"Geordie does n't seem a favorite of yours, Mrs. Hazard,” said the Doctor, when the two young men had withdrawn, and Joey was bustling about again in the fire-light.

"No, that he is n't, to be plain!" exclaimed the worthy woman. "A vagrant fellow that my boy picks up in the foretop and fetches home here, brought up above his place as any one can see with his words and ways, what business has he to play the common sailor? nobody knowing his beginnings nor able to guess his endings, -no reverence in him, never quiet two minutes together, as great a gypsy as ever boiled his pot across two stolen sticks, to my mind," said Mrs. Hazard. "And that's what he is!"

The Doctor laughed. "I suppose you'll forgive me, though, if I go and join the scamp with my cigar? said he.

he fell to swallowing scissors, penknives, and thimbles, and producing them all again out of Lucian's pock

ets.

"Mrs. Hazard," said he, at last wearying of his accomplishments. "I am going to bring my mother to Netherby next week. She's been in this country some time. Will you see to her, now and then?"

"Your mother?" she replied, with a little start. "Bless me! I did n't know you had one!"

"Yes," said Geordie, briefly, snipping then with the scissors. "I was born of woman. Perhaps you will think me less of a reptile now?" he added, with his quick look.

"Lord, Geordie Romilly, you're as sharp as a needle!"

"A thorn in the flesh," said Geordie. "Then you are going to make Netherby your home!" exclaimed Joey.

"That's as it may be," said Geordie, looking at her, his boldness half changing to bashfulness. "Would you?" "O, how pl-"

"Joey!" was the cry from Mrs. Haz

low once a year, at all odds," added he. "I sha'n't say but what it would be pleasant to have you to come home to, too, Joey."

"Yes," said Joey, innocently. "I never should be happy out of Neth-· erby. There, that 's done!"

"Done, is it? Then I'll try my luck first, or shall Jouvency?”

"O, Lucian's too busy for such play," said Joey.

Lucian, who was carving jackstraws for Joey's fair, across the table, only kept his teeth shut tight over his lower lip, and allowed himself neither look

nor answer.

Joey gave the Fate-lady a twirl, and both she and Geordie bent their heads

together over the little couplet on which the wand rested:

"In hazel eyes

Your picture lies."

"I wonder if it does," said Geordie, looking up at her. But Joey was adjusting this pivot on which fortune turned, and did not mind him.

"Let's see how that may be," continued Geordie, and he set the poor Fate-lady spinning again till she might have been giddy.

"How can you expect an oracle from such a teetotum ?" asked Joey, fearing damage.

"The poor thing's head must be turned, you think?" replied Geordie. "Now what is it?"

"Fear not, but put your fate to the touch;

That man wins little who never dares much."

"A knowing young lady. How can she tell that I have a fate to put to the touch? What would you do about it, Joey?"

"That man wins little who never dares much,'" replied Joey, concisely. "Cross your palm with silver, my pretty lady," said Geordie, "and I can tell your fortune as well as another."

"My fortune's told!" answered Joey, shortly.

"Third time lucky," said Geordie, with a final twirl of the cardboard. "We shall get quite a code of signals for our instruction."

"If she blushes when she sees you,

Be assured she 'd like to please you."

"Look up here, Joey," whispered he. "Is it the fire or the Fate-lady on your cheeks?"

Joey's face did redden, but only at his whisper; she was as white as before in a minute, and laughing her little laugh, that was hard to interpret, turned it full upon him.

"A lover and your blushes," then said Geordie, "is like the centurion and his servants; he says to them, Come, and they come. He has his very slaves in the blood in your veins. If I were the lord to command that color!"

"You bold boy!" whispered she in return. "If mother heard you!"

But there was no danger from Mrs. Hazard just then; for, having secured the Doctor for the night in a concentration of many calls in one, she was making the most of her opportunities, dilating upon her present diseases, and amassing a pathological fund for the future ones. Meanwhile the Doctor was answering at stated intervals, keeping the thread of her discourse, which a long similar passage made familiar, and with an ear and an eye to spare for the little farce of Joey's lovers.

So Joey put away the doll of destiny, and began to lay the jackstraws nicely together in a box, and Geordie, murmuring impertinent things in his subdued tone to her, amused himself by snuffing the candles the while, and all at once snuffed them out. In the instant of darkness that ensued before the glow of the fire filled it, the Doctor thought he saw a powerful hand reach suddenly across the table, seize Geordie's fingers in a grasp that shook the snuffers from them, and a click resounded from the chimney as they dashed upon it in two fragments and fell among the logs. Directly afterward Joey flourished a little torch about, lighted the candles; but all her efforts failed to find the snuffers, and only showed her Geordie standing and leaning one hand upon the table, and flashing his eyes across it. For a moment he seemed undecided, he glanced toward the door, then took his resolution.

"I owe you a reminder, Mr. Jouvency," said he, and pushed his seat nearer to Joey's, and, laying his arm unreproved on the back of her chair, fell into the old tone, laughing or earnest as it might be, but inaudible to the others.

