'May I know--will you tell me the reason, Lucy?' he said hoarsely. 'I could tell anyone but you,' she said passionately, and then she turned away her face from him, but not before he had seen that her eyes were full of tears. Then a strange light came suddenly into his eyes as he looked at her as she sat there in her soft white clinging gown, with her bosom heaving, and the rich colour sweeping over her neck and face. 'You do not mean----Oh, Lucy!' he said, and his voice shook, and the trouble in his eyes gave place to the light of a sudden wild hope. Whatever she meant, it was whispered so low that it reached no other ear than his. Before Lucy went back to Newnham that night with her friends she had a little interview with her beautiful hostess. Cousin Mary looked like a queen with her gleaming jewels and her rich dress. It was not a dress intended to be crushed; it was intended to be put away carefully, and to be worn at no end of grand University receptions and dinner-parties; but Lucy threw herself upon it in the most unfeeling way, and let her foolish tears--they always flowed very copiously--stream down the beautiful satin bosom and over the lovely real lace. 'Oh Mary, congratulate me,' she murmured; 'I am going to marry Eric Gwatkin!' She was going to marry a curate with one hundred and fifty pounds a year. She had thrown over the Master of a college, and she was asking Cousin Mary to congratulate her! * * * * * What can be expected of the children of such a union? They will neither be beautiful nor clever. Probably in a generation or two they will go back to the low estate from which they sprang, and another Lucy may keep the old family stall in the butter-market. Heredity has so many vagaries it is not safe to predict. The success of the old Master may repeat itself in the male line, and another Anthony--Lucy's boy is called Anthony--may occupy with equal distinction as a Church dignitary another stall elsewhere. Who can tell? Meanwhile Lucy is famous for her poultry, and, like her distant progenitor, prides herself on the excellence of her dairy. THE END. BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. NEW LIBRARY NOVELS. THE IVORY GATE. By Walter Besant, Author of 'All Sorts and Conditions of Men,' etc. 3 vols. THE MARQUIS OF CARABAS. By Aaron Watson and Lillias Wassermann. 3 vols. TRUST-MONEY. By William Westall. 3 vols. A FAMILY LIKENESS. By Mrs. B.M. Croker. 3 vols. THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S. By Alan St. Aubyn. 2 vols. MRS. JULIET. By Mrs. Alfred Hunt. 3 vols. BARBARA DERING. By Amélie Rives. 2 vols. GEOFFORY HAMILTON. By Edward H. Cooper. 2 vols. TREASON-FELONY. By John Hill. 2 vols. London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214, Piccadilly, W.