"Someone else, then; anyone whom you could like," Mrs. Vance suggests. "There is no one," Lady Vera answers. "I expect Lady Clive soon. We shall have a little gaiety then. I will have no one else before that." "I do not think you are well, Lady Vera. You have lost your color, you are growing thin, your eyes look large in your face. Will you not consult a physician?" Mrs. Vance goes on, resolutely. "No; for I am perfectly well," Lady Vera answers, impatiently. "Pray do not take up idle fancies about me, Mrs. Vance." So the good lady, sighing, desists, and Countess Fairvale "gaes her ain gait." The bright days of September wane and fade, and October comes in bright and sunny. Every day now Lady Vera looks for Lady Clive to come. Her spirits grow brighter at the thought. Sitting in the grand drawing-room one pleasant evening, with Mrs. Vance nodding placidly in a corner, and the soft breeze fluttering the lace draperies at the open windows, she touches the keys of the grand piano, pouring out her sad young soul in plaintive melodies. Song after song thrills out upon the air, each one sadder and sweeter than the last, as though "The anguish of the singer made the sweetness of the strain." Very beautiful looks Lady Vera in her thin, black robe, with knots of pure white pansies at her throat and waist, very beautiful and girlish still, though she is almost twenty, and a woman's sorrow is written all over her lovely, mobile face, that rises like some fair, white lily above her somber robe. Memory is busy at her heart to-night. She has forgotten the Clevelands for a little while, and is thinking of her princely-looking soldier lover far away beneath those American skies where her own young life was passed. She loves him still. In vain the nobles of her father's land sue for her favor. All her heart is given to that untitled lover who comes of a land "Where they bow not the knee, Save to One unto whom monarchs bow down." Almost unconsciously she touches the keys and sings one of our best loved songs: "On the banks of Allan Water When the sweet spring-tide did fall, There I saw the miller's daughter, Fairest of them all! For his bride a soldier sought her, And a winning tongue had he; On the banks of Allan Water, None so gay as she! "On the banks of Allan Water, When brown autumn spread his store, There I saw the miller's daughter, But she smiled no more! For the summer grief had brought her, And the soldier false was he; On the banks of Allan Water, None so sad as she!" "Nay, nay, Lady Vera, a libel on the soldier," a voice cries over her shoulder. She springs up wildly, with a startled cry: "Captain Lockhart!" CHAPTER XVIII. It is Philip Lockhart, indeed, towering above her, tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, as if her yearning thoughts had embodied themselves. Lady Vera cannot keep the joy out of her voice and face.