There it all was, unchanged. The great hedges, the yews, the shrubs, and the pleasant rose and creeper-covered cottage, with its glittering windows, and door beneath the rustic porch, open as if to give them welcome. "Yes, yes, yes!" cried Julia eagerly, and her voice sounding full of excitement; "I am beginning to remember it all again so well. I know, yes--the gate fastening inside. I'll undo it. Up this path, and grandpapa used to be there busy by his frames--round past the big green hedge, where grandmamma's seat used to be, so that she could watch him while he was at work. And I used to run--and, oh! yes, yes, there! Grandpa! grandpa! here we are." Had the past twelve years dropped away? Millicent Hallam asked herself, as, seeing all dimly through a veil of tears, she heard Julia's words, excited, broken, with all a child's surging excitement and delight, as she ran from her side, across the smooth lawn to where that grey little old lady sat beneath the yew hedge, to swoop down upon her, folding her in one quick caress, and then, before she had recovered from her surprise, darting away, and off the path, over the newly-dug ground, to where that grey old gentleman dropped the hoe with which he was drawing a furrow for his summer marrowfats. The twelve years had dropped from Julia's mind for the time, and, a child once more, she was clinging to and kissing the old man, with whom she returned to where her mother was kneeling, locked in Mrs Luttrell's arms. "The dear, dear, dear old place!" cried Julia, with childlike ecstasy. "Grandpa, grandma, we're come down to stay, and we must never leave you again." She stopped, trembling, her beautiful eyes dilated, and a feeling of chilling despair clutching at her heart, as her mother turned her ghastly face towards her, and her name seemed to float to her ears and away into the distance, in a cry that was like the wail of a stricken, desolate heart. "Julia!" "Mother, dearest mother, forgive me!" she cried, as she threw herself upon her breast, sobbing as if her heart would break. "I did not think: I had forgotten all." VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER EIGHT. JULIA SEEMS STRANGE. It was as if that forlorn cry uttered by Millicent Hallam pervaded their visit to the old home. It was a happy reunion, but how full of pain! Joy and sorrow were hand in hand. It was life in its greatest truth. The sweet, peaceful old home, with its garden in the early livery of spring; the fragrance of the opening leaves; the delicious odour of the earth after the soft rain that had fallen in the night; the early flowers, all so bright in the clear country air, to those who had been pent up in town; while clear ringing, and each tuned to that wondrous pitch that thrills the heart in early spring, there were the notes of the birds.