much, only he is so dreadfully grand sometimes. Doesn't he look like a young king ?" she added, turning to Brian.

There was indeed something of almost princely bearing in the well-formed youthful figure which. the artist had so faithfully represented. The clear pale complexion, the wavy fair hair, the calm proud eyes, the haughty pose of the head, all stood out lifelike from the canvass, and attracted from Brian a gaze long and admiring enough to satisfy even Mrs. Branscombe's expectations. "He looks a splendid fellow!" he said warmly, "but he must be much older than I, isn't he ?"

"He is just sixteen," Mrs. Branscombe answered, "but looks already quite grown up. He will be a noble man!"

"Like some of the people in history," said Sibylla. "Like O'Donoghue," said Brian.

"Who can he be ?" inquired the little girl, with widely-opened eyes.

"Ah! then have you never heard of O'Donoghue of the Lakes ?" exclaimed Brian, in his most Irish manner, "the good O'Donoghue, who took off the taxes from his people, and made them all free and happy? nor of how he has been seen rising from Lake Killarney by moonlight, the water glistening like pearls on the sides of his snow-white steed ?"

"My dear, what nonsense!" said Mrs. Branscombe, in astonishment, "you don't believe all those fairy stories, I should hope ?"

Every one of them," said Brian, sturdily; but he shot a glance of mischievous intelligence at Sibyl, the meaning of which she was not slow to understand. Wilfulness, not credulity, she felt sure, had prompted his assertion.

"Good-bye!" she said, with an answering smile. "I suppose I shall see you at church, either this evening, or to-morrow morning, shall I not ?"

Why, it is not Sunday, nor will be to-morrow either," he replied, with a face of rather ludicrous surprise.

"No, but we have service every day; don't they in Ireland ?"

"Not where I came from. Do you think," dropping his voice, "that I shall be obliged to go every day ?"

"Mr. Branscombe does," said Sibyl. "I should have thought you would have liked it; papa says it is a great happiness to be able to attend daily service, and I can't think how we should feel without it. I have been to church every day since I was six years old, except once for some weeks, when I had the measles."

A wondering, and rather incredulous smile, beamed out of Brian's merry blue eyes. "How good you must all be !" he said, in a tone between admiration and mockery.

"Don't be too sure of that," Sibyl answered, laughingly, "we ought to be, but Mrs. Branscombe would tell you, that I for one, am most particularly naughty. Wouldn't you?" she added, looking up in Mrs. Branscombe's face, with a sort of playful daring.

"Wouldn't I what? My dear little girl, you do run on so, it's impossible to understand you. Don't stand talking any more, I want Brian to have some lunch, and you had better stay, and have some with him."

"No, I must go," said Sibyl, abruptly. "Goodbye; good-bye, Brian.”

you,

She had reached the door, but suddenly turned back to say, "I ought to have said, no thank I beg your pardon for being rude," and then vanished precipitately, before Mrs. Branscombe could make any reply.

Whilst Brian was partaking of the luncheon

prepared for him, he drew from his aunt some account of this droll little lady and her belongings. He learned that her father had married a widow with one child, a girl, who was now about sixteen, and that Sibyl was the eldest of his own children, and supposed to be his especial darling.

"I do not mean to say," Mrs. Branscombe explained, "that Mr. Merivale makes favourites; I am sure he would not do that, for he is a very good man, a very good man indeed. But Sibyl is rather a difficult child to manage, and so as Mrs. Merivale is delicate, and not equal to much exertion, he has taken her a good deal into his own hands, and paid more attention to her than to the others, which naturally makes people set her down as his pet."

"Then how many brothers and sisters has she ?" inquired Brian, with interest.

"Only that one sister, step-sister perhaps, I should say, Mildred Wynne, and two brothers, twins, two or three years younger than herself. They are very nice little boys, and very well brought up; indeed, I must say Mr. Merivale has a very good method with all his children, though I sometimes think he lets them make a little too much noise; perhaps, however, he can scarcely prevent it, they are such wild, merry creatures, always at some fun or other."

"Jolly!" said Brian softly to himself, and he added aloud, "I thought that Sibyl seemed a famous girl, I only wish she was a boy, and could shoot, and fish, and ride, and all that."

Mrs. Branscombe drew herself up. "My dear," she said stiffly, 66 we are all as Providence created us; it is not for us to wish anything ordered otherwise."

A most true sentiment, but rather too serious an answer to Brian's playful speech: he bent his head

over his plate, and appeared suddenly engrossed in dividing a wing of chicken, but his eyes sparkled under the shade of their long lashes with suppressed fun.

His aunt was the first to speak again.

"Your uncle and I," she said, "are in hopes that you will be able to content yourself with the companionship of little Sibylla and her brothers and sister, for though this is a populous village there are but few resident gentry, and I know of no other young people here who would be suitable acquaintances for you. The doctor and his wife live in a nice house near the vicarage, but they have no family; and my friend, Mrs. Lingard, whose lodge-gates are opposite ours, has but one son who has just joined the army.'

"There is a Mrs. Wilde who lives somewhere near here, is there not ?" inquired Brian, " Papa used to know her, and he said she had a son; perhaps, however, he has just joined the navy."

The mischievous inflection of the ostentatiously grave tones did not strike Mrs. Branscombe; quite seriously she answered, "No, young Wilde is not in the navy, nor in any profession, it would be much better if he were; he passes his time in idleness, and is a torment to the whole neighbourhood. He may perhaps wish to make a companion of youthough he is considerably your senior-but I must beg of you to avoid him, your uncle would be seriously displeased if he were to find you associating with him."

A wilful wish to make young Mr. Wilde's acquaintance rose in Brian's mind, but he only said, "Papa liked Mrs. Wilde very much."

mother's

Yes, and she was a friend of your poor when a girl, but since her husband's death she has given way too much to this foolish son of hers, and in fact here Mrs. Branscombe became very

stately-" has done so many unadvisable things that Mr. Branscombe and I have lately discontinued calling on her."

"Your poor mother!"

Those words awakened a rush of feeling in Brian's heart which prevented his attending to the remainder of the speech. Since his mother's death five years had passed, during which he had scarcely ever heard her mentioned, and then only with a sort of reverential reserve, as one who had been too deeply mourned to be ever spoken of lightly; and in this silence there had grown up around her memory such a halo of light, such a cluster of the child's deepest and sweetest and most solemn thoughts, that his aunt's casual expression came upon him as a painful shock.

He looked steadily down on his plate again, but this time the eyes were gleaming with something very different from fun.

The windows of Mrs. Branscombe's dining-room looked out upon a smooth green lawn and a sweep of gravelled path commonly called "the drive." Just at this moment a tall, grey-haired gentleman was seen advancing up it, and Mrs. Branscombe exclaimed in delighted accents, "There is your uncle, I declare, Brian; I had not ventured to hope he would return so soon."

Brian choked down his emotion, and ran out into the hall to meet Mr. Branscombe; Nial bounding after him and executing a series of fantastically clumsy gambols, interspersed with short sharp barks, rather trying to Mrs. Branscombe's nerves, though merely indicative of a little canine playfulness.

A hearty greeting passed between Brian and his uncle; though they had not met for some years, each was accustomed to think of the other with affection, for Brian's mother had been Mr. Brans