Tales and Sketches.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 37, 7 October 1871, Page 15

Tales and Sketches.

HAMILTON BROTHERS [FROM THE ARGOSY.]

We did not think it worth while to light the gas, as we were going out again. So we sat and talked in the fire-light, Frank and I, just as we had sat and talked a hundred times before in the busy backward year, which we two brothers had spent together. But tins evening, for the first time, we talked without dropping into that utterly restful silence, which only those can enjoy who understand each other well; perhaps, indeed, only those who love each other dearly. It had been a busy day, but for me its work had been light in anticipation of the pleasure the evening was to bring. It was Lettice Oldfield’s birthday, and we were to keep it to-night at the Dome House. I had been walking all day, yet when the pencilled cross was put against the last name on my list of town patients, I entered our quiet sitting-room, feeling nothing of fatigue or hungry; feeling only that, after an hour’s rest, the chief joy which the world held for me would be mine—l should be with Lettice. But while I sat opposite Frank, and watched the firelight playing on his face, slowly there crept into my heart something that was as far deeper than fatigue or hunger as our thoughts were deeper than the idle words we spoke —a feeling which I vaguely knew must be pity — but whether for myself or Frank I could not tell.

Suddenly looking up, Frank met my eyes fixed upon his moody face, and running his fingers lazily through his curly hair, he laughed; but his laugh had notits old warm careless ring. ‘ How well Bent seems to be getting on out in Melbourne, Max,’ he said. ‘ His letter to you is filled with his own prosperity.’ ‘lt seems to me merely written to ask if you could send him out au assistant,’ I answered, speaking lightly; for I did not want to-night to hear Frank complaining of our lot. He had lately got into the way of seeming discontented with the struggle of his life, and I had failed in every argument with him. Half our time and attention was taken up by our dispensary duties, which brought us in just eight pounds a year; and only very slowly and gradually could we make our own practice in Redbury. So, knowing Frank loved the old town dearly, and had chosen his own profession, I felt there was nothing for us to do but to struggle on ; and he was weary of hearing me tell him that. ‘Of course you do not know any assistant to send out to Bent,’ Frank said turning his eyes to the fire again, and speaking with slow petulance. ‘ The poorest young surgeons of our acquaintance are Hamilton Brothers, and, thank Heaven, we have not yet fallen quite so low as to exile ourselves voluntarily as drug mixers to Bent. I would not change quarters with him for any consideration, but I fear I envy his success. You must own, Max, that it is hard fighting here.’ *So it is everywhere, in any profession, just at first,’ I answered, quietly. ‘ There is but one thing we can do. However small our income, we can live down to it, and work hard to increase it. That, I take it is the secret of success, Frank. Now, do not let us think about these things to-night. Why should, we take gloomy faces to the Dome House, to greet Lettice on her birthday ?’ ‘ You never will think seriously about oiu’ poverty,’ Frank replied without offering to move ; his head bent in the carressing firelight, his gaze deep in among the ruddy coals. ‘ But I think of it seriously—aye, and hopelessly, too—day and night. How am I to —marry on such a pittance as we possess now.’

Very slowly the burning crimson rose to my face, though no eyes could see it. ‘We can talk of that,’ I said, as gently as I could, ‘ when you want to marry.’ ‘You speak as if we were boys,’ he answered impatiently. ‘ I am more than five-and-twenty now, and Lettice is eighteen to day. Isn’t she ?’ ‘ Yes. Eighteen to-day.’ The words were uttered clearly in the silence, but my own voice sounded unfamiliar to me. I tried to read his face, but my eyes arched so sadly in their eagerness that I raised my hand and covered them. ‘ You see, Max, if I had a good practice,’ Frank went on, still without looking up,’ I could propose to Lettice at once ; and we might be married in—a year, say, at least. But as matters stand the thing is impossible. Now isn’t it hard to know this, longing as I do to win Lettice for my wife ?’ ‘To win Lettice for your wife P That is your hope, Frank ?’ ‘ Yes. How oddly you speak! I suppose you feel at last that it is hard to wait and struggle ?’ ‘I could wait very patiently and struggle very hard, with such a hope as that.’ ‘ But I cannot,’ he answered, peevishly. ‘ I love her so sincerely and so eagerly that waiting is a fearful trial.’ The firelight flickered and faded a little. Frank lay back in his low chair, his head still bent, his eyes still tracing out his thoughts amongst the coals. With a heavy pain at my heart I watched his fair face, and tried to grasp the great intangible sorrow which surrounded me. ‘ Frank do you feel that waiting is a trial, too, for —her?’ ‘I know what you mean,’ he answered slightly pausing. ‘ Yes, Max, I think so.’ ‘Do you know it ?’ I questioned in a low voice, whose sadness touched my own heart, and he answered with no pause at all. ‘ Yes, Max, I know it.’ Again it was I who broke the long silence, and again my own voice almost startled me. ‘We have so little time to-night that we will not begin to talk of this. Another day we can look at your chances of marrying.’

