eyes, and a bright brown, complexion; one of
those girls whose good looks consist in perfect
health, in colouring and expression, and a certain
freshness of appearance—freshness moral as well
as physical—that keep the owner young for long.
Her uneventful and unambitious life had hitherto
passed in that happy monotony that is best suited
to such natures as hers; cheerful, bright,
contented ones, that take the daily duties of their
humble lives as pleasures, not sacrifices, and are
yet not without a touch of refinement that makes
the duties less prosaic. She need not have been
now keeping her father's house, had she been
minded to keep a house of her own. Two years
ago her father had had a half-pupil, half-
assistant, Mr. Baker, who had a little money of
his own, and expected to have some more, and
who would fain have had her promise to become
Mrs. Baker when he should have acquired
sufficient age and instruction "to set up on his
own hook," as he expressed it. But Nelly had
not been so minded. She did not care for Mr.
Baker; she first laughed at him, and then, when
he became piteous in consequence, she was
sorry for him, very sorry. But she could not
marry him. When she thought of her father as a
companion (for not being in the faintest degree
in love, she looked at the two men in this light),
and then thought of Mr. Baker, she felt it
could never, never be. And she had not for
a moment at any time regretted or repented
her decision, but went on in her quiet way,
taking her chance of what the future might bring
her.

Among Dr. Britton's occasional patients was
a very grand family indeed. The Earl of
Leytonstone had an estate about three miles from
Summerfield, and there he passed a part of
every year with his two children, the little Lord
Leithbridge and Lady Agnes Collingwood, who,
under the care of a young tutor and an elderly
governess, for their mother was dead, lived
almost entirely at Leytonstone Hall.

The young tutor was a north countryman,
whose father, a poor clergyman, holding a little
cure in a village among the hills in Westmoreland,
had, seeing the boy's aptitudes, struggled
hard to send him to college. He had educated
him himself up to that point, and then Andrew
Graham had entered Oxford as a sizer, and had
worked, and read, and lived hard, as few men in
that ancient seat of learning are given to do.
He had carried all honours before him, he could
write and speak five modern languages, and
read seven; he knew at his fingers' ends all the
best books in all these, beside the classical
tongues; but of men and women he knew
absolutely nothing. Poor, proud, intensely shy,
and devoted to study, he lived entirely apart
from even the men of his own standing in his
own college. In their sport as in their work he
kept aloof, only fortifying himself against the
exhausting nature of his labours by prodigious
walks, keeping always the same pace up hill
and down dale, choosing the most solitary paths,
and never heeding weather. In the course of
time he had been so fortunate as to obtain his
present post, that of tutor to the little Lord
Leithbridge, and librarian to his father, who
boasted the possession of one of the finest private
libraries in England; and as his pupil was but
twelve, his work with regard to him was so light,
that the greater part of his time could easily be
devoted to the labour he delighted in—the care
and arrangement of his beloved books.

Poor Andrew, he was not comely to behold,
and was young in nothing but his years. He
was pale, and spare, and light-eyed, and lightish
haired, and had thin whiskers, and wore high
shirt-collars, and hesitated in his speech. He
was so intensely, so painfully shy, and spoke so
rarely, that when called upon to speak it seemed
as though he was too unused to the employment
of uttered language to be able to find the
words he wanted. In the presence of women,
and especially young women, he absolutely
trembled. It was long before he could reply
without starting and shrinking, to Mrs. Brereton's
—Lady Agnes's governess—softly spoken
questions, and had Lady Agnes herself been
more than thirteen when he first entered on his
duties, I doubt if he would have ventured into
her presence.

And yet it was not in human nature, in young
human nature, at all events, to live without
some companionship beyond that of a child.
Andrew had had a bad and a long illness, and
in this Dr. Britton had attended him, and when
he recovered, it somehow came about that the
patient had, he hardly knew how himself, found
that it often happened that in his walks his
steps tended towards the doctor's cottage; and
when he came to the garden gate, that was just
an opening in the mass of green that surrounded
and overtopped it, giving a peep through to the
house along the sunny gravel walk, lying
between borders of glowing flowers, he remembered
he had something to say to, or something
to ask of, the doctor. You will think that the
doctor's daughter might have been for
something in this attraction; but it was not so. If
he caught a glimpse of her in the garden, or
heard her voice, he passed on his way with a
nervous sense of the narrow escape he had
encountered. This was at first; after having
accidentally encountered her a few times when
calling on her father, and found that she took little
notice of him, he became more reassured, and
beyond a certain amount of trepidation in
taking off his hat, and replying to her simple
greeting, he learned to meet her without further
discomposure.

Nelly would look after him with a pitying
wonder, and some curiosity. Such a nature
and such a life as his to her, genial, energetic,
expansive, was a painful puzzle.

"Is he always like that, papa?"

"Always, I believe, my dear, in company."

"Then he never can know anybody."

"Yes, I fancy in the course of time he might
get to know people to a certain extent. He
does me—a little."

"He must be very unhappy, papa?"

"Except when among his books, or in his