waistcoat pocket, and some coins that chinked agreeably were transferred to her hand, together with the sealed letter. "You've saved me a walk

to Standon Square," he said.

The girl laughed, looking down at her money. "It wouldn't have hurt you, I dare say. You oughtn't to make much of a walk there. How about an answer?"

“Oh, I shall get an answer when I come to-morrow." He nodded a careless farewell, and went a little out of his way to avoid Gordon's brother, who was visible in the distance.

Susan turned the missive over in her hand. "It's sealed tight enough," she remarked to herself. "What did he want to do that for?" She eyed it discontentedly. "I hate such suspicious ways.

Wouldn't there be a flare-up if I just handed it over to the old maid! I won't, though, for she's give me warning, and he's a deal more free with his money than she'd ever be-stingy old cat! But wouldn't there be a flare-up! My!" And Susan, who had an ungratified taste for the sensational, looked at the address and smiled to think of the power she possessed.

Before she slipped the letter into her pocket she sniffed doubtfully at the envelope, and tossed her head in scorn. "I thought so! Smells of tobacco!" It was true, for Lisle, as we know, had smoked while he revised his composition. "If I were a young man going a courting, I'd scent my letters with rose or something nice, and I'd write 'em on pink paper-I would!" Susan reflected. But Lisle was wiser. There is no perfume, for a young ladies' school, like a whiff of cigar smoke. To that prim, half convent-like seclusion, where manners are being formed, and the proprieties are strictly observed, it comes as a pleasant suggestion of something worldly and masculine, just a little wicked, and altogether delightful.

So Lisle went on his way to St. Sylvester's, lighter of heart for having met Susan, and got rid of the letter. While it was still in his pocket nothing was absolutely settled, in spite of that half-crown which had represented inexorable destiny the night before. But now that it was gone, further thought about it was happily unnecessary, and honour forbade him to draw back. It was true, however, that he was still face to face with the difficulty which had been in his mind when he met his messenger so conveniently.

He caught a street Arab, and promised him twopence, if he would come and blow for him while he practised. But he began by playing absently and carelessly, for, since the letter had been despatched, his problem had become infinitely more urgent, and it thrust itself between him and the music. His fingers roved dreamily over the keys, his eyes wandered, as if in spite of himself, to the east end of the church. All at once he came out with an impatient "How do people manage it?" and he finished the muttered question with a strong word, and a big chord.

A moment more, and his face is illuminated with the inward light of a sudden idea. He lets his hands lie where they happened to be, he sits there with parted lips and startled eyes. The idea is almost too wonderful, too simple, too obvious, and yet-" By Jove!" says Bertie, under his breath.

His street Arab means to earn his twopence, and in spite of the silence he pumps away in a cheerful and conscientious manner, till he shall be bidden to stop. The organ protests, in a long and dolorous note, and startles the musician from his reverie. Forthwith he begins to play a stirring march, and the rejoicing chords arise, and rush, and crowd beneath his fingers. Has he indeed found the solution of his great perplexity? Apparently he thinks so. He seems absolutely hurried along in triumph on these waves of jubilant harmony. A ray of pale March sunlight falls on his forehead and shines on his hair, as he tosses his head in the quickening excitement of the moment. His headache is gone, his weariness is gone. The notes seem to gather like bands of armed men, and rush victoriously through the aisles. But, even as he plays, he laughs to himself, a boyish happy laugh, for this great idea which is to help him out of all his difficulties is not only a great idea, but a great joke. And the march rings louder yet, for, with every note he plays, his thought grows clearer to his mind, plainer and more feasible. is a gay audacity about the laugh which lingers in Bertie's eyes, and on his lips, as if Dan Cupid himself had just been there, whispering some choice scheme of roguish knavery, some artful artlessness, into the young man's ear. Bertie does not acknowledge that his inspiration has come in such a questionable fashion. He says to himself, "It will do, I feel it will do―isn't it providential! Just when I was in despair!" This is a more suitable sentiment for an organist, no doubt, for what possible business can Dan Cupid have at St. Sylvester's? Louder and louder yet pours the great stream of music, and that is a joke too, for Lisle feels as if he were shouting his secret to the four winds, and yet keeping it locked in his inmost soul, taking the passers-by into his confidence in the most open-hearted fashion, and laughing at them in his sleeve. But the musician is exhausted at last, and the end comes with a thundering crash of chords.

