enabled her daughters to enjoy all the luxuries, as well as the comforts, of life, and the highest educational advantages were theirs for the asking. Though Muriel was in school both in England and Switzerland and undoubtedly absorbed a due amount of knowledge, her bent was not towards a studious life. She loved the open air with a passionate devotion, took naturally to swimming, riding, tennis, and other sports, and rather despised the tastes of her younger sisters, who enjoyed all the lighter pleasures of social life and had ambitions for the future which seemed to her shallow and uninteresting.

In her early girlhood, when her frocks had only reached her shoe tops, a new element entered her life. A boy came into their circle as a near and close neighbour. His uncle's property adjoined the Rectory garden, and that uncle's wife, long since departed, had been the closest friend of Muriel's mother in girlhood. Hence, even after the two friends had been parted by distance, and years afterwards reunited in the peace of the old churchyard, there was a bond of interest and neighbourliness between the two households that brought young Jack Morris very closely into the life of the Rector's daughters. He was several years older than

Muriel, but her mother's death had made her pass swiftly into girlhood and womanhood, from the irresponsibility of childish ways. Her love of athletic pursuits drew them together, her feats in difficult climbing, high diving, and long distance swimming called forth his admiration, while her sunny disposition gave him the cheer and gladness which did not come to him in his uncle's austere home. He was an Anglo-Indian child. His father, a famous soldier, had been killed in India, and his mother he had never known, as she had died at his birth. Muriel from her babyhood had been nicknamed Merry because of her sunny smile and rippling, irresistible laughter, that not only rang in her voice, but shone and danced in her eyes. To the lonely boy she appeared as a fairy to touch with her wand his dreary life. A loyal and close comradeship sprang up between them, and as years passed it ripened, on Jack's side, at least, to ardent and romantic love. Meanwhile Jack's school-days had passed and he had gone to college.

During that college course a calamity came to him in the death of his uncle, whose estates passed to another brother. This brother had been on unfriendly terms with Major Morris, whose son was now left to his care. He told

the young man plainly that the cost of his college course was all that he could expect, and when Jack, who distinguished himself in athletics more than in study, failed in his final exams., his uncle's wrath and contempt were such that he succeeded in branding his nephew with the reputation of a scapegrace and ne'er-do-well.

The good Rector listened vaguely to his neighbour's tirades, and when they penetrated far enough into his scholarly mind they made a somewhat disquieting impression. He remarked to his daughters that it was a pity such a promising lad should turn out so badly. Muriel became Jack's indignant defender and partisan, and it was at this time, when his heart was sore and his life shadowed, that she guessed at the nature of his feelings for her. She had never been loved like this before. It awoke in her nature the dreams of romance and a new tenderness. When they walked together on the Downs, sat on the sands in the shadow of the mighty cliffs, or strolled inland along flowerscented lanes in the soft moonlight, she felt herself more and more surrounded by an atmosphere of devotion and admiration.

Jack became the strong, dominant centre of her quiet and somewhat dull life. Is it a wonder that - she wove him into her day-dreams of a radiant

future? Meanwhile her father, influenced by his neighbour, spoke with more and more disapproval of the young man whom he pictured as trifling and indolent, a waster of time, chances, and money, with no purpose in life. Muriel, to save unpleasantness at home, met Jack secretly, and this very condition of affairs deepened the romance of the situation.

At last came the day when he announced his uncle's final decision as to his future. He was to be given a sum of money to start him in life, and that life must be entered into over-seas. He was to have letters of introduction to friends in America, and there he might become what he liked, or what he could, with the equipment of a good education, strong, athletic body, and, quite unsuspected by his irate relative, a fine clear head for business. As he talked out his plans to his one confidante, lying stretched out at her feet on the sands, the sunset lights played in the aureole of her hair, her lips quivered with the pain of parting, and tears dimmed the eyes in whose depths he had seen such possibilities. Is it a wonder he forgot resolves, cast discretion to the winds, and poured out all the pent-up passion of his love? Prepared as she had been for the truth, this rush of future hopes and undying devotion swept away her guard of reserve.

Before they had turned homeward in the dusk, with one great star glowing with hope and promise above them, she had promised herself to him as his future wife. She was very young, but all the better, for she would have some years to wait before he could make the fortune he would some day lay at her feet. The engagement must be secret and that added rather than detracted from its sweetness, for who had any business with their affairs, they were too sacred for intermeddlers. A few days longer they walked in youth's sweet dream of love and happiness. Jack brought down a little gold ring, bearing the mystic word that has been so dear to many lovers, and then he was gone out into the world he would conquer for her and she was left to watch and wait.

Years had passed, years that made their mark on Muriel Dean. She had finished her school life in Switzerland, had made her bow to the Queen and her entrance into social life under the chaperonage of her mother's sister, Lady Grosvenor. At home, she had taken up certain duties in the parish and had had much to interest her in the life that brought her into touch with the families of the county. These things had amused and distracted her, but the more studious side of her life was