your friend as for you, if I let you go you go this way. I should think you need a deal of care, and everything good that's to be got."

"Helen," whispered Nora-she had slipped to her knees beside Miss Archer's chair when they were left alone, and her lifted eyes were beautiful in their great compassion and tenderness-"I don't think our Father will let this night hurt you, because it is my fault that we are here; and I have so prayed that I may do you no harm; and-He always listens. My dear, we shall soon be home now, and you shall rest for days and days, for you have no teaching to-morrow. Oh! isn't that good news?"

Then Helen, keeping back the tears that could have flowed so readily in her weakness, took Nora's face between her hands, and kissed it very lovingly, though she could not speak. For what wonder that she had not quite Nora's trust and bravery, and could not recall the loss of her income as good news?

"But we must walk home," she said, with touching pathos in the simple, impossible state

ment.

For a few minutes Nora did not answer; then she rose to her feet, and, standing behind Helen's chair, looked down thoughtfully and

intently upon the little hoop of pearls she wore on her right hand. By the time the woman had returned and given Miss Archer the brandy and water to sip, she had drawn it from her finger, knowing that it could never be returned to her, because, when they left this house-to which Nuel Armstrong had accompanied them, they must leave not the faintest clue to their further destination. Standing with her face hidden from Helen (because she knew how hard it would be to say it, and how grieved Helen would be to hear it), she begged the woman of the house to lend her ten shillings, and take her ring until she should bring the money back.

"What is the ring worth?" asked the woman, bluntly, as she turned it round and round in her hand. "Perhaps nothing-only you wouldn't know."

"for I

"Yes, I know," said Nora, simply, bought it. It was not a present to me. I paid twenty times ten shillings for it; and if I do not come for it, you can sell it any time for the same-I suppose. Now will you lend us the half-sovereign?”

Probably, if she had found she possessed the sum, the woman would have been willing now

to give it; but she could only find seven shillings, she told Nora, after her long absence from the room, and they must be satisfied with that, she supposed.

Satisfied they were, and even grateful for it, for would it not take them home? Still they lingered, nervously afraid of venturing too soon and while they did so they sat at the kitchen fire with the woman of the house, and talked with her so pleasantly, and so thoroughly without pride and assumption, that, when at last they rose to go, she had forgotten all her suspicions and curiosity, and simply felt that her kitchen would feel extra solitary now.

"I shall fetch a cab, miss," she said, addressing Nora in the changed tone which had gradually grown upon her.

But Nora anxiously and courteously declined this, seeing that it might leave a clue for the morrow; and then, with a kind good night and thanks, they went out into the street again.

"Isn't it nice and dark?" whispered Nora, with a reassuring pressure of Helen's hand -which, as usual, was within her arm,-and that quiet bravery in her voice that Helen understood so well. "We shall soon meet a cab, I expect, when we leave this quiet road.

I'm so glad I've seen it, Helen, because I used to have to fancy so much about your home in those old days. It was not exactly this I fancied; it was a much more tumble-down sort of house. I was so Irish, you see, that I thought everyone who was not very, very rich lived in a propped-up sort of old house, with gaps in the walls, and dogs peeping in through the gaps, and There's a cab!"

CHAPTER VI.

"All my days I'll go the softlier, sadlier,

For that dream's sake."

T was a long drive to Highbury, and Nora, sitting back in her corner, and turning from the light of the streets, took Helen's hand within her own, but would not speak, even to try to cheer her as she had done whilst walking, for silence would be a greater rest, she knew. But she herself was sadly ill at ease, and only seemed to breathe quite freely when at last they were within their own house, and had seen their landlady lock and bolt the outer door.

"Now I am content," she whispered to Helen, drawing her within her bed-room, and lighting the gas to look at her. "We have not been followed, and we are

together alone