_ ‘So preciously little they are,’ he muttered rising as I did, * that looking at them won’t take us long. Frank was standing in the gaslight at the door when I joined him. At the sound of my step, he turned his bright handsome face, and laughed.

‘ You have been longer dressing, Max, than lever knew you; yet—by Jove! how white

and—odd you look. ‘ I havn t boen qmte aU this time dressing,’ I answered lightly. 1 have been doing a little book-keeping and reading over Bent’s letter again, and making un my mind.’ ‘ The last an elaborate process, evidently,’ lie laughed, as we walked through the quiet streets together. ‘To what fashion have q you made it up to-night?’ ‘I have made up my mind to go out to Bent. lo what?’ • Frank was standing still on the pavement, his one detaining hand upon my arm. His eyes filled with a great incredulous astonishment. ‘ What are you saying, Max ?’ ‘ Simply what I mean, old fellow. Come along, and walk off your surprise. X want a change, and a change holding out some prospect of success. Why should I not seize this opportunity ?’ ‘ But —you take me so fearfully by surprise,’ stammered Frank. ‘ Why, you are a far cleverer surgeon than Bent; you to go and be his servant. You must be mad.’ ‘ Then all the more need of change for me,’ I said, laughing slightly. ‘ But how is it ? You have always been so fond of this town. Your friends are all here.’ ‘1 will try to make others there.’ ‘ I say again the proposal seems madness, Max. What on earth has made you form this strange, sudden resolution ?’ ‘ Many thoughts,’ I answered a little wearily. ‘ I feel it is the best thing for me.’ ‘ But I believed you never faint-hearted,’ Frank persisted. ‘ Where is your favorite axiom that ‘ Each unto himself his life can fortunise ?’ £ More than even in my heart to-night, dear fellow. I fancy the fortunising will be easier to me there than it —can be here. Now, let us forget business for a few hours. Here we are at the Dome House.’

We stood under the bare old lime-tree, which iu summer shaded the doorway, and my hand was on the bell, when Frank stayed it, and spoke a few words in unusual earnestness. ‘ Tell me one thing, Max, before we go in. You do not decide to leave here for my sake —because I have so often complained that our practice is not sufficient for two ; and because you know I want to marry, and cannot do so as we are ? You would not leave your home, and your friends and me, and go out to drudgery for that reason, Max ? I shall not be comfortable unless you tell me that you do it for your own sake.’

Knowing that my going would spare me one great pain which, in my cowardice, I shrank from I answered him with a quick ‘ Yes ;’ pulling the handle of the bell sharply as I spoke, that he might not have time to reply. But before we entered the hall he laid his hand softly on my shoulder, and whispered, ‘ I always trust implicity to your better judgment, Max, and I always will.’ And from that moment I felt that the way lay straight and smooth before my brother, and that even he himself could see no shadow on it.

