eh? I shall take the privilege of the season.'

He caught up a bit of mistletoe, and holding it over her head bent down and kissed her.

It was the first time he had ever kissed her, and it should have been pleasant therefore. But it was not. As he drove away toward the station he recalled it again and again, but with an uncomfortable feeling, a self-reproachful dread.

Shall I tell you why? Because, when he stooped down to kiss her, she had not turned her head away or tried to escape. She had raised her face calmly and innocently and met his lips with hers. It was so simply and trustfully done that there was nothing unmaidenly in the action. It shocked him because it was a revelation-in that kiss she had given him her heart. He felt he was a villain. He had won the poor child's affection by false pretence. He had blighted her happiness merely to gratify his vanity; for of course, as he kept repeating to himself, there could be nothing between them, their stations in life were so very different.

The line between the station at which he entered the train and that near Sir Ranulph's seat ran close to the village of Bishop's Climstoke, and as he was whirled rapidly by it, and recognised many a familiar spot, his heart grew sad to think what evil he had wrought in that quiet hamlet, and to the poor trusting girl who had given him her heart.

Before long, however, he found himself at Sir Ranulph's hospitable mansion, where, in the pleasure of meeting Walter and in the jollity of the season, he soon forgot his remorse, and dismissed the subject of his cruelty from his mind.

It was a thoroughly old-fashioned Christmas, kept up in the regular oldfashioned style. When the Yule log that was drawn in by a party of mummers was laid on the capacious hearth, and began to blaze, it was not only the sap that hissed. There were big flakes of snow coming down the wide chimney, and they sputtered and steamed as they fell on the hot log.

A week passed pleasantly enough, and perhaps only too quickly. It required all Brandreth's resolution to make up his mind to tear himself away and get back to his books. His difficulty in doing so was not decreased by the fact that his friend's only sister, Edith, showed a decided partiality for him, which Walter was only too delighted to foster, and upon which

Brandreth could not help fancying neither her father nor mother looked with any displeasure.

However by a strong effort he resisted the spell, and on the day after New Year's Day found himself in the train on the return journey to Bishop's Climstoke. As he passed the village, the recollection of what had happened when he left it came back to him again vividly. He could not help reproaching himself for his attentions to Edith as a treason to Rose. And yet, after all, how could that be? Rose and he were so differently situated, it was absurd to think of anything serious between them!

But when he arrived at the farm he found the Dimsdales in sore distress and tribulation. Rose had gone that morning early to visit her grandmother in the next village, which lay four miles off across the moor. At mid-daythough Brandreth had been too much occupied with his thoughts to notice it -there had been a blinding snowstorm of long duration, and Rose had not yet returned. They had waited and hoped until the lateness of the hour had driven them to acknowledge the fear that they had not ventured to hint to each other -she must have lost her way in the snow!

The whole village was out in search of her, but the moor was a wide one, full of gullies and watercourses, and the peril was extreme, the Dimsdales said.

Almost before they had finished speaking Brandreth had seized his hat and stick and hurried out. He did not know the moor at all, but he felt that he would find her. He must find her or die, he said to himself, and then wondered what this violent feeling meant.

He could see lanterns moving about on all sides, and heard at intervals one party of searchers shouting to another. He strode on in darkness and in silence.

His ignorance of the moor did what the villagers' intimate acquaintance with it failed to do. They searched on and about the different paths. went blindly on, now plunging into holes, now falling over ridges.

He

At last the ground seemed to open under him-he felt himself falling into space. He could scarcely smother a cry. But the sensation had been deceptive-he had merely plunged into a watercourse. But as he turned to scramble out again he saw a shred of grey cloth in the snow. He knew itit was Rose's cloak. He threw himself on his knees, and began madly tearing the snow away with his hands.

The examination arrived; and when the list came out the name of Brandreth, Carolus, e Coll., Sti. Guth.,' was in the First Class. He took his degree, and in another term had arrived at the height of his ambition-a fellowship. But somehow all his success failed to make him happy. He had lost his pleasant old smile, as his friend Walter complained, and then wondered whether his old chum Charley was wretched to think he had not proposed to Edith, to whom the young Earl of Marston was now paying suit with apparently every chance of suc

cess.

So the year having now come nearly to an end-Walter determined to ask Brandreth down once again for the Christmas. Who knows,' said he to himself, but he may cut the Earl out? He shall have my assistance anyhow I'

He could not prevail for some time upon his friend to accept the invitation; and it was not until he declared he should interpret his refusal as a desire to bring their friendship to a close, that he got Brandreth to promise to come. But even then he would not come an hour earlier than Christmas Eve.

So Brandreth made his arrangements for the journey. And then the recollection of the same time last year, and of the Dimsdales and dear old Bishop's Climstoke, came back to him fresh and bright. In a gracious mood he sat himself down, and wrote to old Dimsdale, wishing him and his family the compliments of the season. And then, just as he was closing his letter, something came over him, and he added

I shall be able to utter the wish almost within your hearing, for I am going down by the evening mail on Christmas Eve to spend a short time at Sir Ranulph Carew's.'

You may be sure the letter was a pleasant surprise at Dovecote Farm. For the simple-minded old people never connected Charles Brandreth with the sadness and gloom that had come over Rose, that had stolen the colour from her cheeks and the light from her eyes, and that made her sigh and go heavily, like one weary of life. They only thought of him as the preserver of their darling; and they fancied the change in her was due to the shock she had received when she was lost in the snow.

Why, dame!' said the farmer, brightening, "tis a letter fro' our Mr. Brandreth.'

'A cursed jackanapes!' came in a growl from a dark corner.

