THE GODDESS IS HUMAN.

The friends found their way home together in the cool of the evening; both very quiet, but Roscoria evidently meditating some deep design. At night, growing confidential as they patrolled the garden, smoking, Louis proceeded to rave of his goddess "for an hour by his dial." Tregurtha heard and nodded in silence. He was a more reserved man than his friend, so he did not even mention the maid who ate his share of the strawberries. Indeed, he forgot her whilst listening to the outpourings of his ingenuous comrade.

"I shall never be any good at my work, I'm afraid," complained Roscoria; "that beautiful face is the only thing my mind will comprehend."

"Well, if I were you, as you seem so far gone, I should take some steps," advised Dick. "I'm no friend of shilly-shallying. If you love the girl, go and tell her so, I advise."

"I wish I'd more money," sighed the schoolmaster.

"Many a good paterfamilias has wished that before you, my lad," observed Tregurtha, with a laugh. "How does the country curate get on with his six children, do you suppose?"

"Eh, I don't know. O Lord! I hope I never shall be the father of a boy!" exclaimed the pedagogue, with a sudden agitated glance up at the bedroom windows, as the dread crossed his mind that he might have been overheard all this while.

However, all objection melted before the warmth of Roscoria's attachment, and one night he gave up his keys and authority to Tregurtha, bade him bolt the shutters and troll out prayers to the household in his jovial bass, for Louis Roscoria was going to a ball to "declare himself."

He had found out all about Lyndis (or thought he had). She was the niece of Admiral Sir John Villiers; her father dead; her mother married again to a hunting, racing type of man who wanted no stepdaughter about. So fair Lyndis was staying with her uncle for the time, looking after the housekeeping in return for his kind protection. But Roscoria gathered much hope that his suit might possibly be the means of relieving her from any unsettled feeling that she might have about her future. And thus it came to pass that at the termination of their fifth dance together they were sitting in a ferny grotto—the goddess was all robed in blue this time, as if she had brought down a piece of summer sky trailing after her—and Louis began all at once to show the tenderness he felt.

There was a little of the usual fencing with the subject, and then Roscoria came out with a few leading questions. He had heard rumors—very disquieting rumors—in short, would she set his mind at rest?

Lyndis bent the glory of her mystic eyes upon him for an instant, whilst she said:

"I was going to be married, but we were obliged to put it off. Where are you going, Mr. Roscoria?"

"I don't know," said Louis miserably. He had risen and taken a few steps away, but he came back again and leant against the wall by her side, breathing quick and brokenly.

"What is the matter?"

"Oh!" groaned Roscoria, "I wanted you."

He heard no answer, so he straightened up and took her kind hand and said, "Never mind; I was a fool not to be silent; but—but—if you had known your own charm, would you have made me so unhappy?"

Then there seemed a light in her eyes which was not there before, and a whisper was borne to him low and far away as if it were the echo of the voice of Fate thousands of years ago:

"By the favor of Heaven I am free!"

Shortly afterward Louis believed he heard himself saying, "Why did you forsake him, for he never did it?"

"The admiral forced the match upon me—he is so arbitrary! I consented in a cowardly moment; but that was before I had seen you. The gentleman I was betrothed to saw I was not contented before even I knew it myself; he himself volunteered to release me. Of all the unselfish men I know, Mr. Rodda is——"

("The deuce he is!") thought Roscoria to himself. "Not Eric Rodda, Miss Villiers—the young fellow I tutored at Rome! Brother of Tom? Poor fellow! I feel like a brute, somehow."

"No use to feel so, Louis; it was all over before ever I saw you."

"'Louis'—you darling! Could you put up with a very modest style of existence—at Torres? You said you admired the situation."

"Oh! are you poor?"

"The proverbial church-mouse is a Rothschild to me."

"What a cruel thing that is!" sighed Lyndis; "when the admiral, my mother, my stepfather, all insist on my marrying a rich man."

"Then, my dear lady, go and do it in Heaven's name!" cried Roscoria, and at sight of her surprised face he said, repentantly, "I beg your pardon—Lyndis—darling."

"Which do you put first?" asked Lyndis, smiling sweetly, "Obedience or Love?"

"Love," emphatically responded Louis.

"Oh, Mr. Roscoria, and you a schoolmaster!"

"And you, Miss Villiers, tell me, do you prefer the main chance, or me?"

"Alas! I am no lover of abstractions."

She came a little toward him as she said it, and he had her hand again.

"This dear hand—shall it be mine?"

No answer, save that propitious starlight in her eyes.

"Lyndis, one kiss, that I may know you are mortal."

"I daren't," she said, and gave him one. "If the admiral were to come round the corner—— I say no more."

She gave him a stephanotis from her hair to keep as her favor, and then whispered apprehensively:

"You have no idea what a naval officer can be when he takes to match-making. I shall have to fight this out some day with him."

"No; allow me," said Roscoria.

"If you dare; but—this is after supper."

("Oh, how can you?") expostulated the lover.

Then, being a serious maiden, who knew what she was doing, Lyndis pressed his hand and quietly, but finally, spoke:

"Mr. Roscoria, go home and think it over."

She had stepped into the brilliant light of the ballroom, and vanished from his sight. Roscoria went home as in a dream. A shifting picture was before him—in front, smiling scenes of bliss and love; in the background, Nemesis, in the garb of a naval officer.

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