How distinctly, through a long, dark vista of lonely years, do I see the dainty, white-clad figure of the dear, bright little friend who was mine hostess on that last night! How distinctly coidd I afterwards recall every word and smile of hers, though never before had it been pain to me to watch her and to listen to her, as it was upon that birthday night. We drank her health in true old-fashioned style ; and, after Frank’s impetuous loving speech, my words were cold and slow. And yet —and yet the unacknowledged and unanswered love that filled my heart was stronger than his. I felt it was so, even then, while she thanked us both so shyly, with the soft, bright blush upon her cheek. I knew and felt it even more surely still through the long years when the bright young face was only a

memory. Frank and I soon followed Lettice from the dining-room, leaving Mr Oldfield there alone, as we always did, with the tacit understanding that he could enjoy his forty winks just as comfortably as if he had no guests. Before the fire, in the pretty gas-lit drawing room, knelt Lettice, watching laughingly —and yet I thought a little wistfully—a row of nuts placed on the lower bar of the grate. Her little sister, a pretty, spoilt child of eleven or twelve, was holdinghertiiere, andlaughing gleefully as the nuts cracked or blazed. ‘ That’s me !’ she cried, after a small explosion, looking mischievously up at Frank, who had hastened forward, and was kneeling now upon the rug beside the girls. ‘ You love me better than you love Lettice, Frank; and I and Lettice love you just about the same.’ ‘ Amy,’ I anxiously inquired, bending my head over hers, that I might not' see the eager, impassioned contradiction of Frank’s eyes as they met Lettice’s ; ‘ which of these martyrs at the stake represents me ?’ ‘ This one, Max,’ the child replied, delightedly.: ‘You burn so slowly, and so coldly. You don’t care much about either of us. Does he, Lettice?’ ‘Ho,’answered Lettice, quietly, looking up into her sister’s face, but not beyond. ‘ Then if that other martyr represents Lettice,’ said Frank, bending eagerly to watch the nuts, how does she burn, Amy ?’ c Oh, very oddly, indeed,’ answered Amy, with important deliberation. ‘ She cares just the same for all of us. It’s a most tiresome tiling when a nut does that. There’s no fun at all in it, is there, Max ?’ ‘ This ceremony is a mystery to me,’ I laughed, as I kissed the small lips ; ‘but I know why Lettice’s nut burns in that unsatisfactory manner. Of course, as she will not believe in its prophesy, it will not prophesy truly for her.’ ‘But they do prophesy truly,’ replied Amy, ‘ if you burn them quite properly, as I was taught in Scotland; two together. Shall we do it now, Lettice ? I’ll burn you with Max or Frank, which ever you like to choose. You choose Frank before ; will you choose him this time too ? and I’ll be with Max. I could not help a swift, intent glance into her fate; and while I did so, her eyes, pure and -clear, met mine without drooping. Then she answered Frank’s joyful, entreating question with her pretty low laugh. ‘ I think I have-been martyred sufficiently, especially considering that it is my birthday, and I ought to be treated well. Amy, ring for tea. Max,

