with each other in defiance of every consideration! Here was a sober man, long accustomed to his own way, and to moving lightly unimpeded about the earth, a prosaic man, thinking a good deal of the world, who had suddenly turned aside out of his way, to take note of a neglected woman in a corner, and to raise her up over the heads of all the people who had pitied her. She would have been more than woman had she not felt that. To be able to do favours where she had received them, to give help with a liberal hand where she had been compelled to accept it in little, and perhaps with a grudge. Was it not romance that she who had nothing, should all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, have much and be rich, when she had been poor. It was in reality as great a romance as if he had been King Cophetua and she the beggar maid--almost more so, for Evelyn Ferrars was not beautiful as the day. She was to her own consciousness faded and old. This was stating the case much too strongly, but it was how a woman, such as she was, judges herself. If James Rowland was not a romantic lover, who was? He was more romantic than any Prince Charming that ever could be. Mr. Rowland himself went away from this interview with feelings which were almost in a greater commotion than those of Evelyn. He was excited by going back upon the old life which had died out of his practical mind so completely, and which was to him as a tale that is told--yet which lay there, all the same, an innocent sweet memory deprived of all pain, a story of a young man and a young woman, both of whom had disappeared under the waves and billows of life--the young man, a well-looking fellow in his way, just as much as the young woman who had died. Mr. Rowland, the great engineer, was not even much like him, that hardheaded young fellow with his books, working out his diagrams on the clean kitchen table, and studying and toiling over his figures. How that fellow pegged away! James Rowland at forty-eight never opened a book. His calculations for practical work came to him as easy as a. b. c. He read his paper and the magazines when he saw them, but as for scientific works, never opened one, and did not think much of theoretical problems. And then the little house that was not far from the foundry, and the little clean bright pretty wife always ready and looking out for her husband, and the baby crying, and the young man coming in in his grimy fustian--it was a pretty picture, a charming story such as brings the tears to the eyes. She died, poor thing--they always have a sad end these little tales of real life. This was how he could not help looking at that story which he had just told though it was the story of his own life. Now that he thought of it he could have given a great many more details, although he had also forgotten many. It was a pretty story. There were a great many such stories in the world, and when the wife died and the little house fell to pieces, it was not at all unusual that