a cigarette. He knew that that two thousand, Janet's little fortune, existed only in her imagination. It had existed once; he had had charge of it, but it was gone.

"Ask Brand," he said again. "A man with any gentlemanly feeling cannot refuse a pretty woman anything. I can't. You ask Brand—as if it was to please you. You're pretty enough to wheedle anything out of men. He'll do it."

"I'll ask him," said Janet again, and she sighed as she went back alone to the great house which was one day to be hers. She did not think of that as she looked up at the long lines of stone-mullioned windows. She thought only of her George, and wondered, with a blush of shame, whether Fred had yet borrowed money from him.

Then, as she saw a white figure move past the gallery windows, she remembered Anne, and her brother's advice to her to make a friend of "Lady Varney." Janet had been greatly drawn towards Anne, after she had got over a certain stolid preliminary impression that Anne was "fine." And Janet had immediately mistaken Anne's tactful kindness to herself for an overture of friendship. Perhaps that is a mistake which many gentle, commonplace souls make, who go through life disillusioned as to the sincerity of certain other attractive, brilliant creatures with whom they have come in momentary contact, to whom they can give nothing, but from whom they have received a generous measure of delicate sympathy and kindness, which they mistook for the prelude of friendship; a friendship which never arrived. It is well for us when we learn the difference between the donations and the subscriptions of those richer than ourselves, when we realize how broad is the way towards a person's kindness, and how many surprisingly inferior individuals are to be met therein; and how strait is the gate, how hard to find, and how doubly hard, when found, to force it, of that same person's friendship.

Janet supposed that Anne liked her as much as she herself liked Anne, and, being a simple soul, she said to herself, "I think I will go and sit with her a little."

A more experienced person than my poor heroine would have felt that there was not marked encouragement in the civil "Come in" which answered her knock at Anne's door.

But Janet came in smiling, sure of her welcome. Every one was sure of their welcome with Anne.

She was sitting in a low chair by the open window. She had taken off what Janet would have called her "Sunday gown," and had wrapped round her a long, diaphanous white garment, the like of which Janet had never seen. It was held at the neck by a pale green ribbon, cunningly drawn through lace insertion, and at the waist by another wider green ribbon, which fell to the feet. The spreading lace-edged hem showed the point of a green morocco slipper.

Janet looked with respectful wonder at Anne's dressing-gown, and a momentary doubt as to whether her presence was urgently needed vanished. Anne must have been expecting her. She would not have put on that exquisite garment to sit by herself in.

Janet's eyes travelled to Anne's face.

Even the faint, reassuring smile, which did not come the first moment it was summoned, could not disguise the fatigue of that pale face, though it effaced a momentary impatience.

"You are very tired," said Janet. "I wish you were as strong as me."

Janet's beautiful eyes had an admiring devotion in them, and also a certain wistfulness, which appealed to Anne.

"Sit down," she said cordially. "That is a comfortable chair."

"You were reading. Shan't I interrupt you?" said Janet, sitting down nevertheless, and feeling that tact could no further go.

"It does not matter," said Anne, closing the book, but keeping one slender finger in the place.

"What is your book called?"

"'Inasmuch.'"

"Who wrote it?"

"Hester Gresley."

"I think I've heard of her," said Janet cautiously. "Mrs Smith, our Rector's wife, says that Mr Smith does not approve of her books; they have such a low tone. I think Fred read one of them on a visit once. I haven't time myself for much reading."

Silence.

"I should like," said Janet, turning her clear, wide gaze upon Anne, "I should like to read the books you read, and know the things you know. I should like to—to be like you."

A delicate colour came into Anne's face, and she looked down embarrassed at the volume in her hand.

"Would you read me a little bit?" said Janet. "Not beginning at the beginning, but just going on where you left off."

"I am afraid you might not care for it any more than Mr Smith does."

"Oh! I'm not deeply read like Mr Smith. Is it poetry?"

"No."

"I'm glad it isn't poetry. Is it about love?"

"Yes."

"I used not to care to read about love, but now I think I should like it very much."

A swift emotion passed over Anne's face. She took up the book, and slowly opened it. Janet looked with admiration at her slender hands.

"I wish mine were white like hers," she thought, as she looked at her own far more beautiful but slightly tanned hands, folded together in her lap in an attitude of attention.

Anne hesitated a moment, and then began to read:

"I had journeyed some way in life, I was travel-stained and weary, when I met Love. In the empty, glaring highway I met him, and we walked in it together. I had not thought he fared in such steep places, having heard he was a dweller in the sheltered gardens, which were not for me. Nevertheless he went with me. I never stopped for him, or turned aside out of my path to seek him, for I had met his counterfeit when I was young, and I distrusted strangers afterwards. And I prayed to God to turn my heart wholly to Himself, and to send Love away, lest he should come between me and Him. But when did God hearken to any prayer of mine?

"And Love was grave and stern. And as we walked he showed me the dew upon the grass, and the fire in the dew, the things I had seen all my life and had never understood. And he drew the rainbow through his hand. I was one with the snowdrop and with the thunderstorm. And we went together upon the sea, swiftly up its hurrying mountains, swiftly down into its rushing valleys. And I was one with the sea. And all fear ceased out of my life, and a great awe dwelt with me instead. And Love wore a human face. But I knew that was for a moment only. Did not Christ the same?

"And Love showed me the hearts of my brothers in the crowd. And, last of all, he showed me myself, with whom I had lived in ignorance. And I was humbled.

"And then Love, who had given me all, asked for all. And I gave reverence, and patience, and faith, and hope, and intuition, and service. I even gave him truth. I put my hands under his feet. But he said it was not enough. So I gave him my heart. That was the last I had to give.

"And Love took it in a great tenderness and smote it. And in the anguish the human face of Love vanished away.

"And afterwards, long years afterwards, when I was first able to move and look up, I saw Love, who, as I thought, was gone, keeping watch beside me. And I saw his face clear, without the human veil between me and it. And it was the Face of God. And I saw that Love and God are one, and that, because of His exceeding glory, He had been constrained to take flesh even as Christ took it, so that my dim eyes might be able to apprehend Him. And I saw that it was He and He only who had walked with me from the first."

Anne laid down the book. She looked