wall, her long curls falling neglected over her shoulders, her hands clasped, and the book open on her knee, she was gazing on it or vacancy, she did not know which, nor cared.

A footstep quick and hurried passed under the balcony, and the next moment Leonard's quick voice asked the servant below for "Ellen Middleton." He had left it in the drawing-room and it was not there. Jessy did not move, why should she? The colour came and fled from her face, and her heart beat high; she listened to the retreating sound of that footstep now loud, now low as it came and went, as we listen to the distant flow of waves in the night, each one of which may bring to land the boat which bears one we love and long for. The footstep came along the passage leading to the balcony, and Leonard burst in. Jessy did not move, yet her eye fixed on Leonard that searching anxious look which woman only can give, and of them those only who truly love. "O, Jessy, are you here? Do you know where 'Ellen Middleton' is; we have forgotten it, have you seen it?"

"O yes, I have it here," said Jessy pointing to the book and smiling.

"O never mind, Jessy dear! I will go and fetch another; how I wish you were with us, the day is so lovely and everything looks so gay." A tenderness of manner and tone, and the way in which his eyes were fixed on her so bright with their speaking intelligence, brought back on the instant to Jessy's heart and manner that quiet and happy life which drooping flowers show when through a spring afternoon the warmer

sunshine has cherished their brief being into colour, strength, and radiance; and then each opening petal baring its sweet bosom to the ray, with leaf expanded and with odours breaking out on the kind air, the little nursling pours forth its strain of gratitude to its guardian beam, as if nothing could too largely pay its debt of grateful joy to its benefactor. And what on that fleeting instant would not Jessy have given Leonard for that look, that word of love. The pangs of the past multiplied a thousand fold, the anguish of the melancholy loneliness of the last few hours, all, all were nothing now; the flower was rising on its stem full with life and light and glory.

She did not move, but her speaking eye told the unuttered story of her bursting heart.

"O well I mustn't wait, there's Bushey church clock striking eleven. Cicely will be so vexed. I must go; I will take 'Mary Barton' off the drawing-room table. Good-bye, Jessy, dear." And he was gone, and his footstep rapidly echoing on the velvet turf and the distant gravel-walk.

And Jessy was again alone and "Ellen Middleton" lay at the same page before her; and Bushey clock had struck twelve, and Jessy still was there.

O how chilling to the flower is the dark cold hailstorm which evening brings up when eternal sunshine seemed to have dawned upon it. You know it, reader, who have stooped to gaze upon the lowly blossom.

"Jessy, Jessy," cried the voice of Mr. Seymour, "where are you? Dear child, why do you sit out here with nothing on and the cold October air so raw ?" said

her affectionate father, as he found her sitting where Leonard left her.

Coming, dear papa," said Jessy smiling, "coming directly," and she rose, carried "Ellen Middleton" back to the drawing-room, and took Mr. Seymour's arm. "How beautiful these dahlias are, my child, I wish Potten would give us some of those pale yellow ones, gardeners are so fond of the purples and reds."

"Yes, I will speak to Potten and ask him to beg Mrs. Matson's gardener to give us some more of the purple and red ones, dear papa ;" and Jessy and Mr. Seymour went on their October walk.

But I have been dwelling long on a retrospect.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE BATTLE OF BALAKLAVA.

TO-DAY Leonard was in one of those more pensive and saddened moods in which the memories of the past come over us with gushing sweetness and something of sadness. The effect of his wounds, the re-action from the excitement of battle, the illness of Dennis, the general awe which hung over the events and scenes around him, made him think more than usually of home, and among the bright forms and eyes which looked at him through the soft mists of the distant and the past, were those of Jessy Seymour. It was evening and he was alone; Dennis was lying sleeping in Leonard's tent,

The evening was still and quiet, and for a few hours the activity of the siege had subsided. He was by himself and he mused on the past. Death might be near, how near? How many a poor fellow who had come out flushed with hope and expectation, now lay cold and still by the banks of the Alma, the last chance of penitence gone, and their eternity settled!

Eternity came before him with startling awe, and he grew cold and his heart beat as he thought of the endlessness of the other world. In that wild instant anything which felt like home, background, repose, refuge seemed happy to him; some scenery which would not slide and shift with the changes which started up before him. Home was that. Jessy, especially she was home; so trusting, so confiding, so full of love to him, so yearning yet so diffident. "Oh, Jessy, how could I ever undervalue your kind, your tender love to me.” Then she came before his mind as he imagined her in her room at the parsonage, or alone amid the merry group in the hall, her mind absorbed in him, and her affections all winding round him, so that the very idea of one of the tendrils being forcibly severed was akin to madness.

He seemed astonished that he had not been more conscious of his love. He took from his bosom a letter of hers which he had always kept, and read its words which seemed to come from no usual love, and as he read it, his heart glowed towards her in a way in which it had never before. "Oh Leonard, what shall I do now that you are gone? I dare not think of the long, long, uncertain future. I shall fit my little room up

with everything to speak of you; your books, Leonard, on my table; your marks left in The Deserted Village;' your own copy of 'In Memoriam,' shall always lie in the same place. I hope I do not worry you with all this, do forgive me if I do; you do not need, I daresay, to write so much as I, but you know I am different, I must tell all I think and feel, for I cannot be always thinking all alone. You need not read my long letters, if they are too long, more than once, or even that if you have not time. But still I had rather write it all. Only think the first thing dear old Mrs. Tilly said to me when I went in the other day, was to ask if you had been hurt at the Alma. I hardly thought she had memory enough to put the two things together. But she called you, 'Dear Mr. Leonard,' and talked about you to me I cannot say how long. That little kitten which you gave me is growing fast, she wears a red collar which I have made her, and she sits on a stool at my feet, and when I cannot go on reading or writing and get tired of looking out at the grey tower, I talk to her and she has learnt to look up at me and I think she knows your name too when I speak it. I wonder when you will return!" Yes, every line, every sentence was of him. Leonard closed the letter and placed it where he had taken it from. He had got back to his tent, and in his saddened and affectionate mood sat down to write to Jessy. Poor Jessy! what would she not have given to have got that letter. But she never had it, an accident hindered its reaching England, or what might it not have saved!

But it was written, and it was such as man can write