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her hysterical tendencies, was always excessively anxious about this trait in his youngest girl, and feared the attack to be a species of epileptic fit, Not so her sister Julia. Julia had found out what was the cause, At the moment before the jumping, only an exceptionally sensitive ear situated in the chimney- nook could have caught from down the flue the beat of a man’s footstep along the highway without. But it was in that foot-fall, for which she has been waiting, that the origin of Car’line’s involuntary springing lay. The pedestrian was Mop Oliamoor, as the girl weil knew; but his business that way was not to visit her ; he sought another woman, whom he spoke of as his Intended, and who lived at Moreford, two miles farther on. On one, and only one, occasion did it happen that Car’line conld not control her utterance ; it was when her siater alone chanced to be present. “ Oh—oh—oh— !” she cried. “He's going to Aer, and not coming to me!”

Todo the fiddler justice, he had not at firet thought greatly of, or spoken much to, this girl of impressionable mould, But he had soon found out her secret, and could not resist a little by-play with her too easily hurt heart, as an interlude between his more serious performances at Moreford. The two became well acquainted, though only by stealth, hardly a soul in Stickleford except her sister, and her lover Ned Hipcroft, being aware of the attachment. Her father disapproved of her coldness to Ned ; her sister, too, hoped she might get over this nervous passion for a man of whom so little was known. The ultimate result was that Car'line’s manly and simple wooer Edward found his suit becoming practically hopeless, He was a respectable mechanic, in a far sounder position than Mop the nominal horse-doctor ; but when, before leaving her, Ned put his flat and final ques-