own bonnets, could be got to come to church, and induced to send their children to school. Sometimes, however, John’s strange holiday, which nobody could quite understand, was disturbed by immediate questions still more difficult. Mrs Mitford did not say much, having discovered in her son’s eye at the moment of his return that all was not well with him; but she looked wistfully at him from time to time, and surprised him in the midst of his frequent reveries with sudden glances of anxious inquiry which spoke more distinctly than words. She did not mention Kate, which was more significant than if she had spoken volumes; and when the letters came in, in the morning, she would turn her head away not to see whether her son expected anything, or if he was disappointed. A mixture of love and pride was in her self-restraint. He should not be forced to confide in her, she had resolved; she would exercise the last and hardest of all maternal duties towards him, and leave him to himself. But Dr Mitford had no such idea. He was busy at the moment with something for the 'Gentleman’s Magazine,' which kept him in his study for the first few days after John’s arrival; but as soon as his article was off his mind, he began to talk to his son of his prospects, as was natural. This happened in the library, where John was sitting, exactly as he had been sitting that first morning when Kate peeped in at the door and all the world was changed; though I cannot tell whether the young man at first remembered that. Dr Mitford was seated at the other end of the room, as he had been that day. A ray of October sunshine shone in through one light of the great Elizabethan window and fell in a long line upon the polished oak floor, on the library carpet, on Dr Mitford’s white head, and as far as the wall on the other side of him--a great broad arrow of light, with some colour in it from the shield in the centre of the glass. Behind this was the glimmer of a fire, and John, lifting his weary eyes from his book, or his eyes from his weary book, he could scarcely have told which, became suddenly aware of the absolute identity of the outside circumstances, and held his breath and asked himself, had he dreamed it, or had that interruption ever been? Was the door going to open and Kate to peep in breathless, shy, daring, full of fun and temerity? or had she done it, and turned all the world upside down? When he was asking himself this question Dr Mitford laid down his pen; then he coughed his little habitual cough, which was the well-understood sign between him and his domestic world that he might be spoken to; then he was fretted by the sunshine, and got up and drew the blind down; and then, having quite finished his article, and feeling himself in a mood for a little talk, he took a walk towards his son between the pillars that narrowed the library in the middle, and looked like a great doorway. He did not go straight to John, but paused on the way to remark upon some empty