He was not, however, destined to be long in solving his philosophical problem, a light step on the gravel-path caught his ear. He looked up. "Ah! Miss BETSY JANE," he said, rising with a courtly grace as his eye rested on the trim neatly dressed form of a girl of nineteen; "so you, too, are enjoying the Elysian fragrance of this lovely evening?" The fair girl blushed slightly. She was very lovely. Her golden hair crowned her beautifully shaped brow in broad deep bands. Her mouth had that indescribable sweetness that is often met with in those in whom a marvellously active intelligence is united to a strongly poetic temperament. Her eyes were like two exquisite saucers of liquid blue, from whose sapphire depths light and laughter seemed to sparkle up unbidden with every variation of her mobile and ever changing countenance. Yet she was only a poor work-girl making her £2 16_s._ 6_d._ a week, under the new scale of prices, by button-holeing. "I am enjoying the evening, for who would not, Mr. HALFINCH?" she answered, half demurely, with a pretty pout, "but I have just come from my Hydrostatic Class, and was thinking of looking in at the Opera on my way home. They are doing "_Tristan und Isolde_," and a little _Wagner_ is such a pleasant close to the day. Do not you think so?" "Indeed I do," he answered eagerly, "and I will accompany you--that is, if I may," he added, apologetically. "If you _may_!" was the arch reply. In another minute they were strolling leisurely along, side by side, towards the "Great Square of Recreation," that was already scintillating in the distance, lit up with the electric light as with the full blaze of day. As they were emerging from the garden-path, they passed a small child. She was carrying a little stone funereal urn, and she nodded to them. They stopped for a moment. "Why, POLLY, dear, what have you got there?" asked BETSY JANE, stooping down to kiss the child. "Oh! it's only Great Grandmother," went on the little speaker, volubly. "I'm fetching her from the _Crematorium_. She was only _ashed_ yesterday, you know, and father says he would like to have her on the parlour chimney-piece as soon as possible; and so I am bringing her home." "Well, my little woman," threw out HALFINCH, kindly. "Take care you don't drop your Great Grandmother, that's all." "Oh no! I can carry her well enough," was the prompt response; and little POLLY was soon bounding away across the grass merrily, with her ancestral burthen. * * * * *