RUBY comes into the drawing-room one afternoon to find the facsimile of the photograph in Jack’s pocket-book sitting with Mrs. Kirke there.

“This is our little Australian, May,” the elder lady says, stretching out her hand to Ruby. “Ruby, darling, this is Miss Leslie. Perhaps Jack may have told you about her.”

“How do you do, dear?” Miss May Leslie asks. She has a sweet, clear voice, and just now does not look half so dreamy as in her photograph, Ruby thinks. Her dark green frock and black velvet hat with ostrich tips set off her fair hair and delicately tinted face to perfection, and her blue eyes are shining as she holds out her hand to the little girl.

“I’ve seen your photograph,” Ruby announces, looking up into the sweet face above her. “It fell out of Jack’s pocket-book one day. He has it there with Wat’s. I’m going to give him mine to carry there too; for Jack says he only keeps the people he likes best in it.”

Miss Leslie grows suddenly, and to Ruby it seems unaccountably, as red as her own red frock. But for all that the little girl cannot help thinking that she does not look altogether ill-pleased. Mrs. Kirke smiles in rather an embarrassed way.

“Have you been long in Scotland, Ruby?” the young lady questions, as though desirous of changing the subject.

“We came about the beginning of December,” Ruby returns. And then she too puts rather an irrelevant question: “Are you May?”

“Well, yes, I suppose I am May,” Miss Leslie answers, laughing in spite of herself. “But how did you know my name, Ruby?”

“Jack told her, I suppose. Was that it, Ruby?” says Jack’s mother. “And this is a child, May, who, when she is told a thing, never forgets it. Isn’t that so, little girlie?”

“No, but Jack didn’t tell me,” Ruby answers, lifting wide eyes to her hostess. “I just guessed that you must be May whenever I came in, and then I heard auntie call you it.” For at Mrs. Kirke’s own request, the little girl has conferred upon her this familiar title. “I’ve got a dolly called after you,” goes on the child with sweet candour. “May Kirke’s her name, and Jack says it’s the prettiest name he ever heard, ‘May Kirke,’ I mean. For you see the dolly came from Jack, and when I could only call her half after him, I called her the other half after you.”

“But, my dear little girl, how did you know my name?” May asks in some amazement. Her eyes are sparkling as she puts the question. No one could accuse May Leslie of being dreamy now.

“It was on the card,” Ruby announces, triumphantly. Well is it for Jack that he is not at hand to hear all these disclosures. “Jack left it behind him at Glengarry when he stayed a night with us, and your name was on it. Then I knew some other little girl must have given it to Jack. I didn’t know then that she would be big and grown-up like you.”

“Ruby! Ruby! I am afraid that you are a sad little tell-tale,” Mrs. Kirke says. It is rather a sore point with her that this pink-and-white girl should have slighted her only son so far as to refuse his hand and heart. Poor Jack, he had had more sorrows to bear than Walter’s death when he left the land of his birth at that sad time. In the fond mother’s eyes May is not half good enough for her darling son; but May’s offence is none the more to be condoned on that account.“I must really be going, Mrs. Kirke,” the young lady says, rising. She cannot bear that any more of Ruby’s revelations, however welcome to her own ears, shall be made in the presence of Jack’s mother. “I have inflicted quite a visitation upon you as it is. You will come and see me, darling, won’t you?” this to Ruby. “Ask Mrs. Kirke if she will be so kind as to bring you some day.”

“And I’ll bring May Kirke too,” Ruby cries. It may have been the firelight which sends an added redness to the other May’s cheeks, as Ruby utters the name which Jack has said is “the prettiest he has ever heard.”

Ruby escorts her new-found friend down to the hall door, issuing from which Miss Leslie runs full tilt against a young man coming in.

“Oh, Jack,” Ruby cries, “you’re just in time! Miss May’s just going away. I’ve forgotten her other name, so I’m just going to call her Miss May.”

“May I see you home?” Jack Kirke asks. “It is too dark now for you to go by yourself.” He looks straight into the eyes of the girl he has known since she was a child, the girl who has refused his honest love because she had no love to give in return, and May’s eyes fall beneath his gaze.

“Very well,” she acquiesces meekly.

Ruby, looking out after the two as they go down the dark avenue, pities them for having to go out on such a dismal night. The little girl does not know that for them it is soon to be illumined with a light than which there is none brighter save that of heaven, the truest land of love.

It is rather a silent walk home, the conversation made up of the most common of common-places—Jack trying to steel himself against this woman, whom, try as he will, he cannot thrust out of his loyal heart; May tortured by that most sorrowful of all loves, the love which came too late; than which there is none sadder in this grey old world to-day.

“What a nice little girl Ruby is,” says May at length, trying to fill up a rather pitiful gap in the conversation. “Your mother seems so fond of her. I am sure she will miss her when she goes.”

“She’s the dearest little girl in the world,” Jack Kirke declares. His eyes involuntarily meet May’s blue ones, and surely something which was not there before is shining in their violet depths—“except,” he says, then stops. “May,” very softly, “will you let me say it?”

May answers nothing; but, though she droops her head, Jack sees her eyes are shining. They say that silence gives consent, and evidently in this case it must have done so, or else the young man in question chooses to translate it in that way. So the stars smile down on an old, old story, a story as old as the old, old world, and yet new and fresh as ever to those who for the first time scan its wondrous pages; a story than which there is none sweeter on this side of time, the beautiful, glamorous mystery of “love’s young dream.”

“And are you sure,” Jack asks after a time, in the curious manner common to young lovers, “that you really love me now, May? that I shan’t wake up to find it all a mistake as it was last time. I’m very dense at taking it in, sweetheart; but it almost seems yet as though it was too good to be true.”

“Quite sure,” May says. She looks up into the face of the man beside whom all others to her are but “as shadows,” unalterable trust in her blue eyes. “Jack,” very low, “I think I have loved you all my life.”

“I said I would marry you, Jack,” Ruby remarks in rather an offended voice when she hears the news. “But I s’pose you thought I was too little.”

“That was just it, Ruby red,” Jack tells her, and stifles further remonstrance by a kiss.

THE END.

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