The door opened, and Hubert, whose back was turned to it, lifted his eyes to the mirror over his head, and almost let fall the bronze that he held in his hand, for the mirror reflected the face and fig-ed in vain to dispel. He could not imure of his "Wood-Nymph."

that he sighed while walking with the marquis on the beach.

The next morning the marquis was full of eagerness to see the modelling commenced, and led the way after breakfast to a large. room at the top of the house, which he had had fitted up for the purposes of a studio.

"I leave the treatment to you entirely, Mr. Hinton," he said. "My confidence in you is unbounded."

Hubert had brought his materials with him, and was not long in placing the model and making the necessary preparations. He wondered whether, and half hoped that, the marquis would remain through the sitting; but his lordship wait

The poor fellow passed a miserable night. The situation seemed to him to be one of hopeless difficulty. He was in love with Lady Mary, and Lady Mary was engaged to be married to her cousin the earl. Looked at in any and every aspect, his case was one to be despaired of. Mary Talbot, the poor niece of rich aunts in Kensington, with notions of training for a governess, and a charming desultory interest in sculpture, was one person; Lady Mary Talbot, the lovely daughter of the Marquis of Ballater, was another and a very different person. The one he mighted only to see the work begun, and went have made his wife, had she been as free as he supposed her to be; the other, even setting aside her engagement to the earl, was high above his boldest hopes. Then, too, his discovery in Lady Mary of the little laughing "Wood-Nymph" who had sat as his model a year ago caused him, if he remained at Ravenshoe, to stand in a false position toward the marquis, his kindly host. The marquis had seen the resemblance between his daughter and the

Wood-Nymph" in the Academy, but believed it to be nothing other than a curious accident. What would he say if he knew that his daughter was indeed the original of the statue? Ought not Hubert to tell his story to the marquis, acknowledge frankly that he had fallen in love with the marquis's daughter, throw up the commission he had accepted, and return at once to town? These questions forced themselves on him again and again as he sat by his open window long into the night, and listened to the breaking of the waves upon the shore. But he parried them, for it was hard to find and lose again in one day the love that he had sought in vain for nine long months. He searched his mind for an excuse to stay and do the work that he had undertaken. Of course there could be no love henceforth between Lady Mary and himself; but could he not summon honor to his aid, could he not put a restraint upon himself, and remain as the simple guest of the marquis until the task that he had taken on himself was finished? After that he would go back to his studio in town and live for his art alone. So he reasoned against his wiser self, and sat through the night until the dawn streaked the sky, and the tide had ebbed and was returning to the shore again.

away, promising to look in before the sitting was over. Hubert and his model were left alone. For a long time there was silence between them, he giving his whole attention to his work.

"Won't you speak to me ?" Lady Mary said at length.

"I hope that your ladyship does not feel the constraint of your position," he answered.

"Yes, my ladyship does; I'm not half as comfortable as I was in the oak." "Neither am I as comfortable as I was in my studio."

"I'm very sorry, but it isn't my fault. I didn't know that you were coming.” "Your ladyship would doubtless prefer that I had not come."

"Well, you must confess that you haven't come in a very entertaining mood."

"Haven't you anything else to say to me ?" she asked again.

He paused a moment, and replied, “You told me that your father was a coal merchant."

"Well, he is a sort of coal merchant. He has coal mines, and he sells coals. You don't need to sell scuttlefuls over a counter and have grimy hands to be a coal merchant. Certainly papa is a coal merchant."

To this he did not reply.

By-and-by she said: "Do you think that coals will go up next winter?"

"I can not say; but I trust they will, for the sake of the marquis."

"And not for my sake?"

"And for the sake of your ladyship." "You're making my nose too short," she said presently.

"I will add to the nose of your ladyship," he replied.

"I will compress the mouth of your ladyship," he answered.

"I don't like the bust a bit." "Then I will be bold enough to say that your ladyship has grown fastidious, and a little hypercritical."

"I don't like to be 'your ladyship'; it sounds as if Wilkins or the coachman were modelling me."

The marquis came in, and thought that the work was proceeding admirably, and the luncheon hour interrupted the sitting.

he had made rather serious drafts upon a constitution that was not naturally strong. He spent one-half of his income on his racing stud, and a good part of the remainder was squandered amongst his friends; for no man took greater delight in giving costly presents on the smallest provocation. He tried hard to give Hubert a taste for the stables, and Hubert liked him as much as it is possible for one man to like another who is engaged to the girl with whom himself is in love. Lady Mary began to talk to the earl about cultivating his mind.

One day she went into her father's study, and saw the marquis poring over a big faded volume.

"What are you reading, papa?" said her ladyship.

แ

"Plato, dear."

And who is Plato, papa?"

"Plato, dear, was a great philosopher who lived and wrote in Greece about two thousand years ago."

"Two thousand years! And has he not grown musty, papa ?" .

"No, dear; his wisdom has kept him sweet through two thousand years.

"I have been telling Bob, papa, that he ought to read good books. Would Plato be a good book for Bob to read?"