The farmer turned-it was only

Black Dick, as he was called in the village, an ill-favoured lad, not many degrees removed from an idiot or a brute. He used to hang about poor Rose, much to her horror, making a display of slavish admiration for her that was almost revolting.

'What's wrong wi' thee, Dick?' said the farmer.

"A thrashed oi onst-on'y for carr'in a bit misletoe in ma pocket to catch Rosey wi'!'

Serve you right too!' said Mrs. Dimsdale, who shared Rose's loathing for the creature; and what says Mr. Brandreth, father?"

'He's coming down here to stay 'long of the Carews, and 'll wish us a merry Christmas as he passes along the line o' Christmas Eve by the mail train. Here's a merry Christmas to him, eh, dame ?'

Mrs. Dimsdale heartily joined in the wish; and then they began to talk of his stay at the farm, and about Rose's rescue; and they did not notice the malicious grin with which Black Dick stole out of the kitchen after hearing the news contained in the postscript of Charles Brandreth's letter.

'Cursed jackanapes!' he muttered to himself, as he went pounding across the frosty meadows in the direction of the railway; who but he 'as bruk Rosey's heart? Who but he 'as teuk the maid away from oos honest village maates? An' a thrashed oi too! But I'll be even wi' un !'

III.

There was no moon on Christmas Eve, but the stars were bright in the frosty sky, and the reflection from the thin sheet of snow that had fallen in the morning reflected what little light there was.

The throb and rattle of the train that rushed so rapidly along, bearing him towards Bishop's Climstoke, seemed to fall into a regular rhythm, and his imagination, heated by remorseful memories, seemed to supply it with words

Ruthless traitor! Ruthless traitor!' The words rang continuously in his ears. He could not shut them out by reading. They were like the sounds that repeat themselves with such maddening monotony to a man in delirium. He was positively grateful when he recognised by certain familiar landmarks that he was approaching Bishop's Climstoke. He opened the window and leant out. Still the train hurried on. Now he could see the tower of the church. He was getting near the village

Ah! what was that? Some black object moving down the side of the embankment a little way ahead. The engine-driver must have seen it, for hark! there is a warning whistle.

All of a sudden the tone of the whistle is changed. It becomes a shriek, as of terror. There follows a tremendous grinding of breaks hurriedly applied till the sparks rush from them in a stream. Then arise cries of alarm. And then, over all, a crash-the train heaves like a wounded snake; the carriages seem to fall into splinters. A grinding, crushing roar-the bellowing of escaping steam-the hissing of water flung upon live coals! All this compressed into a minute's space; and this the last thing of which Charles Brandreth is conscious!

Those of the guards who are uninjured set to work to learn how the accident rose, and to extricate the passengers. They find the line has been blocked with several sleepers and uptorn rails, which have thrown the engine off the track. It has been overturned in its fall. Stoker and driver have both been thrown some distance, and lie dead or insensible-it cannot be clearly ascertained which just yet.

But there's some one under the engine, for all that! They can hear a faint moaning. Whoever it is he's as good as dead, what with being crushed, and burnt, and scalded, all at the same time. They extricate him.

It is a young fellow, apparently a farm labourer. It is promptly conjectured that he is the person who placed the obstruction on the line; and when the question is put to him, he does not deny it. Just at that moment they are carrying past the apparently lifeless body of one whose dress seems to indicate that he is a clergyman. A ghastly red cut across the face heightens its pallor. The bystanders acknowledge with a shudder the presence of death.

The wretched author of the calamity grins a terrible grin, half of agony, half of triumph.

I be done for-but I ha' killed un! -I ha' killed un, for sure!'

And with that he falls writhing, and dies like a crushed viper.

And just then a big burly figure comes pushing through the crowd.

'Mr. Brandreth! Mr. Brandreth! Are you hurt? Where are you, sir? Have ye any o' ye seen a clergy'

And then he catches sight of the dead body, and all he can find breath to say is, 'Oh, my God! he is dead!'

VOL. XVII.-CHRISTMAS NO.

IV.

But Charles Brandreth was not dead. Better he had been,' he thinks when, after a long lingering recovery from the worst, he learns from the doctor that he is hopelessly disfigured, and that he will be a deformed cripple for life!

He shudders and turns away from a gentle hand that is laid on his shoulder -oh, so softly! It does not put him to physical pain, but it racks him with mental torture. For there is the ghost of poor Rose-the spectre now of the pretty girl he knew-waiting on him, tending him, nursing him, patiently, devotedly, unwearyingly. But somehow he feels there is a barrier between them. Not the cruel old barrier of pride that he had built up. In his humiliation, in the silent hours of waking, in the constant school of pain he has learnt to see clearly now. The barrier is none of his raising. It is interposed between them by Rose. If he were the merest stranger, she could not keep him more coldly at a distance with her face emotionless as a mask, and her demure 'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir!'

He prays for death: but he feels that he will live. And the thought of what life means to him now is unendurable.

One day when he is, as he supposes, alone, he complains aloud, reproaching himself for the past.

'I blighted her life, and mine is darkened! I killed the prettiness in her face, and mine is made a horror. I deserve it and yet it is sad to think of the doom the doctor passes-a disfigured, deformed cripple for life!'

And then suddenly he feels two arms round his neck, and a shower of kisses on his forehead, and he hears Rosie's voice sobbing: 'My darling!--my dar ling! Yes, I dare to call you so nowmy own! my own! Dearer to me now than ever!-doubly dear, for they will not steal you from me now!'

'Merciful heaven! what have I done to deserve this?' he gasps.

And from that day he begins to mend fast!