shy shrinking and fears. ‘Is she?’ said Frank; ‘but I must not go away, must I?--though your tone seems somehow to imply it. Let me stay and wait for her. I have come to say good-bye.’ ‘Good-bye?’ said Alice, faltering. The child grew cold all over in a moment, as if a chill had blown upon her. ‘Are you really, really going to India, after all?’ ‘After all? after what?’ said Frank, turning upon her so quickly that she had no time to think. ‘Oh, I meant after----. I thought----. People said----. But, no, indeed; I am sure I never believed it, Mr. Renton; it is such stupid talk; only I was a little surprised,’ said Alice, recovering herself. ‘I mean, are you really going to India,--after all?’ Frank laughed. He was at no loss now as he had been with Nelly Rich. ‘I see that is what you mean,’ he said, looking at her with softened, shining eyes, and that delicious indulgence for her youth and simplicity which made him feel himself twice a man; ‘and you may say after all. There are some things I shall be glad to escape from, and there are other things,’ said Frank, rising and going close to her, ‘there are other things----’ He did not mean it,--certainly he did not mean it,--any more than he had meant going to India, when he came up that morning to town to talk the matter over in a vague, general way; but, somehow, as he stood in front of her, leaning over the high-backed chair on which she had placed her work, gazing into the sweet face lifted to him, which changed colour every moment, and was as full of light and shade as any summer sky, a sudden sense of necessity came over him. Leave her?--Was there anybody in the world but the two of them looking thus at each other? Did anything else matter in comparison? ‘What is the use of making any pretences?’ cried Frank; ‘if you will but come with me, Alice, going to India will be like going to heaven!’ She sat and gazed at him with consternation and wonder and dismay; growing pale to the very lips; straining her wistful eyes to make out what he meant. Was he mad? What was he thinking of? ‘Go with, you?’ she faltered, under her breath, incapable of any expression but that of amaze. Her wondering eye sank under his look, and her heart began to beat, and her brow to throb. The suggestion shook her whole being, though she had not quite fathomed what it meant. And then the crimson colour rose like a sudden flame, and flew over all her face. The change, the trouble, the surprise, were like so many variations in the sky, and they combined to take from the young lover what little wits he had left.