THE PANELLED HOUSE.

“YT shall be, I assure you,” said Nest; “and I
do hope he won’t talk to me about my book. It
makes me hot all over when people do that.”

“Why should it?” said Louey innocently. TI
only wish I had written a book, or any thing of
the kind. Once mamma made me try, for she
thought that perhaps I might take up literature as
my pursuit: and I wrote a description of a clergy-
man’s family in the country. There were four
daughters, and I described the four of us, only I
disguised it by saying that they were all beautiful,
which we are not. But when I had done the
description, I could not think of any thing to

make them do, except take soup to the poors|

and that would not fill up all the.story you know.
So mamma settled that literature would not answer
for my pursuit.”

Nest laughed heartily at this recital, and capped
it with relating a similar effort of Winny’s in early
youth, which had proceeded as far as “Once there
was a giant who lived in a windmill, and ground
people’s bones to make his bread.” This terrific
and horror-stirring, though hardly original opening
had failed for the same cause as Louey’s—namely,
that Winny could not think of any thing to make
the giant do.

“J should like to have written your ‘Silver-
wings,” said Louey; ‘it has such pretty touches
of fancy, and little hidden meanings I like to make
out. Do you think of such things now and then,
when they come into your head, Nest, or do you
sit down and think them out straight off ?”

“They come into my head at odd times,” said
Nest, “and the pen seems to bring them back,
when I take if in my hand. But I don’t think
I could write if I lived in London. I should not
have the trees, and flowers, and blue distances to
study, as I have at home. And then it is so nice
having that dear old cathedral so close. West-
minster Abbey would never be the same to me.
It seems to have so much meaning in it.”

“What is it like?” asked Louey, who had an
appreciative power which her sisters lacked.

“Tt stands on a smooth green iawn, with limes
round it, but there is nothing particular outside,

/except its size and its fine old spire. It is inside
| that it is so magnificent. I wish I could have
taken you into the nave one day last year, Louey.
We were waiting before a great service there, when
the bishop was going to preach ; it was a blazing
‘hot day, and the great western door was open.
But it was so cool inside, and the light came in
_with a sort of pearly effect, making every body look
as if they came out of a Venetian picture—if they
had only been better dressed,” said Nest, with a
laugh. “And looking through the western door,
| you saw a blaze of sunshine, with bits of bright
colour, from the people’s dresses and green grass.

131
sermon.”

“What did it make you think of ?” said Louey,
interested.

“Of a perfect human life—of the ideal Church
—all sorts of things. I could suit them all to it,”
said Nest. “It was a sermon with several heads.
and did not keep you longer than you liked either.
And the moral of if was, ‘Be certain that your eyes
have learnt to bear the splendour of the full
sunshine, before you step out into it: otherwise
the quiet shade will be best for you.’”

“That is a nice moral,” said Loucy, “it would
just suit my stupidity.”

The party to which Louey had alluded came off
the next week. She and Nest worked very hard
to have all things as nice as might be: Nest got
her aunts to send her up a box of spring flowers
from the sheltered Southshire garden, and they
decorated the room very prettily: better, Lydia
said, than she herself could have done with all her
artistic study. But when the guests began to
arrive, and Nest found herself alone in a crowd of
strangers, she began to think that the preparation
had been the best part, and that the evening would
have to be endured, not enjoyed.

She was sitting half hidden by a curtain, when
she heard Louey’s voice near her, say, “Now,
Edward, you always say we have only dry people
at our parties; I want to prove the opposite by
introducing you to Nest.”

“Ts that fish, flesh, or fowl, masculine or femi-
nine?” said a pleasant tenor voice.

“Oh, you know; I told you all about Nest
Williams, she wrote ‘ Silverwings,’ and we sent it
you to review.”

“Goodness! Another L. L.!” said Edward
Anderson. ‘ My dear Louey, are there not enough
already in the world? If you did but know the
trash of their production that I have to overlook !”

“¢ Silverwings ’ is not trash,” said Louey.

“And they are all so fearfully plain!” said
Edward, dropping his voice confidentially at the
last two words, and looking round in mock fear at
being overheard.

Louey laughed, and so did Nest, at the humour
of the situation, She was penned in by a small
table, on the other side of which a lady and
gentleman, with bored faces, were looking at
stereoscope slides.

“We are, if you like; but you must judge of
Nest for yourself. I wonder where she is?”

“Here,” said Nest’s gentle voice, looking out
from behind the curtain, with a laugh in her eyes,
at Louey. Her clear, delicately-formed face, looked
like a silhouette, in the lamplight, with the red
curtain behind it; and’ as Edward Anderson saw
the dark eyes, the fair arched brow, and the eat

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