"Here, boy, here's sixpence for you; you may be off. enough for to-day, and may go home to Bellevue Street."

There

We've done But it seems

to Bertie Lisle, as he picks up his roll of music and comes down the aisle, that Bellevue Street too is only a joke now.

CHAPTER XLI.

WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY.

APRIL had come, and the best of the year was beginning with a yellow dawn of daffodils. The trees stood stern and wintry, but there were little leaves on the honeysuckles and the hawthorn hedges, glad outbursts of song among the branches, and soft, shy caresses in the air. Sissy Langton, riding into Fordborough, was delicately beautiful as spring itself. She missed her squire of an earlier April, and his absence made an underlying sadness in her radiant eyes, which had the April charm. That day her glance and smile had an especial brightness, partly because spring had come, and, though countless springs have passed away, each comes with the old yet ever fresh assurance that it will make all things new. Partly because it was her birthday, and, while we are yet young, there is a certain joy of royalty which marks our birthday mornings. But most of all because that day gave her the power to satisfy a desire which had lain hidden in her heart through the long winter months.

It was the Fordborough market-day, and already, though it was but eleven o'clock, the little town was waking up. Sissy, followed by Mrs. Middleton's staid servant, rode straight to the principal street, and stopped at Mr. Hardwicke's office. Young Hardwicke, reading the paper in his room, was surprised when a clerk announced that Miss Langton was at the door, asking for his father. He forgot the sporting intelligence in an instant. "Well, isn't my father in ?"

No, Mr. Hardwicke went out not say when he should be back. said, "Perhaps Mr. Henry"

about twenty minutes earlier, and did They had told Miss Langton, and she

Mr. Henry was off like a shot. He found Sissy on her horse at the door, looking pensively along the street, as if she were studying the effect of dusky red on palest blue-chimney-pots against the April sky.

"So Mr. Hardwicke is out?" she said, when they had shaken hands. "I'm so sorry. I wanted him so particularly."

"Is it important? Are you in a great hurry?" said Henry. "He won't be long, or he would certainly have left word, on a market-day especially. Could you come in and wait a little while?" he suggested. "I suppose I shouldn't do as well?"

"I don't know," said Sissy, looking a little doubtfully at the tall fresh-coloured young fellow, who smiled frankly in reply.

"Oh, it isn't at all likely," said Mr. Henry, with delightful candour. "The governor can't, for the life of him, understand how I make so many blunders. I've a special talent that way, I suppose, but I don't know how I came by it."

"Then perhaps it had better be Mr. Hardwicke. If it were a waltz, now" and she laughed. "But it isn't a waltz, it is something very important. Do you know anything about wills?"

He looked up in sudden apprehension. "Is it about a will? Mrs. Middleton's? Is anything the matter?"

"No; it isn't Aunt Middleton's. It's mine," was the composed reply. But seeing relief, and almost amusement, on his face, she added hastily, "I can make a will, can't I? I'm twenty-one, you know. It's my birthday to-day."

"Then I wish you many happy returns of the day."

"Thank you; but can I make my will?"

"Of course you can make a will."

"A will that will be good," Sissy insisted, still speaking in the low tone she had adopted when she began to explain the object of her visit. "Can I make it here and now?"

"Not on horseback, I think," said Hardwicke, with a smile. "You would be tired of sitting here while we took down all your instructions. It isn't very quick work making ladies' wills. They generally leave no end of legacies. I suppose they are so good, they don't forget anybody."