she said to me, as she rose, ‘ Do you know you are reading too hard ? I see it m your to-nio-ht.’ She was standing close beside me, and as she raised her bright young face to me, so earnest in its kindness, yet unders an. g me so little, my heart beat with a keen pam m every throb. ‘ So I tell him,’ put in Fran , * but he is determined to do it. He has ma up his mind to be a great man, and i ® e only kind to remind him constantly tna ambition is fated never to be realised. uc in this is as necessary as skill, and we a } tons never had a stroke of luck m our yes. ‘ In that case, why do you trouble yoursed to aim so high, Max ?’ asked Lettice, with quaint gravity for my answer, know,’ I answered, my words coming wi i effort. “ ‘ Who aims at the sky shoots hignei far than he that means a tree. es ’ know,’ she said once more raising her warm, happy eyes to my cold stern face. ‘ And wins his aim always, shooting as Herbert mean * How was that ?’ asked Frank. ‘ ‘ Pitc ing his behavior low, his projects high,’ quo Lettice, softly. ‘ Don’t you think, Max, that the first is far harder to do than the second. ‘ I certainly don’t see how hard reading is to help him in either,’ put in Frank before I had time to answer. ‘ Nor do I,’ she replied, with a bright, sudden laugh, as she turned to him again, ‘ and I appreciate your motive in trying the opposite course. You do not read hard ; do you, Frank ?’ ‘ No. Very easily—when I read at all. But then I do not want to be a great man. I merely want to win a happy, easeful home, and —my wife.’ . I do not know how he could have said it; his eager eyes forcing their tale of love upon her as she stood there in the pitiless glare.. I spoke hurriedly; in a light cool tone which told nothing of the strange pain I felt in every word. ‘ The fact is, Lettice, Frank cannot understand my last new whim —which is to go out to Melbourne to join an old friend of ours. And this was how I told her ; on her birthday night. I who had worked, and hoped, and waited, for the fulfilment of that one bright dream which now lay shattered into fragments in the pretty, cheerful room. ‘ Amy, run and fetch papa to tea, dear.’ ‘ What do you think, Lettice, of this new project of Max’s ?’ asked Frank, laughingly, as she moved by the teatable. ‘ Is it high enough ?’ ‘ I think, said Lettice, taking her seat, and softly moving the cups upon the tray without looking up at either of us, ‘ that it is not high at all. But if Max thinks it is, I suppose he does well to carry it out.’ Just then Amy, who had earned a pair of gloves from her father in the dining-room, led him in with a face full of pride and conquest. ‘ Max,’ he said, looking curiously at me as he settled himself comfortably with his back to the fire ; ‘ what’s this the little one tells me ? You are surely not thinking in any seriousness of going abroad ?’ ‘ I have decided to do so, sir, indeed; as soon as Frank and I can arrange matters here.’ ‘I cannot believe it. Why, if my own daughter had suddenly told me she was going I could not have been more astonished. What can have decided you? ‘ I have learnt by experience,’ I said, trying to force a laugh, ‘ that Redbury is unfortunately too healthy a place to support so many doctors.’ ‘ Besides which,’ added Mr Oldfield, laughing too, ‘ you have also learned by experience, that its inhabitants are those terribly wise people Dryden speaks of, who depend on exercise for cure, and take long walks instead of doses. Well, this is of course, as we all know, a darkened age, Max; but I doubt whether you will find it. much ligher in Australia. I know that I would not care to break up my old home and my old friendships on the chance. What do you say, Lettice?’ ‘1 suppose, Max,’ she said, looking up at me with a little gentle smile upon her lips, ‘ that this is the way you have chosen for fortunising your own life—according to your old idea that each does it for himself.’ ‘ Yes, Lettice; this is the way I have chosen,’ I answered, taking my tea with a hand which never shook, though its pulse beat wildly. Frank and I walked home that night very silently. I think we had never before passed along the narrow, quaint old. streets after an evening spent with Lettice, without talking oi her, and of the home she made so bright and happy. But when we entered our own silent room we both hesitated, as if unwilling to separate so. ‘ Max,’ began Frank. at last, stooping down to push a spill into the smouldering fire, ‘ this house seems dreary enough to return to even with you. What will it seem, I wonder, when you are gone ? ‘ It depends on who shall live here then, dear fellow,’ I answered. ‘No house whpre you and Lettice live could be dreary in any way. I could see the scarlet rush into his face even before he lighted the gas. Then .he turned to me with joyous eyes; and leaning on the chimney piece asked me laughingly when I would come back and prove that for myself. ‘I will come,’ I said, quite cheerfully, ‘ in—let me see—in twenty years, perhaps.’ ‘ Oh, nonsense, Max,’ he cried, m his quick earnestness unconsciously laying one hand upon my arm ; ‘ you will come for my wedding.’ ‘ For your wedding ?’ I echoed, as if the words spoken so simply had bewildered me. ‘Frank, does she really love you. ‘ Why, Max, old fellow, I never saw you so nervous before. Are you afraid that I am deceiving myself —or that she is deceiving me. ‘ No —never afraid of that. You know she loves you, Frank ?’ ‘ Yes, Max, I know it. ‘ Then I will come—unless you marry within ten years’ time.’ . Frank’s whistle of astonishment broke into a hearty laugh. “ A nice little waiting time you allow us, Max. We shall certainly have had leisure to think it well over.’ ‘lt you don’t marry until then,’ I went on, laughing too, ‘ I will come. If you do, you must have your big brother represented ; and I will come to you for a holiday in ten years’ time. . -ten years !’ mused Frank, ‘ what a weary time to look on to, unless one is anticipating a luippy future.’ ‘ As you are, dear fellow,’ I inter-

