Bylow Hill

est and nearest friend, mother,--he and Ruth and Godfrey, together and alike. We've so agreed, Arthur and I. Oh, I'm not going to come in here and turn the sweet old nickname of this happy spot into a sneer."

"Then why are you not happy, precious?"

"Happy? Why, my dear, I am happy!"

"With touches of heartache?"

"Oh, with big wrenches of heartache! Why not? Were you never so?"

"I'm so right now, dearie. For after all is said"--

"And thought that can't be said"--murmured Isabel.

"Yes," replied the mother, "after all is said and thought, I should rather give you to Arthur than to any other man I know. Leonard will have a shining career, but it will be in politics."

"I tried to dissuade him," broke in the daughter, "till I was ashamed."

"In politics," continued Mrs. Morris,--"and Northern politics, Isabel. Arthur's will be in the church!"

"Yes," said the other, but her whole attention was within the fence at their side, where a rough stile, made in boyhood days by the two brothers an