Year: 1873

WnOm tyranny naO taken TO neISelf.
Lola was the only one amongst them
who knew how to enjoy her life.


Lola's way lay through a green lane,
across fields, over the river on a rus
tic bridge, and then plunged into a
wood, through a blue tunnel followed
among leaves, where the path was
moist and brown with dew. Then she
entered Roselands, which deserved it's
name, and went into the house with
the perfume of thousands of roses
hanging nbout her. Granny was a
wilful old lady, who loved lilac rib
bons in her cap, and old china in her
cabinets, and who could scold and pet
little people, and sometimes big peo-
pie too. She was somewhat severe
upon grown-up folks, unless they hap
pened to get sick, when she became
an angel. Arthur Gray was all in
valid when she first made his acquain-
tance, and people said this was why
she took such fancy to him. He
was q son of distant connection of
the family, dropped by chance into
their lives-clever, poor, and with no
friends. The ladies, hearing he was
scientific, had at first stood a little in
awe of him, with an idea that science
is uncomfortable; but Gray had been
presented to Granny by the most ia
nous scientific man in London. We
do not say that Granny would not
have been kind to him if she had
picked him up in the gutter, yet the
great man had his weight when he did
choose to step into the scale of the
young mans chances Of finding favor
among his kinsfolk.


Granny was sitting in her dainty
antique drawing-room at the head of
a table drawn up in cool corner un-
der the shade of green blinds, her
work basket before her, her children
on either side with open books, and
Arthur Gray at the foot of the table,
pencil in hand. He was now no lon
ger an invalid, and was supposed to
be pluming his wings for some Won
derful fight in the regions of scientific
discovery. by the sidelong looks Of
awe which Granny was casting TO-
wards him over the rims of her spec
tacles, she evidently thought he was
at this moment deep in some abstruse
calculation but he was only scrib-
l1ing faces in his pocket-book. He
had a broad, square brow and troubled
eyes, and a mouth which betrayed a
character resolute and tender. He
was a man who had a great future be-
fore him-of hard toll, heartache and
fame.


Lola was late. Granny pointed to
the timepiece, and the lessons began.
Lola's voice was low in asking the
questions, and the childrcn's tones
were shrill in giving the answers.
Granny raped with her knitting nee
die on tho table when things were not
going to please her. Arthur Gray re-
NAMED for the study, and his study
was Lola's face. Lola's voice grew
lower, and Granny's raps fell fast up
on the board. Arthur Gray suddenly
got up and left the room.
He walked out on terrace, and
paced up and down. Life was at this
moment tangled skein to him. He
wanted to have for his own that sweet
woman indoors who was teaching the
children, yet how was he to have her
without blighting his careerf Mar
riage meant poverty, struggling, un-
congenial drudgery, and Arthur had
had enough of it from childhood up.
Genius was stirring within him; op-
portunity, at this moment, lay invit-
ingly before him. He held in his hand
a letter which invited him to join a
scientific expedition to the other side
of the world. A few months ago such
an offer would have been hailed as a
realization of his sweetest dreams.
But now there was Lola. Success,
power, fame, all to be swept away by
a woman's hand. Only this morning,
as he sat scribbling at the table, he
had declared to himself that the thing
was monstrous, that it could not be !;
but Lola had walked into the room,
anil he had felt at once that it would
be easier to walk hand in, hand with
her instantly into the valley Of death,
than to set out on any SUNNY path to
fortune, leaving her behind.


He was nowhere to be seen when
Lola and the children came out of
Granny's house and ran off towards
the woods. The children from the
next house met them with dinner in
their bags; for this was to be an out
door holiday, while the elders of both
families dined with a neighboring 6
magnate of the land. The children
were wild with glee, Lola less wild
than usual on such occasions. The
children tried to light fire to roast
their chestnuts, but failed, and Lola
lay in the glass, her hat tilted over
her mouth and eyes, and listened to
the happy humming of the insects.
The children cheered suddenly, the
breeze blew Lola's hat aside, and here
was Arthur Gray coming to join them.
This was like one Of the old prime
val days when the Garden of Eden
Lbloomed, and before sorrow came into
the world. Gray made a great fire,
and screened it with thick boughs, so
that the sun could not put it out. The
children shrieked with delight. the