With the first warnings of his decline, Henry Rayne had learned to realize how cold and bitter and cruel a world this world would be to his little _protégée_ when he had left her, and for that reason he occupied himself altogether, in the latter years of his life, in studying and promoting a welfare for this precious charge, that would survive himself for, may be long years of a lonesome life. With this intimate knowledge of the old man's heart, one can perhaps understand the partiality with which Vivian Standish was received into the home of Henry Rayne, as a constant visitor. CHAPTER XXX. Oh, to be idle one spring day! To muse in wood or meadow; Glide down the river 'twixt the play Of sun and trembling shadow. I'd see all wonders neath the stream, The pebbles and vex'd grasses; I'd lean across the boat and dream, As each scene slowly passes. --A. L. B The bright, golden summer days were growing scarcer and scarcer; band nights experiences were fast becoming items of the past--that past which had realized itself so strangely to poor Honor. She had hoped sanguinely, trustingly, and now it seemed that fate would bring her defiant proofs of its iron will in spite of herself. She had not taken it as a sign of inconstancy, that Guy had never sent the smallest message of encouragement to her, but rather tried to weave it in as a sprig of the laurel crown she daily wove in silent sadness, for her truant lover, when he would return, full of happy explanations, to claim her all his own. Vivian was as constant and devoted when the leaves began to turn, as when the leaves began to bud. This was perhaps the most intricate plot of his scheming life, but he was proving himself equal to it: he was probing his way slowly and quietly into the well guarded sanctum of Honor Edgeworth's heart, trying to accumulate every energy of his soul into one eloquent appeal to her obstinate nature. The gorgeous colors of the western sky were fading dimly one evening, behind the misty mountain tops. It was towards the end of August, a lovely evening, such as comes back to us before the autumn, as a reminder of the closing season.