home--no outlet for the universal charity and loving-kindness that possessed him. Instead, he set his easy-chair tenderly by the side of the blazing fire, and, drawing another chair opposite, gazed with secret smiles at the visionary Nettie, who once had taken up her position there. Was it by prophetic instinct that the little colonial girl, whose first appearance so discomposed the doctor, had assumed that place? Dr Rider contemplated the empty chair with smiles that would have compromised his character for sanity with any uninstructed observer. When the mournful Mary disturbed his reverie by her noiseless and penitent entrance with the little supper which she meant at once for a peace-offering and compensation for the dinner lost, she carried down-stairs with her a vivid impression that somebody had left her master a fortune. Under such beatific circumstances closed the evening that had opened amid such clouds. Henceforth, so far as the doctor could read the future, no difficulties but those common to all wooers beset the course of his true love. CHAPTER XVII. When the red gleams of the early sunshine shone into that window from which Nettie had looked out last night, the wintry light came in with agitating revelations not simply upon another morning, but upon a new world. As usual, Nettie's thoughts were expressed in things tangible. She had risen from her sleepless bed while it was still almost dark, and to look at her now, a stranger might have supposed her to be proceeding with her last night's work with the constancy of a monomaniac. Little Freddy sat up in his crib rubbing his eyes and marvelling what Nettie could be about, as indeed anybody might have marvelled. With all those boxes and drawers about, and heaps of personal belongings, what was she going to do? She could not have answered the question without pain; but had you waited long enough, Nettie's object would have been apparent. Not entirely free of that air of agitated haste--not recovered from the excitement of this discovery, she was relieving her restless activity by a significant rearrangement of all the possessions of the family. She was separating with rapid fingers those stores which had hitherto lain lovingly together common property. For the first time for years Nettie had set herself to discriminate what belonged to herself from the general store; and, perhaps by way of softening that disjunction, was separating into harmonious order the little wardrobes which were no longer to be under her charge. Freddy opened his eyes to see all his own special belongings, articles which he recognised with all the tenacious proprietorship of childhood, going into one little box by themselves in dreadful isolation. The child did not know what horrible sentence might have been passed upon him while he slept. He gazed at those swift inexorable fingers with the gradual sob rising in his poor little breast. That silent tempest heaved and rose as he saw all the well-known items