And Joey, apparently with a vague impression that Lucian had done some savage act, smiled upon Geordie with her white face, replied in the same key, allowed him the satisfaction of tearing her handkerchief to ribbons and making it whole again, and printing a deuce of hearts upon it, tried on a ring that he slipped from his finger, did twenty atrocious things in as many minutes,

and all as if there were not another soul in the room than themselves. Towards the close of those twenty minutes the Doctor looked at Lucian; he still sat there carving at the tiny splinters, dark, silent, but with all his strength unable now and then to keep from quivering with his self-contained wrath; and at last, as if positive personal pain were easier borne than this, he lifted the thin sharp blade, and gashed across the back of his hand from end to end.

With a step the Doctor arrested the knife. Joey gave one shuddering look, - she was of the kind constitutionally faint at sight of blood, — leaned back in her seat and shut her eyes. Mrs. Hazard flew to the rescue with her handkerchief, which had not been made subject to the deuce of hearts. As for Geordie, "It is only a scratch," said he lightly. "But you teach one, Jouvency, that it's dangerous playing with edge tools. Miss Joey, you should be binding up your brother's hand."

Perhaps Joey would have touched a scorpion sooner after that, — Lucian was no brother of hers.

"How could you be so careless?" said she in a trembling voice. “You shall make no more jackstraws for me." And she swept them all away. "It is lucky that the Doctor happened to be here," then said she. "Now, as soon as that is dressed, I am going to play Christmas eve and make eggnog; sha'n't I, mother? You won't be a stern prophet, Doctor, and threaten us with bilious horrors and dyspepsias, will you?"

The Doctor confessed that he was in the habit of purchasing an eggnog with a nightmare once a year.

"You can't beat it now, Lucian," said she, coming and standing beside him a minute, and puckering her little mouth as the Doctor bound the bandage, and made enough stir about it for Lucian to regret his ill-advised measure. "So Geordie 'll have to," concluded she. And having at last set every one at work, she fluttered about among them all like a little white butterfly, and did nothing.

So a lively time they had of it, and, out of all patience at length, Mrs. Hazard plainly signified what it was no use at all to hint, and Geordie began to institute a search for his hat, while Joey went and raised a sash to let a cool current of air through the room that was at a red-heat.

“Ah, what a night!" said she. “Too dark to see one's hand. A howling wilderness and raining brooks! And there's a wind to take you off your feet. You can never reach home in it all, Geordie!"

"We'll see," said Geordie.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Hazard, going to the window where Joey was, and putting out her hand, and drawing it in as if she had burned it." I should n't like to turn a dog out-doors on such a night—"

"Thank you, Mrs. Hazard," laughed Geordie.

"Don't you be so quick, sir," said she. "I was going to say, there are two beds in Lucian's room up stairs; and he 'd be glad of your company."

"Not he!" was the reply.

"You are mistaken, Geordie," said Lucian, slowly, as if he exercised some command over himself, yet growing cordial as he spoke. "I can't set you adrift in such a gale. Share my room, old boy, and you'll have the rain on the roof, it's a long time since you heard the sound."

"And will be longer before I do! I hate a roof; it stifles me. I must have my walk to the inn, if only to drown out my devils. It's nothing but turning out of a warm bunk to stand my watch. Thank you all, and good night"; and he plunged out into the darkness and down the hill.

Contrary fellow," said Mrs. Hazard. "One never knows where to find him. There's the gypsy again. I'll be bound he 'd rather sleep under a fence in a pelt of rain than in the best down that ever was plucked. If his mother was n't a high-born dame that ran off with one of the tribe, I never 'll guess again! Now, Joey, take your light.

The Doctor'll think it no wonder we 're all sick here. It 's hard on eleven. Lucian, show the Doctor his room. I hope you'll sleep well, sir; there 's not such another bed this side the bay, though I say it; as fluffy eider as ever feathered a nest." And with this cheerful promise to one who had as lief be raked up in coals as in feathers, she bade him good night.

The Doctor's room was on the groundfloor, in an ell of the long rambling cottage, and opposite one of the windows was the shed, all one side of which was open to the weather; and soon hearing a quick, sharp 'sound there, it occurred to the Doctor to look out, and, distinct against a lantern's light, his glance rested on Lucian splitting kindlings, although there was a stack of them beside him. "Working off his vim," thought the Doctor,-"do him good," and went on with his preparations. But in a few minutes, having extinguished his own light, just as the good man was about to lay his head on the pillow, his eye was again caught, and he saw the young athlete standing erect, his head thrown back, his arm uplifted, and the hatchet whirled and glanced through the air like a meteor, and was buried to the helye in one of the side-posts of the shed. Then Lucian came out into the unroofed space, and stood in the black rain that poured upon him from open heavens, fiery and fierce; and the Doctor fancied that he could no less than see the hot breath shoot in its swift jet from the disdainful and angry nostril. There was something about the struggling fellow that the Doctor felt he had perhaps no right to see, and he silently dropped his curtain. "Alas, my man," thought he, "the temper that, being restrained, requires such vent as this, will one day betray you to a desperate deed!" But Lucian stood there till the storm must have cooled and soothed the fever of his passion; for it was several minutes before the Doctor heard his retreating step, slow and heavy, as if virtue had gone out from him, while the gleam of the lantern slid across the cornice and vanished, VOL. XXI.NO. 124. 13

and left the place dark and still save for the rush and rustle of the storm.

