“Sylvester and Ella. Do you mean to say you haven't noticed? I have been following it all for months.” Miss Lanyon had reached the age when one lives in the romances of others. “I believe you amuse yourself, Agatha, by mixing up your young friends and sorting them out in pairs, like gloves,” remarked Matthew. Miss Lanyon denied the charge indignantly. This was quite a different matter. Anybody with eyes could see how things were tending. It was a match. She was sure it was a marriage made in heaven. “I like heaven-made marriages as little as machine-made boots,” said Matthew. “Both are apt to come undone in unexpected places. But if these two are thinking of a wholesome earth-made union--well, I shall be delighted.” “But hasn't Syl told you anything?” “Not a word.” “Couldn't you ask him, Matthew?” “My dear Agatha,” said he, drawing himself up, “how can you suggest my committing such an impertinence?” Miss Lanyon worshipped her brother, but she felt there were many odd corners of his mind which needed the housewifely besom; just as there were cobwebs in his office which, on the rare occasions when she entered it, made her fingers twitch. But being organically acquiescent she sighed again sentimentally, and brought Matthew his hat and stick. For Ella, the hours of that day were winged with sunshine. She loved Sylvester as deeply as one of our untried, pure-minded Northern girls can love; and with larger wisdom, too, than most. For she had lived a free life in her aunt's eccentric house in London, and had sifted the vanities of many men. Passion would only be evoked by the clasp of encircling arms and would rise to meet claiming lips. As yet in Ella it lay a pure fire hidden in the depths of a fervent nature. But all the sweet thrills of a woman's early love were hers,--the pride in a strong man's wooing, the fluttering fears as to her sufficiency for his happiness, the resolves, scarce formulated, to raise herself to his level, the dim dreams of a noble life together, striving for the great things of the world that are worth the winning. Added thereto was the delicate charm, essentially feminine, of triumph over the shadows that had fought with her for possession of his heart.