Winter in two faithful hearts, and Miss Chatterton rejoicing—rejoicing that the girl whom she disliked was, in the words of the old proverb, "coming to the ground between two stools;" for Elsie to give poor Gilmour the cold shoulder and not win Mr. Mitchelson was the very fulfilment of her desires. She hated pride, and she actually persuaded herself that for Elsie's young heart to bleed would be an excellent thing for, and greatly improve, her mental and moral condition. It would do her good, and she would be humbler, and of necessity the better afterwards, though it might hurt at the time. Gilmour counted the months and weeks which must be bridged over before he could leave Rathbury, and though he knew it was the very place in which he loved to labour, and felt that he could be useful and happy in it, he began to think he might as well leave England too. The missionary spirit had ever been strong in him, only he had thought to find enough scope for its exercise in the miserable lanes and alleys which are to be found in every manufacturing town and amid its toiling thousands. There was just one consolation when he let his thoughts dwell upon Elsie—with every day that passed, he and the master of Rathlands had been brought nearer together. They respected each other's characters and learned to talk as friend talks to the friend whom he would have chosen for a brother, were the choice of relatives left to us. And when Mr. Mitchelson gave a little hint first, and then plainly said that he meant to try and win a wife from the Priory, the brave listener clasped his hand, stifled his own pain, and thanked God that the girl whom he had hoped to call his own would have so noble and so good a man to stand by her through life. Aloud he said, "I wish you God-speed, Mitchelson; Elsie Manning is worth any trouble to win. If there is a man in the world good enough for her, it is yourself." "But, my dear fellow, I never had a thought of winning Elsie. It was Katie who from the very first crept into the place which death had made void—Katie, and Katie only. Can you as heartily wish me God-speed now?" Could he? The young man sprang to his feet with an exclamation that startled his friend not a little. "I have been the blindest of idiots!" he said, "I thought it was Elsie, and—" "You have been weaving a web of doubt and misery for yourself, and I have been little better, for I fancied that Katie—I see daylight now, for you as well as myself. My dear Gilmour," he added, "did Miss Chatterton ever give you any hints or advice matrimonial?" Mr. Gilmour answered the query by a hearty laugh. He could laugh now, and from that moment the two men understood each other better even than they had done before. More than this, they seemed to realize, as by a momentary inspiration, how much mischief might result from Miss Chatterton's mode of showing her interest in young people.