"No. I suppose not; unless perhaps I may have met her in society," said Murray, with a faltering in his voice which he could not quite steady. It was not in him to say boldly that he knew nothing about Mary--Mary, whom he remembered, from her floating hair to her dancing feet, a vision of delight. Her name thrilled through him, though he had only a boy's recollection of her to move him. Once, when he was just on the edge of the ascent which had led to fortune, Mary had been at the Vicarage, when he in his new clothes, the _protégé_ of the Vicar's friend, had been there also, and they had shared the nursery tea together and made friends. The children had all patronised Abel, but Mary had been kind. She had taken a fancy to the common boy whom the young people at the Vicarage considered beneath them, and that perhaps was why he remembered her so tenderly; though by this time a little sentimental haze of fancy and distance encircled that meeting, and Abel was of opinion that he had entertained a boyish passion for the young lady who was so much his superior. With the strangest tremor at his heart he went to meet her now. He knew he should recognise her wherever he met with her--would not she know him also? The sense of danger excited him. He had his nerves strung for self-defence, not remembering what other uglier words might apply perhaps to what he said--Lies! in strict fact it might be so; but it is very seldom at Abel's age that one has boldness to characterise the little fictions that may be necessary to give the world a true impression of one's dignity boldly as lies: they are, perhaps, inventions, little flights of the imagination; or he who tells them is "led into them," not by premeditation, unconsciously, by accident; lies are told by other people, seldom by ourselves. If they asked him point-blank whether he was Abel Murray, why then, to be sure--but they were not likely to ask that question in so many words, and for the rest it should be as his stars ordained.