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