“Dearest old boy!” said his wife, laying her cheek upon his. “Why will he interrupt? and why will he give himself needless worries? I am to stay at home with the boy and to keep the house going. Did he think I was to be dragged all over the world—I and our poor little pet?” (She could speak so, never flinching, while shocks of pain shook her heart at the thought that no such journey was possible, but only this awful loneliness of which she would not dare to begin to think, until Charlie should be fairly gone, and it was too late to call him back!) “And I’ll whisper it to you, Charlie, that just as I added three guineas to my five shillings this afternoon, so I trust when you come back you will find something—not much maybe, and yet something—added to the nest egg you will leave in the bank. For, Charlie, at the St. George’s Institute, they are prepared to forgive me for deserting them for you, and they will take me on again as a teacher, and Mr. Mapp says he thinks my sketches will sell very well, and he advises me to try for a little book-illustrating.” “And what will become of Hugh, while you are at the Institute?” asked Charlie. “I have thought it all out,” she answered. “He shall go to that nice kindergarten near the church. Its hours are the same as at the Institute. I shall take him when I go, and call for him on my return.” “I did not marry you for all this, Lucy,” observed Charlie, looking earnestly at her. She knew what he meant. But she lightly turned aside the pathos of his words. “I don’t believe you thought I had it in me,” she said. “There isn’t very much in me, perhaps—just enough to hold out for a little while till my husband comes back, robust and strong.” “You must have been thinking over this for some time, Lucy?” he remarked. “For a few days,” she answered. “And to know myself laying little plans and setting little traps, with you so innocent of them, has made me feel quite guilty of keeping a secret.” “Poor little girl!” said Charlie, “and I too had my secret. At least your secret has turned something into a secret, by investing a trifle, which I did not mention to you, with a significance it did not have before. If you had not told your secret, you would never have heard mine!” They paused in their talk, for Pollie came into the room to remove the tea-things. “Did you tell her anything of your plans?” asked Charlie, motioning his head towards the door as the maid closed it behind her. “Certainly not,” Lucy answered. “Is it likely I would tell her of my schemes before you heard them? What makes you ask such a question?” “Because she looks so solemn and constrained,” he answered, “as people do when they know something important is in the air.” (_To be continued._) VARIETIES. MORE INFORMATION WANTED. _Possible Boarder:_ “Now, I have enjoyed my dinner very much, and if it was a fair sample of your meals I should like to come to terms.”