The number of nutting parties, whortle berry parties, and other rambling, scrambling expeditions in which he was engaged by the children, was wonderful. It was apparently all the same to him, whether their object was to pick berries or make sketches, he was an adept at either, and he soon constituted himself drawing-master to the whole party, and presented Sybil with a stock of materials for the work, which amply supplied, as it was perhaps intended it should, both her sisters also. Then he was delighted to encourage Gwyneth’s natural and native love of music, and finding their only instrument was such a piano as you might expect to find in an old-fashioned country vicarage, he transferred to her as a birth-day present, a small but beautiful instrument, which he had ordered for his own room at the Ferns, but which he succeeded in persuading Mr. Duncan, it would greatly oblige him if he could now get rid of. There were some scruples about accepting so valuable a present, but Mr. Huyton had his own way after all. If he expected Gwyneth to be able to play the music which accompanied the piano, he must have formed wonderful ideas of the capabilities of the child: but Hilary reveled in Beethoven and Mozart for months afterward, and it certainly was an advantage to Gwyneth herself, to _hear_ such good music as was now placed within her reach. So the weeks sped away, fast and bright, as the evening rainbow fades from the sky, until Maurice’s leave was over, and the sad eve of parting arrived. It was a subject which had never been discussed in Mr. Huyton’s presence, and one which had not occurred to his mind; so that it took him quite by surprise when, late one afternoon, on arriving at the Vicarage, after an accidental absence of nearly forty-eight hours, he found Sybil and Gwyneth with very sober faces, sitting in the porch, and was told by them, with tearful eyes, that Maurice was really to go early to-morrow, so Hilary was helping him to pack his trunk. The door of the little room on one side of the hall was opened as they spoke, and Maurice called out, “Oh, Charles! is that you? I began to think I should have to leave without seeing you again!” The visitor entered the door, and there he found Maurice sitting on a portmanteau, in the hope that his weight would bring the two sides into fair proximity to each other; while Hilary was half kneeling, half sitting on the floor, from which she made a sort of motion to rise as he entered, looking at him with very pale cheeks and mournful eyes. “I had no idea, my dear fellow! you were going so soon,” said Charles Huyton, quietly placing himself beside his friend on the portmanteau. “Oh the misery of packing up,” added he, taking a curious look round the room at the various litters it contained. “Well, we have done for to-day,” replied Maurice; “I never got through it so nicely before; but Hilary, dear, we will rest now. I say, Charles, where have you been?”