“I am sorry,” began Embrance, humbly; but Joan was too much taken up with her own grievance to listen. She went on: “He offered to speak to the head of a firm he knows where they make furniture and employ people (artists, Horace calls them) to decorate rooms and paint panels. He said I should have to be taught to do it; and, oh! Embrance, I should hate to be shut up all day; I should feel as if I were in a prison; so I said I wouldn’t go and see his friend—that I would rather go on the stage. And then he advised me to go back to Doveton.” Joan was sitting bolt upright now, and her eyes were sparkling. “Do you think I behaved badly?” “It was very hard for you, my poor dear; but I dare say you were not so disagreeable as you imagine. He would make allowance for your not being accustomed to keep such regular hours.” “It’s you who make allowance,” cried Joan. “You are very good, Embrance; and I am keeping so much back from you. But don’t think hardly of me; promise me you won’t. Have patience with me, whatever I do.” A sharp east wind was blowing across the park; the chestnut-trees stretched their bare branches grimly towards the sky. Embrance Clemon was walking home after her day’s work; the dead leaves swept rustling and dancing towards her. A party of noisy children were racing after their hoops a few yards in front of her. She had just been told by the mother of a pupil, with many expressions of regret, that her services would not be required any more after Easter. Her head was full of plans, by which she could contrive to manage her slender resources, so that Joan should not be made to feel that she was in any way increasing the household difficulties. In truth, she could ill afford to lose a lesson just now. She had heard no more of Joan’s quarrel with Horace Meade; she imagined that that was made up long ago; the two had met more than once, she knew, at a friend’s house, but he had left off coming to call. Embrance missed his visits; it was clear to her now, looking back to the last few months, that Horace Meade had brought a great deal of happiness into their quiet lives—hers as well as Joan’s. And yet, try as she would, she could not but feel hurt that he should be so anxious to remove Joan from her influence. “It doesn’t matter, after all,” she reflected, walking faster and faster in the grey twilight, “what he thinks of me.” Nevertheless, it mattered so much, that Embrance grew sad at heart; there came over her a great longing to throw up the present occupation and go away, anywhere, and begin again; to shut up her past life tight and firm and to start afresh. And Joan? She almost smiled at her own folly, as she recollected how impossible it would be to leave Joan in such an unceremonious fashion. (_To be continued._) [Illustration] THE SHEPHERD’S FAIRY. A PASTORALE. BY DARLEY DALE, Author of “Fair Katherine,” etc. [Illustration: CHAP X—A FALSE STEP.]