"My Aunt Catherine lives very quietly, and does not go into society—she is too much of an invalid." Conversation turned into other channels, but all the time she was speaking Rufus was strangely conscious that he had met her before. Where had he seen those wistful dreamy eyes, and those resolute yet delicately sensitive curves about lips and chin? He left Lady Chatterton's that afternoon, perplexed and puzzled, yet deeply interested in her niece. A fortnight later, he was striding over a Derbyshire moor with his dogs, when he suddenly was conscious of a girlish figure in front of him. She was vainly trying to detach some golden bloom from the prickly gorse, and he watched her ineffectual efforts with some interest. As he came up, she turned her head, and he recognized her at once as the one who had lately been so much in his thoughts. "Are you by yourself?" he asked, after their first greetings had been exchanged. "Yes," she said, brightly; "my aunt rests in the afternoon, and then is my opportunity for a good brisk walk. Isn't this a glorious moor?" He smiled. "It is too dreary for me. Rather a change from the London streets, isn't it?" "It is a very pleasant change. I am not going to pose as a martyr, though Lady Chatterton did regard me in that light, I think." "Do you always put the claims of others before your own?" asked Rufus, lightly. "I wonder if you are one of the people born to help others?" She looked at him with an odd expression, and knitted her brows into a reflective frown, as she said quietly— "I think we are all born to do that." "I was told once," Rufus said, "that there were only two sorts of people in the world: those born to be helped, and those born to help them. I have often thought of it since, and wondered in which class I am ranked." The girl looked at him with half-parted lips, then gazed away over the moor with her most dreamy air. "That saying was one I was accustomed to hear when quite a tiny child," she said, slowly; "I was brought up to believe that I was to go through life as a protector and helper of others. I have never lost some of my childish aspirations. I have a strange feeling when I meet any fresh acquaintance—'Now, what can I do to help you?' And though I found quite early in life that there were people waiting to protect and help me, I can never forget the revelation it was to me." Rufus looked steadfastly into the sweet face by him, and then asked rather emphatically— "And to whom do you owe such an original training?" "To a very old and valued nurse." "Named 'Becca'?" She started; then a flash of recognition lit up her soft eyes. "Can you be—? I think you must be the Mr. Tracy that brought such sunshine into my childish days. Now I know why I have felt so strangely at home with you from the first moment you spoke to me." [Illustration: A RECOGNITION.]