_Au revoir_!" And, fancying herself most charming, Caroline bowed, smiled, and walked off with her train.

Maltravers paused irresolute.

If Evelyn had looked back, he would have accompanied them home; but Evelyn did not look back,--and he stayed.
Miss Merton rallied her young friend unmercifully, as they walked homeward, and she extracted a very brief and imperfect history of the adventure that had formed the first acquaintance, and of the interview by which it had been renewed.

But Evelyn did not heed her; and the moment they arrived at the rectory, she hastened to shut herself in her room, and write the account of her adventure to her mother.

How often, in her girlish reveries, had she thought of that incident, that stranger! And now, by such a chance, and after so many years, to meet the Unknown by his own hearth! and that Unknown to be Maltravers! It was as if a dream had come true.