rupted hastily. ‘ Now let us go to bed. This has been a long day, and to-morrow brings its own work. Good night.’ ‘Remember, Max,’ said Frank, in his generous, off-hand way, as he took my hand, ‘ I do not take your half of anything without repaying you its full value, though I may have to work off the debt by degrees, and not one farthing, of our savings do I touch.’ ‘All right,’ I said, laughing a little, although my eyes were growing dim, ‘ I will take sufficient for all my expenses; but you can never be my debtor. We both start fairly. I am going out to fortunise my own life ; and you are staying at home to fortunise yours. We will both do our best, and then—however little it may be —it will be well done. Good night once more.’ Day after day, until the very last hour came, had I shrunk from bidding farewell to Lettice. Then I just went to her, as I . had gone many and many a time before, standing and chatting idly in the pretty room where we. had often been so gay together. ‘ If Frank is to diive here for you in time to catch the express, you allow us a very short time indeed,’ said Mr Oldfield. ‘And yet it is a long good-bye,’ added Lettice, jestingly : ‘ you are not coming home for a long, long time ; are you, Max ? ‘ Fiank and I have made an important arrangement about that,’ I answered, trying to jest too, because I fancied she would understand what he had asked me to do. ‘ I am, going to stay ten years unless he wants me. . ‘ If he does not want you, you prefer staying out there?’ ‘Yes. What prospect is there of any one else wanting me ?’ ‘I suppose none,’ she answered quietly, ‘ as you say so; but we shall all be glad to see you when you return. Not that you will care for that either, for. you care for nothing, you know, except fortunising your life.’ Her words, in their quiet, simple scorn, stabbed me to the heart. ‘That is a wide word, Lettice,’ I said, ‘and a word which even yet I have not fathomed.’ ‘ But you expect to do so in Melbourne ?’ ‘ I hope to.’ With an odd little laugh she changed the subject; and very soon Frank drove up to the gate. Mr Oldfield and Amy went out and stood beside the dogcart talking to him, while I followed more slowly. Lettice came with me, and stood a minute under the bare old lime tree, with the sunshine on her bright young face. And I—looking down upon her —knew that this picture would dwell in my heart through all my lonely life. Her jesting scorn was all gone now; only her eyes were a little puzzled, and a little sad. ‘You will be quite happy, Max,’ she said, ‘with that happiness which makes others happy too.’ ‘Tell me how, Lettice, I cried, the strong and passionate love of my heart trembling in my voice. ‘ Tell me how to win this happiness.’ ‘ I cannot,’ she .answered, softly. * I cannot teach you what you know so well.’ ‘ Lettice,’ I said, ‘ my one dearest friend, this is the last moment. Give me some few words of help to take with me as a sister would have given them to me.’ Very softly, while her clear, sweet eyes looked bravely into mine, she whispered the little verse which has been ever with me since, and has helped me often as her voice could help me in these far-off days. ‘ There is a cross in every lot, And an earnest need of prayer ; But a lowly heart that leans on God, Is happy everywhere.’ From the gate I looked back wistfully to where she still stood under the winter branches, and she smiled one bright, quick smile, and ran in. Then I sat down beside. Frank, and Amy sprang up, and gave me, with tear-filled eyes, the only kiss among all my sad good-byes. Later on, in the frosty winter morning, we two brothers, who had been together all our lives, parted on the deck of the great waiting vessel, with only a few broken words, and one long, close, lingering hand-grasp. 11. ‘ The ten years are passing, and you must keep your promise, Max, and come.’ I read the words over and over again. It was not yet ten, but over seven years since I had set foot in Melbourne, and in every letter Frank had sent me through those long years I had expected him to tell me what he had told me at last. Yet, now that it was told, the lines seemed to swim before my eyes, and my fingers would not write the glad and congratualting words I wished to send him. ‘ Now that my reward is come,’ he wrote, ‘ I claim your promise. We only delay our marriage for your ari’ival. Max, old fellow, you would have felt happy for me indeed, if you had seen how willingly Mr Oldfield gave my darling to me. I had been a son to him for years, he said; I could hardly be nearer when I was his daughter’s husband. And now my cup of happiness will be full when you come. How soon can you be home ?’ I broke off once more —going back and back ; hardly brave enough even yet to look on beyond that going home. ‘ Why should I go ? I thought; leaning my head upon my hands above the untouched paper. ‘ They are happy without me. They have all they need; a full content at last; and I—if I go —go only to return again alone, bearing the old hunger in my heart. Why should I suffer that pain again—now when it has slept so long ? Must I see her again and open the old aching wound ? I hoped that the struggle was passing when we stood together in the frosty sunshine, and she whispered her parting words. Yet I promised —and I will go.’ So, upon a bright spring morning, Frank and I met once more in England ; and tired with a tiredness which I had never felt before in all my life, I rested that evening in my old chair beside the cheery home fire ; striving to look back joyfully into my brother’s beaming face. It hardly looked older for the seven years we had spent apart, but it was changed wonderfully by the happiness which seemed to overflow his life. How could it have been otherwise ? I thought. What might not my

