comrade in the very midst of this changed and wonderful life of respectability which she was living, had startled her quite out of herself. Lew! in the midst of respectability even greater than her own, in the Hewan, the abode of all that was most looked up to and esteemed! The surprise took away her breath; and with the surprise there came a flood of recollections, of remembered scenes--oh! very much more piquant than anything known on Eskside; of gay revelry, movement, and adventure, fun and freedom. That life which is called “wild” and “gay” and “fast,” and so many other misnomers, and which looks in general so miserable to the lookers-on, has no doubt its charms like another, and the excitements of the past look all pure dash and delight to the people who have forgotten what deadliest of all ennui lay behind them. There flashed upon this woman a sudden thought of a gay meeting like those of old, full of reminiscence, and mutual inquiry, what has become of Jack and what has happened to Jill, and of laughter over many a sport and feat that were past. It did not occur to her at the moment that to hear what had happened to Jack and Jill would probably be dismal enough. She thought only, amid the restraints of the present life in which no fun was, what fun to see one of the old set again, and to ask after everybody, and hear all that had been going on, all at her ease, and without fear of discovery in the middle of the night. She divined without difficulty that Lew was here in hiding for no innocent cause, and that Mrs Ogilvy’s long-vanished son, who was mysteriously known to have returned, but who had never showed himself openly, was in some compromising way involved with him, and keeping him out of sight. She understood now the stories about the long night-walks of the two gentlemen at the Hewan of which she had heard: and her well-worn heart gave a jump to think of a jovial meeting so unexpected, so refreshing, in which she could renew her spirit a little more than with all the preparations necessary for her future part of the minister’s wife. It would be a farewell to the past which she could never have dared to anticipate, and the thought gave an extraordinary exhilaration, as well as half-panic which was part of the exhilaration, to her mind. It was as if a stream of life had been poured into her veins--life, which was not always enjoyable, but yet was living, according to the formula of those to whom life has probably more moments of complete dulness and self-disgust than to the dullest of those half-lives which they despise.