aT THE PANELLED HOUSE. At dinner Nest had the pleasure, a very great one to her, of sitting next to Colonel Armyn; and she found it so easy to get on with him that soon they were in confidential conversation. “Did you know my papa in India?” said Nest timidly, in a pause between fish and chicken. “Yes; one season we were both quartered at Caleutta, and I saw a good deal of him. That was before your mother’s death. Io you remember him at all?” “Only such things as seeing him in his uniform, and admiring the gold epaulettes,”’ said Nest smiling. *‘T was only six, you know, when we were sent home.” “He was a man well worth knowing,” said Colonel Armyn. ‘ You have missed a great deal in not haying known him. He was one of the best men in the service, and every one loved him who had to do with him. It was no wonder that your mother did.” : “Did you,” Nest spoke in a lower voice, “ ever hear any particulars of the way he was killed? Do you think they hurt him much?” “JT do not think so. I believe he was shot through the heart, and died at once. Of course it is very difficult to get at the truth of these things now; but I gathered that that was the case. But even if it were not so, it would make very little difference to him now.” “Yes,” said Nest gravely. “ And at least he had the honour of dying at his post,” said the Colonel. ‘That is something to us old stagers, you know, or rather so it was once.” “‘ What a pity that you had to leave the army !” said Nest, in reply to his tone rather than his words. “Tt was a hard wrench,” said Colonel Armyn smiling, looking at the compassionate dark eyes. “But we forget our early ambition, you know, when we grow old. Mine is easily satisfied now; I am going to join the Erconbury volunteers, who seem rather in a bad way, to judge by the drill I saw going on the other day. Also I intend to be- come a justice of the peace, and relieve the Rector of the necessity of being the bugbear of all the small boys who steal the farmers’ apples, as he informs me that he is.” «And do you think you will like Lyke?” said Nest, with unavoidable disregard of euphony. “T knew it of old, you know. I should have liked to come and settle here when I first came to England, but the cottage at Skepwith was offered to us rent free, and I was too poor to be able to refuse it. But I used to spend my holidays here when Iwas a boy; your grandfather was my guar- dian, and I have always been grateful to my father for putting me into his charge.” ‘He died before I was born,” said Nest. “Ah, of course. He was a most remarkable 69 man, rather too much of a recluse to influence the world as he might have done otherwise, but the most cultivated and scholarly person I ever met. I never shall forget his start of horror when he questioned me about my knowledge of Shakespeare, and I was obliged to confess that I had no idea whom his daughters were named after, and that I had never read a single passage except ‘ Friends, Romans, and countrymen,’ and ‘To be or not to be,’ both of which I had heard spouted on the speech-day at school.” “ Aunt Hermy has kept up the family traditions with us,” said Nest; “we had ‘Bowdler’ to read as a great treat when we had been good. Evan and I used to think it the greatest honour; but Winny tried to persuade us that it was. a great waste of time, when we might be playing at hide and seek.” Colonel Armyn laughed. He enjoyed talking to this fresh, natural girl, and wished, in his heart, that Flora had not learnt to affect that grown-up manner in society which seemed to him so ill to become her years. He looked at her across the table: she was talking to Mr. Burnet, the Ercon- bury curate. Flora did not look so well when she was talking as when she was still. She had a habit of slightly moving her eyebrows, and it gave an air of restlessness to her face: and one could see that although now, with the smooth beauty of her early youth, it did not much matter, there might come a time when the restless motion might make her almost disagreeable to look at. It looked now like a little piece of girlish affectation, which few would notice in the radiance of her complexion and the grace of her figure. After dinner, the ladies found Winny in the drawing-room, arrayed in a high white gown, as became her years; but looking very pretty with her red ribbons and bright eyes. It was evident that she was a universal favourite: Mrs. Heydon went up to her and kissed her, saying warmly, “My dear little Winny! I wish we had had room for you at dinner; but you don’t mind, do you?” “Oh no,” said Winny, returning the kiss, “ of course I don’t. I have been listening to you all talking through the wall, and I heard such very odd little bits joined together! If Nest had been here she might have made a story out of them, as she used to do out of the French exercises.” Then Flora came up and called her to sit by her on the sofa, with what Mrs. Heydon set down as “ school-girlish ill-breeding.” ‘‘ Winny,” she began at once, “do tell me how you like my new gown? I have been at it all day, to try to arrange it properly. Do you think I have succeeded ?” Winny gave her criticism in a diplomatic manner; for there were points about the dress she did not like, and was too truthful not to say