Miss Deveen held Tod's hand in parting. "I am so glad to have met you again," she cordially said; "we are all glad. We shall see you often, I hope, until we go up together. And all you young people are coming to me for a few days in the Easter holidays. Friends cannot afford too long absences from one another in this short life. Good-bye; and mind you get rid of your headache for to-morrow. There; shake hands with Helen and Anna." He did as he was bid. Helen was gay as usual; Anna rather shy. Her pretty blue eyes glanced up at Tod's, and he smiled for the first time that day. Sophie Chalk might have fascinated three parts of his heart away, but there was a corner in it remaining for Anna Whitney. I did not do it intentionally. Going into our room the next day, a sheet of paper with some writing on it lay on the table, the ink still wet. Supposing it was some message just left for me by Tod, I went up to read it, and caught the full sense of the lines. "DEAR MRS. EVERTY, "I have just received your note. I am sorry that I cannot drive you out to-day--and fear that I shall not be able to do so at all. Our friends, who are staying here, have to receive the best part of my leisure time. "Faithfully yours, "J. TODHETLEY." And I knew by the contents of the note, by its very wording even, that the crisis was past, and Tod saved. "Thank you, Johnny! Perhaps you'll read your own letters another time. That's mine." He had come out of his room with the envelopes and sealing-wax. "I beg your pardon, Tod. I thought it was a message you had left for me, seeing it lie open." "You've read it, I suppose?" "Yes, or just as good. My eyes seemed to take it all in at once; and I am as glad as though I had had a purse of gold given to me." "Well, it's no use trying to fight against a stream," said he, as he folded the note. "And if I had known the truth about the emeralds, why--there'd have been no bother at all." "Putting the emeralds out of the question, she is not a nice person to know, Tod. And there's no telling what might have come of it." "I suppose not. When the two paths, down-hill and up-hill, cross each other, as Brandon put it, and the one is pleasant and the other is not, one has to do a bit of battle with one's self in choosing the right." And something in his face told me that in the intervening day and nights, he had battled with himself as few can battle; fought strenuously with the evil, striven hard for the good, and come out a conqueror. "It has cost you pain." "Somewhat, Johnny. There are few good things in the way of duty but what do cost man pain--as it seems to me. The world and a safe conscience will give us back our recompense." "And heaven too, Tod." "Ay, lad; and heaven." THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. "Mrs. Henry Wood has an art of novel-writing which no rival possesses in the same degree."--_Spectator._