might relax and she would have leisure to bestow upon her faithful retainers. It was not, however, Mrs. Rowland, but her husband, who disturbed the pastime. He looked up from his letter and called “Archie!” in a voice which meant mischief. Archie looked up startled. “Yes,” he said, “I am here.” “How was it you never mentioned that you had gone to see Mrs. Brown the other day when you were in Glasgow?” Archie raised himself up, pushing the puppies away from him. “I--scarcely could have been in Glasgow,” he said, though with a slight faltering in his voice, it was so little true; “without going to see Aunt Jane.” “That is true enough,” said his father, in a slightly softened tone. “It was of course your first duty: but--is this story she tells me true?” “She is very little likely,” said Archie, “to tell anything that is not true; but I don’t know what she has told you.” “She says--that she asked you to help a poor comrade of yours who is ill, and must go away to save his life, and that you refused--is that true?” Archie stood in the vacant space formed by the recess, turning his face towards his father--pale, miserable, half-defiant, without a word to say. “Is that true?” said Rowland, his voice pealing through the hall. It disturbed the whole party, drawing their attention from their letters. Mrs. Rowland looked up with an air half of terror, half of compassion. “James, James!” she said in a low voice. “Let alone, Evelyn! you don’t understand. Do you hear me, sir? come forward; don’t skulk, as you are always doing. Is it true?” Archie made a step forward, his brows bent over his eyes, his head sunk between his shoulders. He saw them all turning to him--his stepmother, with a compassionate look, which he could tolerate less than if it had been the triumph and satisfaction which he believed she felt; Rosamond raising her head from the letter she was reading with a half-contemptuous surprise; and Eddy! Eddy in the background, unseen by any, sending over their heads a look of half-amused, half-sympathetic comment, opening his eyes wide and raising his eyebrows. Eddy looked--not as if he had anything to do with it, but as if partly indignant, partly astonished, yet as good as saying--that is just as they all do. “Yes,” said Archie, at last; “it is true.”