he could not supply; nor, for the matter of that, could the Miss Pritchards, with all their pretensions and "parly vouing;" who would put the supreme touch on this jewel which nature had fashioned so nobly and over which he had wrought so tenderly with such ability as had been given him. Yes, that was just it; and his thought was the Eureka over again.

He heard Patricia's fresh young voice trilling out the "Minstrel Boy" as she was industriously fighting her way up-stairs through a refractory bit of sewing. It was a rent in her gown, made yesterday when she climbed the apple-tree and came down with a run, as a practical lesson on the folly of trusting to rotten branches.

"Hi there, my love!" he shouted.

"Yes, uncle," said Patricia, thrusting her head out of the window, which was framed in by the crimson leaves of a Virginia creeper. It was like a picture by Jordaens, only better done.

"Come down, I want to speak to you," said Captain Kemball; and Patricia, throwing her work on the floor, came down the stairs two at a time, and jumped across the hall like a school-boy into the porch.

"Yes, uncle," she said in her clear voice, louder

than most girls' voices because the Captain was a trifle deaf. "What do you want?"

"I want to speak to you, my dear," said Captain Kemball gravely.

She looked at him with a little surprise. The unusual solemnity of his voice struck her.

"All right, I am ready," she answered; and sat herself down on the opposite bench, her hands folded on her lap, and her attitude “attention."

He raised his eyes to her fondly. There was nothing that pleased him more than this ready, heartsome acquiescence which was one of Patricia's characteristics. There was no skulking about her. Whatever she might have in hand she left it at a word or a sign from him; always with that sunny smile on her fresh fair face, always with that frank look in her dark grey eyes, and that air of almost soldierly attention in her upright, supple figure, which gave the value of meaning to please to all she did. She was alive, body and soul, heart and brain; and even her silence was more active than many people's words.

it,"

'Patricia," said Captain Kemball, "I have found

"Yes, uncle," she repeated for the third time. "What have you found?"

"What you want, my dear."

"Oh! But I did not know I wanted anything," she said, with a pretty perplexity on her face.

"Yes you do, my dear," he answered positively. "Very well." She smiled. "If you say so, I suppose I do; but I did not know it. What is it ?"

"A lady companion."

"A lady what?" said Patricia with the air of one who has heard and has not understood.

"A lady companion," repeated the Captain, gallantly sticking to his guns. She was not going to be "nasty," surely-and for the first time in her life?

"What on earth can have put that notion into your head, uncle ?" asked Patricia in amazement. "What do I want with a lady companion? She would be horribly in our way-yours as well as mine."

"As for mine," he said resignedly, "I should not object to anything that was for your good."

There was no affectation in this. He too thought this lady companion would be horribly in his way; but he would bear this cross as cheerfully as he had borne that of his own perplexity before.

"But what do I want with a lady companion at

all?" reiterated his niece. "I am very happy as I am; as happy as the day is long; and I am sure we should not get on better with a third person in the house. Why, uncle dear, what a funny idea!"

"But you would like it, Pat ?" he said.

"I am sure I should not," said Patricia; "and I cannot think why you should say so. There would be nothing to like in having a stranger always with Fancy never being able to be alone to our two selves again! Oh, uncle, how horrid!" And here she asked again: "Who can have put such an idea into your head ?”

one.

"Providence," said the Captain gravely.

And Patricia did not laugh.

"Very well, uncle dear," she answered after a short pause. "You know best, of course. If you really think it right that we should have a lady companion here for my sake, we will get one; but I hope you will be quite sure that it is the right thing to do before you decide, because it will be difficult, look at it how we will.

You see the house

is so small, and the spare bedroom wants furnishing, and we ought to have a new carpet in the sittingroom; Sarah and I have darned that old thing till we can darn it no more. And we want some cups

and saucers, and lots of things in the kitchen, and a coalscoop; Sarah says she scatters the small coals through the holes in the old one. And the dinnerset is all chipped and half of it broken. Oh dear! there is no end to it all when we once begin! And a lady companion is an awfully expensive thing, I have heard; and, of course, though we can go on very well as we are, she must have everything ship-shape and nice when she comes. But you know best," she repeated cheerfully, leaning forward and laying her hand on his; "and whatever you wish, you are very sure I shall say yes, are you not, dear?"

"God bless you! to be sure I am, my girl," answered the Captain warmly. "And now that you tell me all this, I'll look into my balance and think of it."

"Meanwhile, I must go and finish my mending," said Patricia with a kind of conscientious solemnity.

Needlework was about the most sobering occupation she knew; it kept her so still and took so much time.

"All right, dear. But I say, Pat, I do not like to know that things are wanting in the house which we should be obliged to have if the lady companion