No woman could ever lacerate the captain's heart as that letter did. Since he is to obey, ho will obey with a good grace—cheerily given, is twice given ; and with Eleanor for his wife, and croquet and afternoon tea ab an end for ever, surely he will bo an ungracious dog, if he is nob happy. At present tho slops, and the balls, and mallets are part of his duty as a wooer, and Dick Ffrench believes in facing his duty without flinching. Every day his admiration for Eleanor becomes ixiore profound; it is a liberal education to converse with her. And then sho is so jgood, so pure, so earnest, so true. ' 4 A man should go up a ladder to look for & friend, and down a ladder to look for a wife,' says the cynical old axiom, but ■Richard Ffrench ha 3no grain of cynicism in him, and does not believe it. MentaUy, he holds a man's wife should be his equal; morally, his superior. Veneration is an essential element in his love ; Miss Charlton commands homage and esteem wherever Bhe goes. If a man cannot bo happy as her husband— Lying on his back, on the grass, his hands clasped under his head, 'lu3 eyee on the sailing clouds, Dick breaks off here. What right haa he to think sho will over accept him ? Ia it likely that so charming a girl has reached three-and-twenty with her heart un touched? He doos not like the idea of leasing for lifo a heart that has held former lodgers, and been swept and gar nished after for him. Dora's sting has not rankled ; he is the most unsuspicious of human beings; her little- poisoned shaft has fallen harmless, and M>s Charlton has told the governor, who hae told him that it would be all right. Confound the old lady, Dick thinks—it is crushing the bloom off Im poach, it is desecrating what should be sacred to Eleanor and himself, this vulgar match making. Is not the uncertainty, the 'doubt, the hope, tho despair, half tho! dolighb of wooing ? No word, no look of here, has ever held out the faintest hope; the smile that welcomes his coming speeds his parting ; Bne is as aerenoly unconscious of his trans parent meaning as that star up yonder, tremulous in the blue. 