own listless face have been if ? ‘ You are very tired, Max,’ said Frank, in his quick, glad tones. ‘ A little ; but I was not thinking of that. I was thinking how utterly content you look, Frank.’ ‘So I ought to, ought I not ? because lam so utterly content. Do I look changed in any other way ?’ ‘ No, none.’ ‘ You do, Max,’ he continued a little thoughtfully. ‘ You look—l can hardly tell k ow _ as if you had been living much longer than I have, and yet I don’t mean that you look much older. You are just as you always were, I think ; and yet you look as if you had lived a great deal in those seven years—if you can understand. But indeed you must have been working to some purpose to have won yourself a name as you have done. What will Bent do now, without you ? for you are never going back, Max, never. I suppose he lias earned a fortune by now as he said he would ; if he has not, he ought to have done with such a partner ; and he . must keep up his practice alone. Mine has increased so greatly that it can only now be carried on by Hamilton Brothers. Max, old fellow, does not the old name sound more winning to you than that of the new firm out in exile ? But I will not urge this to-night, he added, almost as if he could read what pain the though gave me. ‘So I look utterly content, (do I ? yet I have had trouble too. You ought to say you see the traces Max.’ ‘ What trouble has it been ?’ I asked. ‘ A trouble of five years ago, Max,’ he answered quietly ; ‘ a trouble I never felt that I could tell you in a letter. AYhen I first asked Lettice to be my wife she —refused me, Max. I feared so Frank,’ I said, so low that he stooped forward to catch the words. ‘ I feared so from your silence at that time. But never mind dear fellow, as it has ended so brightly.’ ‘No I don’t mind now one atom. It has. ended so brightly, as you say. You are too tired to go out this evening of course, Max ? but as I promised to run in, and tell them all of your arrival as soon as I had brought you safely to Redbury I will just go across for a minute or two, if you don’t mind.’ ‘ I will come with you,’ I said, and rose at once. It would be less hard now than it could ever be again. It seems like a dream to be walking once more at Frank’s side, along the shadowy streets; and still more like a dream to be entering unannounced the pretty familiar room, where Lettice sat alone at the window, sewing in the twilight. ‘ Lettice,’ cried Frank, in gay eagerness, ‘ here’s Max.’ I was standing opposite her looking down upon her with still, calm eyes; the grave elder brother of her affianced husband. She dropped her work and put her two hands into mine in quick, glad greeting ; and I spoke to her just as I knew Frank would wish me to speak to her; watching all the while his face as well as hers. She was changed more than he was. The face that had been almost childlike in its sunny beauty was a woman’s face now ; deeper and graver, but infinitely more beautiful, I thought, as I saw its old bright, sunny smile still there. She looked up at Frank, a wonderful light shining in her eyes. ‘ Now you have all you wish, Frank,’ she said. And I felt tlxat she was as happy in his love as he was in hers. I stood beside them, talking and laughing, in genial tones; hoping that she could never guess how hardly I had schooled myself to this. Presently Frank passed out through the open window, and Lettice, looking after him, raised her eyes questioningly to me. ‘You think us all changed, I suppose, Max. Even Frank?’ ‘Yes,’ l answered, absently. ‘But you have not seen Amy yet, she went on, smiling. ‘ She of course is most changed of all. Frank is gone to fetch her, I fancy. He says she is like what I was at her age, but that is only his pleasant flattery, for she is very, very pretty.’ I followed her words dreamily, wondering whether it could really be seven years since Lettice and I had stood talking to each other last; while I felt how impossible it was that the little one whom we had all combined to pet and spoil could be at all what Lettice was in those old sweet days. ‘Frank seemed to know exactly where she would be,’ Lettice went on a little nervously I fancied in my silence. ‘ You remember the low old seat under the lilacs, Max? Amy is as fond of sitting there as —as I used to be when I was her age. You used to say too that you loved to rest there on a summer evening; but you have been away so long, doing so much, that those old memories will be all buried now ?’ ‘Yes. They are all buried,’ I answered, feeling the scarlet mount into my face to contradict the coolness of my words. She smiled a little wistful smile, which had a strange brave tenderness in it. ‘I too have lived seven years since then, she said: ‘ but the old memories are dear to me, Max; and I would not bury them for all the world.’ * Because it is so different with you and me,’ I faltered. ‘ I —l think I have no courage left. How long Frank stays.’ I see them in the lower garden now.’ she answered, gently, looking away from me as I struggled with my pain. ‘ How quickly Amy would have run into greet me in Die old times.’ I said, speaking once more as I had schooled myself to do; only that a little bitterness would creep into the tone. ‘ Yes,’ laughed Lettice, softly, ‘ but she will not come this evening without Frank. She has been quite timid about your return. She ncskpfl mp to-dav if you would think Frank had chosen unwisely because she is so much younger than he is; so ignorant and untired, she said.’ In the bewildered, breathless silence winch followed Lettice’s words she looked up at me : deep shadows gathering in her eyes as if she too felt the agony of the doubt and hope winch stirred me. ‘Do you thing Frank has chosen wisely, Max, in taking my little sister?’ she asked speaking plainly the truth, which she knew now that I had never heard. ‘ Lettice —■ Lettice iB it so?’ I stammered, my fingers tight upon the chair below me, and my heart beating wildly. ‘ Yes Max,’ she answered, ‘it is so ’ And I knew that she could read the

