"Green--ah! Jacob Green knows what he's about. Made you pay, I dare say. No, no matter." The girl's eyes had gone to a little table, where an account-book peeped out from under a bit of coloured embroidery. "I'm not complaining; I don't care about a few extra shillings, if things are good. Get Green to send you some more when this is burnt out." Reynold had risen when Barbara left him, and after lingering for a moment, a tall black and white figure, in the lamplight by the chessboard, he followed her, and took up his position on the rug. The interruption to their talk had been unwelcome, but it was not, in itself, unpleasant. He liked to see Barbara playing the part of the lady of the Place. It was a sweet foreshadowing of the home, the dear home, that should one day be. There should be logs enough on the hearths of Mitchelhurst in October nights to come, and, though the fields and copses round might be wet and chill, the old house should be filled to overflowing with brightness and warmth and love. Some wayfarer, plodding along the dark road, would pause and look up the avenue, and see the lights shining in the windows beyond the leafless trees. Reynold pictured this, and pictured the man's feelings as he gazed. It was curious how, by a kind of instinct, he put himself in the outsider's place. He did not know that he always did so, but in truth he had never dreamed anything for himself till Barbara taught him, and his old way of looking at life was not to be unlearnt in a day. Still he was happy enough as he stood there, staring at the fire, and thinking of those illuminated windows. He could not sleep when he went to bed that night. The head which he laid on the chilly softness of his pillow was full of a joyous riot of waking visions, and he closed his eyes on the shadows only to see a girl's shining glances and rose-flushed cheeks. CHAPTER VIII. BARBARA'S TUNE. Harding fell asleep towards morning, and woke from his slumber with a vague sense that the world had somehow expanded into a wide and pleasant place, and that he had inherited a share of it. And though the facts were not quite so splendid when he emerged from his drowsy reverie, enough remained of possibilities, golden or rosy, to colour and brighten that Saturday. It is something to wake to a conviction that one's feet are set on the way to love and wealth.