"Trust me for that!" "Do I not know it!" he answered, passionately.

"And would I not lose the whole world, with all its chances of fame and fortune, rather than lose _you_!" And in their mutual exchange of tenderness and confidence they forgot all save "The time and place And the loved one all together!" It was a perfect summer's morning when Mary, for the first time in many years, left her little home in Weircombe and started upon a journey she had never taken and never had thought of taking--a journey which, to her unsophisticated mind, seemed fraught with strange possibilities of difficulty, even of peril.

London had loomed upon her horizon through the medium of the daily newspaper, as a vast over-populated city where (if she might believe the press) humanity is more selfish than generous, more cruel than kind,--where bitter poverty and starvation are seen side by side with criminal extravagance and luxury,--and where, according to her simple notions, the people were forgetting or had forgotten God.

It was with a certain lingering and wistful backward look that she left her little cottage embowered among roses, and waved farewell to Mrs.Twitt, who, standing at the garden gate with Charlie in her arms, waved hearty response, cheerfully calling out "Good Luck!" after her, and adding the further assurance--"Ye'll find everything as well an' straight as ye left it when ye comes 'ome, please God!" Angus Reay accompanied her in the carrier's cart to Minehead, and there she caught the express to London.

On enquiry, she found there was a midnight train which would bring her back from the metropolis at about nine o'clock the next morning, and she resolved to travel home by it.
"You will be so tired!" said Angus, regretfully.