"Mine won't be like that. Mine will be very short," Sissy said. "And I suppose I am not good, for I shall forget almost everybody in it." She laughed as she said it, yet something in her voice struck Hardwicke as curiously earnest. "I will come in, I think, and tell you about it," she went on. "I want to make it to-day."

66

To-day!" he repeated, as he helped her to dismount.

"Yes. I'll tell you," said Sissy, entering his room," and you'll tell Mr. Hardwicke, won't you? I'll get the Elliotts to give me some luncheon, and then I can come here again between two and three. I shall have to sign it, or something, shan't I? Do tell your father I want it all to be finished to-day."

"I'll tell him."

"Tell him it's my birthday, so of course I must do just as I please, and have everything I want, to-day. I don't know whether that's the law, but I'm sure it ought to be."

"Of course it ought to be," Henry replied, with fervour. think I can undertake to say that it shall be our law, anyhow."

"And I

"Thank you," said Sissy. "I shall be so very glad. And it can't take long. I only want him to say that I wish all that I have to go to Percival Thorne."

"To Percival," Hardwicke repeated, with a sensation as if she had suddenly stabbed him. "To Percival Thorne. Yes. Is that all I am

to say?"

"That's all. I want it all to be for Percival Thorne, to do just what he likes with it. That can't take long, surely."

Hardwicke bit the end of a penholder that he had picked up, and looked uneasily at her. "You're awfully anxious to get this done, Miss Langton-you aren't ill, are you?"

"Oh, I'm well enough, much better than I was last year," said Sissy,

lightly. "But there's no good in putting things of this sort off, you know"-she dropped her voice-" as poor Mr. Thorne did. And your father said once, that if I didn't make a will when I came of age, my money would all go to Sir Charles Langton. He doesn't really want any more, I should think, for they say he is very rich. And he is only a second cousin of mine, and I have never seen him. It's funny, having so few relations, isn't it?"

"And some people have such a lot," said Sissy, thoughtfully. I always feel as if the Thornes were my relations."

"But

"I suppose so. At any rate, I don't see that Sir Charles Langton has any claim upon you." There was silence for a minute, Sissy drawing an imaginary outline on Hardwicke's carpet with her riding-whip, he following her every movement with his eyes.

"I shall have to sign both my Christian names, I suppose?" she said, abruptly.

"Have you two? I didn't know. What is the other?"

"Jane."

"Jane-I like that," said Henry.

"Yes, sign them both."

"Thank you. I don't want to seem like an idiot to your father. I should like it best if I could just write 'Sissy,' and nothing else, as I do at the end of my letters. When I see 'Cecilia Jane Langton,' I feel inclined to call out, 'This is none of I!' like the old woman."

She stood up to go.

"No, I won't forget."

"You won't forget, will you?"

"Everything to Percival Thorne."

"Percival Thorne is an uncommonly lucky fellow," said the young man, looking down.

Sissy stopped short, glanced at him, and coloured. In her anxiety she had never considered the light in which the bequest might strike Henry Hardwicke. In fact, she had not thought of him at all, except as a messenger. She was accustomed to take him for granted on any occasion. She had known him all her life, and he was always, in her eyes, the big friendly boy, with whom she pulled crackers, and played blindman's buff, at children's parties. She dreamed of no possible romance with Henry, and did not imagine that he could have such a dream about her. He was as harmless as a brother, without a brother's right to question and criticise. It was precisely that feeling which had been at the root of the friendliness which the Fordborough gossips took for a flirtation. They could not have been more utterly mistaken. She liked Henry Hardwicke; she knew that he was honest, and honourable, and good; but if any one had said that he was a worthy young man, I believe she would have assented. And that is the last adjective which a girl would apply to her ideal.

Sissy's scheme had been in her mind through all the winter, but she had always imagined herself stating her intentions, in a business-like