whole story of my deep and lasting love written in my quivering face. ‘ And you Lettice ?’ * I,’ she answered, in a bright, low tone — { I have waited.’

Then I covered my face hurriedly; for boyish tears had overflowed my eyes in the untold joy of this surprise. ‘ Max,’ she whispered, her gentle touch upon my arm, ‘ I thought that you knew this and had come home for their sakes.’ ‘No ; not for • their sakes,Lettice; for Frank’s and yours.’ ‘Why for my sake ?’ she asked, tears shining in her own eyes as she looked brightly into mine. Then low, and brokenly, I told her of my love; the long, hopeless love which would not die. And at last she answered, with her little gentle hands on mine, and a deep true gladness shining behind the tears. ‘ Max, dear Max, I am very glad I waited.’ ‘ Max,’ said Frank that night after we got home, ‘may I have the old plate put back upon the door?’ We both laughed at the idea, for Frank was Dr Hamilton now, and I had half-a-dozen letters after my name; but we took a candle and went off at once to find it. Frank—sitting down and taking it upon his knee —brushed the thick dust from it quite tenderly ; while I, leaning over his shoulder, read the letters as he cleared them.

•“‘Hamilton Brothers” ! It does not do, Frank; and yet thank God for the truth it tells. We are brothers still; we will be brothers to the end.’