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An admirable book for Bob, dear," replied the marquis, with a twinkle of the eye, which his daughter did not observe. 'A man who knew the maxims of Plato would have a sure guide in most of the affairs of life. Let Bob read Plato by all

Hubert felt his position growing more difficult every day. What was play to Lady Mary, whose nature was buoyant, easy, and careless, was a very different matter to him. His love deepened hourly, and it was the harder for him to follow the path of honor because he saw that she did not really care for her cousin the earl. The marriage that had been arranged between them was, truth to say, a marriage of convenience. The earl's property was worth a clear £40,000 a year. The marquis was his heir, but the marquis was five-and-twenty years his cousin's senior; and as it was thought well that the property should be kept in that branch of the family, Lady Mary had been betrothed to the Earl of Broadlands, her second cousin. The earl, indeed, loved her heartily, and would have chosen no other wife; and she, liking him as a play-fellow, and having up to the time of her engagement known no deep attachment, pledged herself to him read-means." ily enough. But she was not in love with him, and she knew it. And as the modelling went on, and model and sculptor fell back gradually and insensibly into their old easy relations, Lady Mary's feelings toward her cousin began to undergo a change. The earl was a good little fellow, mild, and of imperturbable good-humor; he had never been known to quarrel with anybody, and nobody had ever been known to quarrel with him. The bad blood of jealousy was not in him, and he left Hubert and Lady Mary alone with the utmost complaisance while the mod-earl, casting an eye on the bull-terrier at elling was in progress. his heels. 'We might fall back on dogs occasionally."

At other times he followed his cousin about like a dog, and indeed she treated him not unlike a favorite spaniel. In the country the earl| loved a life of primitive simplicity, but he had a reputation for living hard when in his chambers in town; and at thirty-seven

That afternoon Lady Mary sat under the cliff, and the earl drew near with a straw in his mouth.

"Come here, Bob," said her ladyship, "and throw away that straw. I won't have you chewing straws all over the sands. Bob, I was quite serious when I told you that you must read good books. You don't talk to me about anything but horses, and I can not marry a man who would give me horses for breakfast, horses for lunch, and horses for dinner."

"There are dogs, dear," suggested the

66

"No, Bob; dogs would become as monotonous a diet as horses. You must improve your mind by reading good books."

"Yes, dear; what shall I begin on?"

"No; but not so very unlike Pockling-headedness of a man, he began to cast ton. There's an 7 and an o in it. Try again. Sit close and give him his head. One, two, three—”

blame upon Lady Mary, and to tell himself that because she was always full of gayety, and laughed and gossiped every hour they were together, she was therefore heartless, and was making sport of him. Against this feeling he strove, for he knew that he deceived himself, and that she was true to the heart. It became daily more difficult to him to meet the marquis, who, as he knew, had grown to like him, and was glad to have him for a companion, and talked with him freely and unreservedly. He shrank from the company of the earl, who was always Died good-humored and friendly; and he beyou'll | gan even to shrink from himself, and to

She seemed to divine his meaning, for she looked at him an instant, then turned away her eyes, not speaking, but her cheeks crimsoned, and then paled.

"It is best that I should go," he said,

was a time when we knew or seemed to know one another as equals, but it was not really so, and now it would be base in me to speak my heart fully; and if I speak at all I must speak everything; so let us part quickly. Good-by."

"You are angry with me," she said. "Indeed I am not. How could I be ?" he answered.

dread the companionship of his own awkwardness between them. But Huthoughts. He felt that he was playing bert had taken his resolve, and after a a false part. He was deceiving the mar- moment or two he said to her, "I want quis, who trusted him implicitly; and to say good-by, for I am going away toplaying the traitor toward the earl, who morrow.' was no more jealous of him than of the waves that made their idle music all day long upon the beach. Much of this was neither more nor less than fancy, the workings of a brain which was growing morbid under the influence of hopeless" for I have no right to be here. There and despairing love. He had never declared himself to Lady Mary-had striven, indeed, to hide his real feelings from her, and tried to appear to her no other than she appeared to him. But it was torment, and he felt that it must end, and end quickly. He walked one night along the beach when the tide was full, and the waves broke with a weary sound upon the sands. It was a sultry night, the moon darkened by the clouds, and the wind moaning heavily in the west. The sea was black, and blacker by contrast with the foam that gleamed an instant along the tops of the waves. Hubert was wrestling once more with that same inward foe, Conscience, that had struggled with him every night for weeks past. "Dally no more," whispered the voice within; "you've dallied long enough. Be true to yourself, make your confession, and go home." This same thing did the murmuring waters whisper: "Make your confession, and go home;" and the rustling wind said, "Make your confession, and go home.'

"I will make it," said Hubert at length, "and I will go home to-morrow." But the next day the marquis had business that called him to town, and he left home after breakfast, saying that he should return at night. He left Hubert and his daughter together. They had their sitting in the morning as usual; it was a silent one almost from beginning to end. There was something in the manner of Hubert that checked the girlish humor of Lady Mary's talk, and they had hardly exchanged a dozen words when the sitting was adjourned at mid-day. Lady Mary kept to her own room in the afternoon; Hubert lounged in the garden and on the sands. In the evening he was out again, and as he was returning he met Lady Mary face to face under the acacia in the garden. For a second time their old unconventionality of manner seemed to have deserted them, and there was an

"But I deceived you," she said, tremblingly, and her blue eyes seemed to swim. "I played a false part when we first met."

"It was a sweet part," he said, speaking low, "whether a true one or not. I can not say even now that I would have had you play another."

But indeed I am sorry, truly sorry," she said; “and I am very, very sorry that you are going."

"But it is best, is it not?" he asked. She lingered a moment, and said, "Perhaps it is; best for-for both of us.

She half put out her hand, but drew it timidly in again. He took it, however, she not resisting, and held it just long enough to feel its quick pulsations.

That was all that passed between them, and he went on and left her there. The marquis did not return until late, and Hubert had no opportunity to speak with him that evening. But he made his preparations, resolved to go the next day. He had a simple and plausible excuse to offer to his host, viz., that the bust was sufficiently advanced to make it possible for him to finish it in his own studio, and that he could not afford any longer to neglect his other works.

But an untoward event happened the next day. The False Prophet, on her way to a watering-place farther along the coast, paid an unexpected visit to her brother the marquis, and seeing Hubert as he went up the stairs to the studio, recognized him as the hero of the adventure in the garden. The False Prophet scented mischief, and followed up the scent with unerring instinct. She went