which another train-this time London-bound-rushed out from the tunnel, and roared past them. While the noise was

still at its height-"Did I not hear the bell ring?" inquired the engraver, to whom the greater sound was so familiar as almost to pass unnoticed.

"Yes, father; it is Richard," was the quiet reply.

The old man rose from his seat with a hopeless look. That she should know his very ring, seemed to convince him that her love was fixed indeed upon this good-for-naught.

"Do you know what he is come for, Maggie?" said he bitterly. "He is come to ask you to marry him, because he knows that to-morrow he will be a beggar!" With that he walked hastily into the room and thence upstairs, only just in time to avoid the expected visitor.

CHAPTER II.

WRITTEN IN THE SAND.

MAGGIE rose, as if to follow her father, and avoid the coming interview; but, while she stood in doubt, a quick step was heard in the inner room, at which the colour rose in her white cheeks, and her bosom rose and fell tumultuously, in spite of the hand with which she strove to repress it.

66

'Why, Maggie, I thought you had flown!" cried an eager voice; "and yet, where should my pretty bird be found but in her garden!"

The speaker was a young man of five-and-twenty or so, and strikingly handsome; he was of medium height, and somewhat robustly made the sort of figure which, unless its possessor is careful in his habits, is sure to develop into corpulency; his face, too, though fair and comely, was of that florid hue which soon grows to a deeper tint than would be chosen by a painter to depict even the healthiest complexion; his voice, though distinct enough, had already acquired that roughness which is associated with the constant use of stimulants. But his hair, which was brown and soft and curling, and eyes blue and tender as the summer sky, might have suited Apollo himself.

Maggie was not in the arbour now, but standing in the sunlight, with, for aught Richard Milbank knew to the contrary, a hundred pairs of eyes regarding her from the surrounding houses, and yet, had she permitted him, this audacious young

fellow would have kissed her then and there. She stepped back, however, from his embrace, and held her hand out, not so much in greeting as to keep him at a respectable distance.

"Why, Maggie darling, what's the matter?" inquired the visitor, a little discomforted by this rebuff. "Come into the arbour, dear, and tell me why you look so cruel."

"I can tell you here, Richard, quite as well," answered Maggie, as coldly as she could. Apollo had already dazzled her, in spite of those recent warnings, and of her own resolve, made but a minute ago, that she would not be dazzled. She had but just determination left to decline his invitation into the arbour, in which retreat she knew he would have got the better of her at once.

"I am not cruel, Richard, nor even cross; but I am much displeased to see you in coloured clothes, with the only relative but one you have on earth lying dead in his coffin."

"I am sorry it frets you, Maggie; but I can't wear black for a man like Uncle Thurle, who had never a good word for me, nor a good wish."

"Don't say that, Richard, for I'm sure it is not true," answered the girl rebukefully. "His manner may have been unpleasant to you"

"Gad, it was!" broke in the other, with a contemptuous laugh.

"But he certainly did not wish you ill, Richard; far from it. If he could have seen you more diligent in business, and dutiful, and steady"

"I beg your pardon! I thought I was addressing Maggie Thorne," interrupted the young man apologetically; “instead of which it is her father, it seems, who is giving me one of his admirable lectures!"

"It would have been better for you to have listened to them, Richard; but you will listen to nobody."

"Yes, I will, Maggie; I will listen to you-when you are

speaking, that is, in your own proper person; and what is more, I will obey you."

"Then you will get mourning for your uncle's funeral to-morrow, and wear it."

"To hear is to obey, Maggie; it shall be done. I know an establishment at which discreet young men deal for ready money, where ready-made clothes are to be bought. I will go, not to its 'mitigated grief department,' but to its 'most inconsolable woe ditto,' and furnish myself with a suit of sables. It will go against the grain with me, I promise you, but it shall be done. The length of my hat-band and the depth of my weepers shall shame John himself. If crocodiles' tears could be purchased, I would even shed them to please you; but I have reason to believe that my brother has bought up the entire stock. It was about to-morrow that I have come to speak to you, Maggie," added the young fellow, dropping his light tone, and speaking with emotion. "In four-and-twenty hours my fate, you know, will be decided."

"Indeed, I do not know it, Richard. Men's fates are decided for them, as I believe, by their own conduct; else what would be the use of fighting against fate? Supposing even that your uncle should leave you nothing "

"A very reasonable supposition indeed, Maggie! That is, I suspect, exactly what he has left me-bating some excellent advice, and perhaps a shilling to buy a rope with, or a razor."

"I say, even in that case there is no need to despair of your future, Richard," continued the girl firmly. "You have youth, and health, and wit enough, though you waste it on flippant jokes."

"It is her father!" mused the young man gravely.

"That

is his style beyond dispute, yet I never saw a man with such a pretty foot."

'Richard, you are incorrigible!" cried Maggie, beating

the praised foot upon the gravel impatiently; "and I have half a mind to dismiss you altogether from my heart!"

"If you have half a mind to keep me there, that is all I can hope for," answered the other penitently, "and a great deal more than I deserve. O Maggie!" cried he, throwing out his arms, and speaking with passionate energy, "do you suppose I am blind to what I am and to what you are? Do I need your father's arguments, or any man's, to convince me of the ruin that I have brought upon myself by my own folly? It is the consciousness of all that that makes advice and reproof intolerable to a fellow like me. What is the use of crying over spilt milk? What can the most reckless do, beyond giving his honour not to spill any more? I do give it-I came here to give it—not to your father, who once told me he would not believe me on my oath-but to you; I came to throw myself on your mercy "-they were in the arbour now, for he had seized her hand and drawn her thither, and she had not resisted. "I have erred and sinned; yes, sinned, my girl, beyond anything that your pure heart can dream of; but I repent me of it all. The confession is humiliating enough, and you will not make it more bitter, as others would do."

"Heaven knows I will not make it more bitter, Richard!" sighed Maggie, keeping him at arm's length still, and averting her eyes from his pleading face.

"But is this remorse genuine-is this true?' you would say," interrupted the other eagerly. "It is true-it is genuine! I have made a false start in life; or, rather, I have gone the wrong side of the post, Maggie, and lost the race that way; but all this may yet be retrieved. If I had some one to love me, and to guide me, I am sure it would be retrieved. Your wise head would keep me straight; your loving arms would restrain me from evil ways. I don't know what will happen to-morrow. The old man may have relented at the last, and