mark on their visitor; "he seems a gentlemanly, clever man. I only hope he is not letting his talents run to waste with his love of moving. I trust there is some object in his journeyings, besides the search after enjoyment."

Constance thought, too, a little of him, though she did not say much, and they met no more.

The day before the Montrevors left London, Ada called and spent some hours with Constance. She, too, was about to return home, but Constance noticed with joy that she did not seem to shrink as much as formerly from the trials that awaited her there.

She told Constance that she felt braced and strengthened; Aunt Mabel's words would often recur to her mind, and she thought everything would be easier to bear now.

Constance thought for some moments on their different lots, and then said, "Do you remember our talk the first morning that you stayed with me at Elvanlees in the spring. I remember thinking then, and I do so now, that yours is a much safer life than mine. You have been struggling against, and I have been floating down, the stream. Sometimes for a little time I seem able to realize that this life is not meant only for enjoyment, but then again with amusement and excitement the thought quite vanishes, and it seems like a bright summer's day without a cloud, and I have no recollection of anything but the passing hour."

Their conversation ended abruptly, for before Ada had responded to Constance's words, the carriage,

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with her mother and sister in it, called to take her home. They parted with the mutual hope of soon meeting again.

That evening Constance and Aunt Mabel had one last long talk, and at the station next day they parted: Constance and her father set off for Rockwood Castle, Aunt Mabel returned to Elvanlees.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Brave conquerors! for so you are,

That war against your own affections."

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

N a calm, lovely evening about a week before the

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party left London, the sun was setting most gloriously, shedding its warm, rich glow over the park at Elvanlees and the surrounding country, whilst stretched on the ground underneath the old Scotch firs, on the hill-side, lay Eustace, his head resting on his hand. An open book was on the turf beside him, but his eyes were not upon it, but fixed on the golden clouds. There was a sad, worn expression on his face, making it look older than it had any right to do, and ever and anon he passed his hand over his forehead, and then shaded his eyes with it, as if he would close them, the better to collect and concentrate his thoughts. The words "If it ought to be overcome, I can and must overcome it," were murmured forth: Oh, how weak I must be to find it such a terrible struggle!" and as they were said, he roused himself from his position, and then starting up, paced hastily up and down, and again words were murmured,-"Dreaming will not do it."

When Eustace came down from London, his father quickly saw something was amiss with him, and longed to get him to open his heart, where hitherto there had been no secrets from him; but though Eustace

longed too to speak, he could never summon resolution to do so; but in an indirect way proposing cases to his father and gathering his opinion, he gained an answer to the perplexing doubts and desires that would ever arise, telling him that perhaps, after all, there was no need for him so entirely to banish hope from his mind. But it was an answer that extinguished all hope. Perhaps his father's eye, quickened by affection, detected the secret struggle, and judged it better to allow no lingering expectation to protract it; for his answer was given even more fully and decidedly than Eustace's questions demanded, and it made him clearly see that to both his father and uncle, any attempt on his part to win his cousin's affections would cause great sorrow and discomfort. His eager, anxious look, so different from that which any imaginary case would have called forth, only confirmed his father in his suspicions, and his heart ached at the thought of one so young having to commence life with a struggle which would cloud for long the bright joyousness of youth, even granting, as he earnestly hoped, that in the end he came off victorious. "And yet," he argued with himself, "I am wrong to grieve over that which may deepen and strengthen his whole character, and powers of endurance and self-command."

There was a struggle in Eustace's mind this evening, as he continued his restless pacing to and fro,—one of the many struggles that must take place in every mind that striveth for the mastery, ere the victory is gained; struggles that depress and agitate the whole inner man,-in which the contest is so prolonged, and the

enemy in the camp so clamorous to be heard with his deceitful counsels, and success so doubtful, that even if the hard-won fight is crowned with victory, there is no strength left to rejoice; but, trembling and exhausted, the poor combatant casts himself down, feeling only the strength of the powers that are against him, and the weariness of the strife, and tempted to say, "How little ground is gained by all this desperate wrestling, how much yet remains to be overcome!" Yet not so; strive earnestly at the first, let not the enemy triumph at the onset, and far harder contests will seem but child's play, for the warrior will be inured to the discipline and hardship.

Eustace had agreed to meet Harry Sedgeleigh in London, before they set out on the foreign tour which was to occupy the whole of the long vacation; and the longing was strong upon him to go up at once and see Constance again, but the resolution which he had made, to avoid temptation, held him back. Fierce was the combat between duty and longing desire. He was come to one of the turning-points of life. How much would depend on the issue of this contest; how much of the tone of his whole future life would take its colouring from this one decision. Joy for him that, in a strength not his own, resolution stood firm, and was not driven from its stronghold. The letter was written and sealed that night which decided that he would remain at home till the day his uncle and Constance left London for Rockwood Castle.

The days that intervened between this decision and