at its old honours. I quoted the best part of a stanza to myself in the street. I'm afraid that is a habit of mine." "It must be very nice," said the lady apprehensively; "yes, indeed." It appeared that she was no more acquainted with Lowell than with Mr. Boultbee, so gliding to a subject which lay quite near his heart this afternoon he introduced a third name. "When I was here last a Dr. Page occupied the villa across the fence," he went on. "He had a daughter. To be prolix, he had several daughters, but to me his family consisted of Miss Mary. We were engaged. I won't ask you if they are there still--something warns me that they are not--but can you, by any chance, give me news of them?" "I am sorry I cannot," she returned, fluttering. "There has been no Dr. Page in Sweetbay--I am almost certain there has been no Dr. Page in Sweetbay since I settled here. I am positive there is none now--quite positive. There's Dr. Hunt, there's Dr. Tatham--" She recounted laboriously the names of all the medical men practising about the town, while he wondered what she was doing it for. "I thank you heartily," he said, when she reached the end of the list. The next moment it became evident that she, in her turn, had a question to put, for her glance was interrogating him already, and at last she faltered:-- "Pardon my asking you, but did I understand you to say that you were--h'm--engaged to the daughter of Dr. Page twenty-five years ago? Surely when you said you were a child then, it was no figure of speech?" "No," answered Conrad; "but to be frank with you, it was nothing less than the thought of her that lured me back to-day. Let me admit that I wasn't quite ingenuous when I spoke of--of 'being' in the neighbourhood; I came deliberately, in fulfilment of a cherished plan. To me your garden is a tomb--if I may say so without depressing you--it is the tomb of the Used-to-be. We were both children, but there are some things that one never forgets:-- "'I'm not a chicken; I have seen Full many a chill September, And though I was a youngster then, That girl I well remember.' Holmes wrote 'gale,' not 'girl,' otherwise he might have been speaking for me." "Such constancy is very beautiful," breathed the lady; "I thought--" She paused, slightly pink. "But it was unfair," he assured her; "men can be quite as constant as women--especially to the women they never won." "Er--perhaps you would like to see the house?" she inquired; "and you will allow me to offer you some tea before you go?" "I accept both offers gratefully," said Conrad. He followed her into the hall, and she conducted him, with little prefatory murmurs, to such of the apartments as a maiden lady might modestly display. Repapered and rearranged they looked quite strange to him, but the knowledge that he was in Mowbray Lodge averted boredom. "You find them altered," she said, as they went back to the drawing-room. "Improved," said he.