The next morning it was clear and fine, the great clouds were drifted over by the west-winds, and piled in pearly battlements along the east; one could still hear the sea lashing the crags of the Tusks, but everything on shore was sparkling, fresh, and fair. In good season, Geordie came up, leading the horses for Joey and himself to accompany the Doctor round the head of the bay.

"I thought you were going, Lucian," said his mother.

"No," answered Lucian, mounting Joey, "I've other work to-day."

Joey looked at him a moment, half hanging back, then sprang into the saddle, tucked her short skirt about her, and set her horse to dancing.

“Well, I don't blame you,” said Mrs. Hazard in reply. "If there's anything ridiculous, it's a sailor with both feet plaited together under the girth! Look at him now, as if the nag meant to throw him!”

"Geordie has ridden the bowsprit in too many a black squall, mother, to be thrown by a hack to-day," said Lucian ; and as he spoke the three waved their hands and rode off together.

And the Doctor's private opinion of Geordie that morning was, that, if today he was sailor, yesterday he had been first rider in the ring, and had now got the whip-hand of Joey.

Except the single time that he was called over to visit Mrs. Romilly, - one of those little pale women that appear fragile as a flower, while they cling to life with a thready vitality of stem that neither suns nor snows impair, and who perfectly justified the theory of Mrs. Hazard concerning her, being quite that shadowy nonentity which vanishes entirely before a stronger will, -except for this occasion, when he found Miss Joey wearing the willow and taking care of her, that was the last the Doctor heard of the Netherby people, till one day he dropped the paper as he would have done a live coal, crying out, "Great Heavens, wife! here is Lu

cian Jouvency up for the murder on shipboard of Geordie Romilly!"

And the next day the Doctor received a polite summons himself to attend the trial, and tell the world what he knew of Lucian Jouvency, his hate of Geordie, and his love of Joey. And the Doctor required no one but himself to "curse him the blabbing tongue" that had once laughingly mentioned to his old friend, the prosecuting attorney of the case, the trouble that pretty Joey Hazard was brewing for him.

After the Doctor had anathematized Elizabeth for receiving and introducing the summons, he hastened to ascertain on what point he was expected to testify, and in his vexation he was ready either to expatriate himself or to feign a brain-fever, since in everything but delirium he could be waited upon at his home for testimony; but to say nothing of the critical condition of one or two of his patients, the prosecution had seriously threatened to shut him up that moment, unless he promised to be in attendance as required. "For," said the lawyer, "if the man is innocent, it must be proved. If he is guilty, you have no business to shelter such a villain from justice, and put fresh lives in danger."

"No," said the Doctor, glumly. "It is my business to put them out of danger."

"As it stands," continued the other, "it is a case I don't care to handle."

Then the Doctor proceeded on a reconnoissance to Netherby. He found Mrs. Hazard in a fine condition of bodily health, real troubles having choked out her fanciful ones; but she was walking the floor from night till morning, or sitting fixedly staring at the green boughs in the chimney-place, in a state of excitement that was scarcely less than insanity.

"He was the light of my eye," was what she kept saying. "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. But when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.' But Lucian, my boy Lucian!"

Netherby, from his mother down, found some reason to believe in Lucian's guilt. He had never been a favorite of the village, a moody fellow, rocking all day out alone in his boat, or clambering over the hills with his gun, they were ready to impute much to this unsocial disposition. Every one but Joey; she went about her work more quietly, indeed, than ever before, doing all that there was to do, and a great deal that there was n't. "Yes!" thought the Doctor, "it is absolutely necessary that she should keep busy; let her sit down to think and there is this boy, like a brother, with his life and his innocence hanging on a thread, and all for her and her naughty capers. She could never be so calm as this if she cared about him. Yet the other one is gone, and where are her tears? Be hanged myself if I can understand a woman!" But if the Doctor's expression bordered on levity, it was because his heart was so full of trouble.

Before the Doctor went, Joey told him how they had first heard of the terrible affair. They were sitting without candles, she and her mother together, expecting Lucian, and watching each leaf shake white and cold in the moonlight, when a step sounded on the doorstone.

"That's he!" cried Mrs. Hazard, springing up. And before Joey could contradict her, the outer door was opened, and then the inner one, and a little woman stood before them with only a shawl thrown over her head, and it was Mrs. Romilly, but white and weird in the moonlight as some angry ghost.

"Where's my boy?" cried she.

"Who?" said Mrs. Hazard. "O, they 're coming in a minute. I'm expecting Lucian with every breath I draw."

"Expecting him! expecting him!" repeated she, shrilly. "But where 's my boy? Where is Geordie ?"

"Where is Geordie?" echoed Joey, wonderingly, for there was something in the woman's voice that frightened