the shade and shelter of embowering trees; still further on, spread a rising horizon, bounded by lines of low hills, where grey clouds lay lazily sleeping all the day long. On this autumn morning, Miss O'Reilly's garden was little more than warm, green, and sunny. The poplars had strewn it with sere and yellow leaves, and of the flowers none remained save a few late roses, China-asters, and chrysanthemums. I walked around it, then sat down on the flag at the foot of the sun-dial, and amused myself with looking at the house. It was one of those low-roofed, red-tiled, and antiquated abodes, which can still be seen on the outskirts of London, daily removed, it is true, to make room for the modern cottage and villa. It stood between a quiet street and a lonely lane, a plain brick building, with many-paned windows, half hid by clustering ivy, which shadowed its projecting porch, and gave it a gloom both soft and deep. A screen of ivy sloping down to the garden-wall partly separated it from a larger house, to which, in point of fact, it belonged; both had originally formed one abode, but, for the purpose of letting, had thus been subdivided by Miss O'Reilly, whose property they had recently become. On either side, the double building was sheltered by young trees. It looked secluded, lone, and ancient: an abode where generations had lived and loved. From contemplating it, I turned to watching a spider's web, one of my favourite occupations in our garden at Rock Cottage. "Well!" said the frank voice of Miss O'Reilly. I looked up; the sun fell full on the house, and on the three worn stone steps that led down to the garden, but she stood above them, beneath the ivied porch, where she looked fresh and cool, like a bright flower in the shade. She gazed at me with her head a little pensively inclined towards her right shoulder; then said gently-- "Why do you sit, instead of running about?" "It tires me so." "Poor little thing! but you must move. Come in; go about the house; walk up and down stairs; open the cupboards, look, do something." "Yes, Ma'am," I replied, astonished however at her singular behests. "You must call me Kate; say Kate." I did so; for, like her brother, it was not easy to say her nay. With a kind smile, she sent me on my voyage of discovery. The only apartment that interested me was a room lying at the top of the house, and which I considered to be the lumber-room. It was filled with plaster casts and old dusty pictures without frames; the greater part were turned to the wall; a few that were exposed looked dull in the warm sun-light pouring in on them through the open window; before it stood a deal table, on which, after examining the pictures. I got up. "Daisy, what are you doing there?" exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, entering the room; "come down." I obeyed, but said in a tone of chagrin-- "I cannot see the sea!" "I should think not. Why did you turn those pictures?" "I found them so, Kate."