‘DEAR N.,--I find I may be absent from England longer than I thought, so don’t stay cooped up in town this beastly hot weather, but take a run down to Brighton, or any watering-place you may fancy. Warrender can look after the house. Malta is a deal hotter than London as you may imagine, but I have made several friends here and enjoy the novelty of the place. They won’t let me off, I expect, under another month or two, so I shall miss the grouse this season. However, I’m bound to be back in time for the partridges. Be sure and take a good holiday and freshen yourself up. Have you seen Sterndale yet? If not, you will soon. He has something to tell you. Whatever happens, remember your welfare will always be my first consideration.--Yours truly, ‘ILFRACOMBE.’ Miss Llewellyn read these words over and over again, without arriving at any conclusion respecting their meaning. ‘What can he mean?’ she thought; ‘why should I see Mr Sterndale, and what can he possibly have to tell me, that I do not already know? I hope Ilfracombe is not going to do anything so stupid as to make a settlement on me, for I will not accept it. I much prefer to go on in the dear old way, and owe all I have to him. Has not my welfare always been his care? Dear Ilfracombe! How I wish I could persuade him to come home and go to Abergeldie instead! I am sure he runs a great risk out in that horrid climate, especially after the attack of fever he had last autumn. If he were to fall sick again, without me to nurse him, what should I do?’ As she spoke thus to herself, she turned involuntarily towards a painted photograph which stood in a silver frame on a side-table. It represented a good-looking young man in a rough shooting suit, with a gun over his shoulder. It was a handsome and aristocratic face, but a weak one, as was evidenced by the prominent blue eyes and the receding chin and mouth, which latter, however, was nearly hidden by a flaxen moustache. It is not difficult to discover with what sort of feeling a woman regards a man if you watch her as she is looking at his likeness. As Miss Llewellyn regarded that of Lord Ilfracombe, her face, so proud in its natural expression, softened until it might have been that of a mother gloating over her first-born. So inextricably is the element of protective love interwoven with the feelings of every true woman for the man who possesses her heart. The tears even rose to Miss Llewellyn’s handsome eyes, as she gazed at Lord Ilfracombe’s picture, but she brushed them away with a nervous laugh. ‘How foolish,’ she said to herself, ‘and when I am the happiest and most fortunate woman in all the world, and would not change my lot with the Queen herself. And so undeserving of it all, too.’