeed rather long and large, but admirably shaped, and delicately clad in the trimmest stocking and tidiest slipper; and wondered if Mr Smith was one to notice such things.

Maria was a good girl, he was fond of her in his way; but neither he nor his wife were exactly proud of their children.

Mrs Hunt glanced at her daughter, but forbore to remark. Since Maria had had the good fortune to captivate a rich bachelor, and she might hope some day to superintend her toilets, and see that she put on her fine clothes properly, she frequently let her present appearance pass without disparagement. Maria, she held, might be no beauty, but no one could say she was ill-looking; and if all her accoutrements were correct, she would pass muster very well.

Maria sat down, and listlessly took up a book.

"What have you been about all afternoon?" inquired her mother.

"Nothing, mamma; there's nothing to be done."

"Nothing to be done! Well, I find plenty to do, at all events. I did not think any one in this house need complain of having nothing to do."

"I didn't complain, mamma."

Maria turned to her book, and began turning over the pages.

"You seem very much out of spirits," said her mother, regarding her for a moment, as she bit off her thread. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, mamma, I'm only dull." The guileless Maria fell instantly into the trap.

"Dull!" exclaimed Mrs Hunt, delightedly; "I daresay you are! We're all dull. Everybody away, and this nasty rainy weather set in. Poor Mr Smith will have a bad time of it. I daresay he wishes himself safe back at home many a time."

“Do you know, mamma, even the Fultons are gone.” "Where are they gone?"

"Goodness, mamma, don't look so fierce! I don't know where. It was the Tolletons told me, and all they said was that they went off at the same time Mr Smith did." "Gone after him, I'll be bound!"

Maria bridled. "Do you really think they would?" "I'm sure they would. Papa, do you hear that? The Fultons are gone off after Mr Smith! Maria heard it from the Tolleton girls. Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life?"

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They did not say that, you know, mamma; but I do think they meant it. Lily said she wondered if they had gone together."

Dr Hunt looked grave. Formidable rival as Helen Tolleton might be, Miss Fulton, if a rival at all, was more formidable still.

"Did they say anything else about it, Maria?"

“No, papa."

Dr Hunt gave his wife a look which meant that, in that case, they had better not say anything else about it either.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE SICK-ROOM.

MR SMITH was trying the old, old lover's trick of running away from his love. It had come upon him suddenly with giant force. It had surprised him; stunned and overwhelmed him like an unforeseen calamity. He saw nothing for it but to fly.

A second time to love and not be loved was bad enough;