"But there was a barrier," confusedly muttered Giles. "There is no barrier," asserted Colin. "None!" echoed Phyllys. They were wrong. A barrier did exist, though not in the mind of Phyllys. It resided in Mrs. Wyverne's fears for the future weal of her beloved grand-daughter. She found it hard to credit that a modern man, who lived a life outside her limitations, who did not employ those forms of religious phraseology in which she delighted, who would not find pleasure in Miss Robins' addresses or profit from Mr. Timkins' exhortations, could be a safe husband for "the child." But the old Vicar, with his deeper insight and wider grasp, pleaded strenuously; and Phyllys' face spoke for her; and Giles spent two months at Midfell, laying siege to the old lady's heart. Although he was not "one of the family," and although the tale of his mother's duplicity had given her a shock, she did in time learn to differentiate between the characters of mother and son, and did arrive at the knowledge that a man might be a good man, in the best sense of the word, without seeing on every point eye to eye with herself. Little though she knew it, this shake to her "personal infallibility" theory was one of the most wholesome lessons she had ever received. Her outlook was broadened, to the great gain of herself and those around. But Barbara failed to appreciate the gain; and Miss Robins counted permission given to Phyllys' engagement "a sad falling away." When a certain happy day arrived, the bridegroom's "best man" might have said to the bridegroom, "You, after all, are the gainer! If broad acres are mine, Phyllys is yours!" But that would have cast a shadow on the bridegroom's happiness. The words were not spoken; and they never would be spoken. Giles Randolph, owner of Castle Hill, was not a man to consult his own feelings before another's peace of mind. To Phyllys he was always the kindest of brothers; to Colin far more than a brother. —————————————————————— THE NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS, THORNTON STREET, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE