I'll see you into your cab, Beryl, and then we'll turn our faces river wards, Flo.' They passed through the porch to gether, and a cluster of the pale Mal maison roses, bent downwards by a pas sing breeze, touched Florence's brow, and then rested for a second on her un covered hair. Archie put up his hand and snapped the branch asundei*, and with a jesting word flung it carelessly aside. Years afterwards Florence found a spray of withered crumbled roses care fully enshrined in a- sandal- wood box, a silent meliieiit'o of a day which four persons never could regret, she the least of all. * ■* * * •* The summer flowers bloomed and faded, and the green leaves mellowed into orange and brown ; the winds swept fiercely around the cottage, and finally winter, asserting her sovereignty, donned her ermine mantle. Huge fires blazed in. the rooms at Riverbank, making them more comfortable and home-like than ever. Florence's uncle had arrived in Scot land, and his advent was expected daily. He was coming to take her away, he wrote, and delayed only until he should find a suitable home for her. His working-days were over now, and the evening of his life, he determined, should be spent in a style worthy of his ancestors. The home he was seeking must be a fair man sion standing ma spacious park and shaded by noble trees. Henry's child was to reign supreme over his establishment ; and, when he went the way of all men, all would be hers. She would marry some day, he knew, and then her husband must come and live with them. His had been a cheer less, loveless life, but a young voice and gentle hands would be near him now till the end. Archie Oliphant's studio door had been closed for months. Beryl gently remonstrated on the score of dust, and latterly begged that a servant might be admitted in the morning to light the fire ; but he was firm in his resolve that no living creature should enter till his work was finished. So he toiled on through the long cold hours, till the shadows fell aslant on the canvas and his stiff fingers refused longer to hold the brush. Christmas Day was close at hand, and its happy dawn was to see the completion of his work. 