To-day the sun is out, and all the walks at the Cottage are glittering in its rays. Sparks like diamonds come from the small white stones in the gravel, and the grassy edges close to them—clean shaven by Denis, who is down again on a penitential visit to his wife—are sweet and fresh, and suggestive of a desire to make to-day’s work a work again for to-morrow, so quickly the spring blades grow and prosper. Wyndham, as he walks from the station to this pretty spot, takes great note of Nature. Lately the loveliness—the charm of it!—the desire that grows in the heart for it, has come to him, has sunk into his soul. As he goes life seems everywhere, and with it such calm!... And here in this old home, what a place it is! A veritable treasury of old-world delights— ‘Dewy pastures, dewy trees, Softer than sleep—all things in order stored, A haunt of ancient peace.’ As he walks from the gate to the Cottage, a slim figure darting sideways brings him to a standstill. After her bounds a huge dog. Wyndham restrains the cry upon his lips that would have called the dog to him, and, standing still, watches the pretty pair. He has come down to-day with the intention, avowed and open to his heart, of asking this girl to marry him. That the deed will mean ruin to him socially he knows, but he has faced the idea. That she will probably accept him seems clear, but that it will not be for love seems even clearer. She has always treated him as one who had given her a helping hand out of her Slough of Despond, but no more. Many days have led to his decision of to-day, and many thoughts, and many sleepless nights. But he has conquered all fears save that supreme one that she does not love him. This marriage, if he can persuade her to it, will offend his uncle, Lord Shangarry. Not a farthing will that old Irish aristocrat leave him if he knows he has wedded himself to a girl outside his own world—a mere waif and stray, disreputable, as many would call her. Disreputable! It was when this thought of what his friends’ view of his marriage would be first came to him, and with it a mad longing to seize the throats of those hideous scandalmongers, that Wyndham knew that he loved the girl he had saved and protected—and most honourably loved. And to-day—well, he has come down to ask her to marry him. Shangarry’s money may go, and all things else that the old lord can keep from him; the title will still be his—and hers; and with his profession, and the talent that they say is his, and the money left him by his dead mother—oh, if she had lived and seen Ella!—he may still be able to keep up the old name, if not in its old splendour, at all events with a sort of decency. Ella is now running towards him, as he stands in the shelter of the rhododendrons, the dog running after her, jumping about her, with soft velvety paws and a wagging tail. Suddenly he springs upon her and threatens the daintiness of her frock.