"Off this?" pointing to the smoking structure between them. "I don't believe it." "No, the deed." Another silence. "It's a capital cake," says Mr. Kelly, pensively, who has been eating steadily since the first bite. "After all, give me a good sweet, home-made cake like this! Those bought ones aren't to be named in the same day with it. There is something so light and wholesome about a cake like this." "Wholesome!" doubtfully: "I don't know about that. What _I_ like about it is that it is hot and spongy. But, look here, you haven't yet said what we are to do with it." "I think we are doing uncommonly well with it," says Kelly, breaking off another piece. "But what are we to do with the remains, provided we leave any, which at present seems doubtful?" "Keep, them, of course. You ought to, considering she gave it you whole as a present." "You are right: no one shall touch a crumb of it save you and me," says Mr. Desmond, as though inspired. "Let us smuggle it up to my room and keep it there till it is finished." "I feel as if I was at school again with a plum-cake and a chum," says Mr. Kelly. "Well, come and follow me up with it now, and distract my uncle's attention if we meet him." "To _my_ room or yours?" insinuatingly. "To _mine_," firmly. "I'd take the greatest care of it, if you like to trust it to me," with what Kit would certainly have termed "an obliging air." "I don't doubt you," sardonically. "But certainly _not_. It was given to me, and I feel myself bound to look after it." "Pity we can't have it petrified," says Mr. Kelly, thoughtfully. "Then you might hang it round your neck as a trophy." At this they both laugh, and finally the trophy, after much difficulty is satisfactorily stored away. * * * * * It is a fortnight later, and desolation has overtaken Monica. Brian has passed out of her active life, has ceased from that seeing and hearing and that satisfaction of touch that belong to a daily intercourse with one beloved. Only in thought can she find him now. He has gone upon that threatened journey to those detested estates of his in Westmeath. Yesterday he went; and to-day as she wakes it seems to her that a cold and cruel mist has wrapped her world in its embrace. We never know how we prize a thing until we lose it (N. B.--Mark the novelty of this idea;) and now, for the first time, Monica finds herself fully awake to the fact of how necessary Desmond is to her everyday happiness. She had gone down to the river-side to bid him farewell, and had been calm, almost careless, throughout the interview,--_so_ calm that the young man's heart dies within him, and a latent sense of hope deferred had made it sick. But just at the very last she had given way, and had flung herself into his embrace, and twined her arms around his neck,--dear, clinging arms--and had broken into bitter weeping. And--