mystery" was not told. That deadly thrill which the voices of Harriet and Eugenia heard together in the quiet May evening, sent through his frame was not mentionedhis love for Miss Aveley was not suspected by Gordon. He remained long without speaking, after his friend had concluded his tale; never had he felt so utterly at fault, as to what he should say. How could he now answer the question which he had put to his friend,-"Will you leave me to think worse of you as long as I live, by supposing that you have been too cold to give way to love?" He knew now that he had loved, and should he think worse or better of him than before?

But Hardy himself forced an answer to this question-" Gordon, you are condemning me," he said hurriedly; and then, with a tone almost of annguish, "must I lose my friend too?"

No, no!" exclaimed the other, starting

up and seizing his hand, "you have not lost -you cannot lose your friend. What have I to do with condemnation !—of that you have heard enough in your own bosom." And his feelings thus turned in the right direction, he spoke with warmth and from his heart.

This was cheering to Benjamin, whose spirits were exhausted by the effort to overcome the reserve and pride which his confession cost him. The long and sober communion of that night, left to the friends only a couple of hours' sleep after it. In the morning they met again at breakfast with the cordial greetings of men, whose trust in each other was for life.

A couple of evenings afterwards, as I was returning from a walk, in going down the hill from John Hardy's, I encountered a gentleman, altogether a stranger to our village, going up it. It was, as I have said, a pretty good pull for some persons, but he

"Right up

Ben Lomond's side could press,

And not a sob the toil confess."

Indeed, at the moment, I rather think he

did not know he was mounting a hill. I am

quite sure he did not know that I passed him, though I almost touched him; and, being much struck by his tall figure, his handsome face, and something dauntless in his air and carriage, I looked very narrowly at him.

He was Angus Gordon, as I soon learned. But how, in a few minutes after he passed me, he was received in John Hardy's, by Harriet Aveley, I dare not tell. I must not, with my pert Asmodeus peepings, intrude on such a meeting.

CHAPTER XXI.

"And all went merry as a marriage bell."

BYRON.

GORDON had come to remain in England six months, and they were to be employed for the greater part actively in business. He, therefore, after having staid a few days, disappeared from amongst us; but was afterwards seen on occasional visits like those which Hardy had been paying us, only that they were more frequent than his. As he also continued his former practice of coming and going as inclination directed, it was thought strange that the two were never in

our village at the same time. I suspect that Benjamin had not acquired the courage to be a witness of his friend's happiness.

In the meantime, one of the first pieces of intelligence which caused some excitement in our community was, that the supposed Frenchwoman was no other than the widow of the late Sir Walcot Downes; her boythe companion of the better sort of the village lads-a real young baronet, Sir Walcot Eugene Downes.

The settlement of this affair was brought about without the intervention of the lawyers in a public manner. Mr. Gordon and her friends accomplished it all in a quiet and satisfactory way. General Downes had never taken legal possession of his nephew's encumbered estate, and about this period the news of his death reached us. He died in India, unmarried, and left a pretty fortune to each of his nieces. Sir Walcot's property would then have passed to a distant relative,