“Oh! then we could find Jotapata!  Oh, no,” she added, humbly, “I promised Miss Ogilvie not to talk of Jotapata on a Sunday.”

“And going to the Holy Land only to look for it would be much the same thing,” said Armine.  “Besides, I expect it is up among the Druses, where one can’t go.”

“Armie,” in the tone of a great confession, “I’ve told Sydney all about it.  Have you told Lord Fordham?”

“No,” said Armine, who was less exclusively devoted to the great romance.  “I wonder whether he would read it?”

“I’ve brought it.  Nineteen copybooks and a dozen blank ones, though it was so hard to make Delrio pack them up.”

“Hurrah for the new ones!  We did so want some for the ’Traveller’s Joy,’ the paper at Leukerbad was so bad.  You should hear the verses the Doctor wrote on the mud baths.  They are as stunning as ’Fly Leaves.’  Mr. Editor, I say,” as Lord Fordham’s tall figure strode towards them, “she has brought out a dozen clean copybooks.  Isn’t that a joy for the ’Joy’?”

“Had you no other intentions for them?” said Fordham, detecting something of disappointment in Babie’s face.  “You surely were not going to write exercises in them?”

“Oh, no!” said Babie, “only-—”

“She can’t mention it on Sunday,” said Armine, a little wickedly.  “It’s a wonderful long story about the Crusaders.”

“And,” explained Babie, “our governess said we—-that is I-—thought of nothing else, and made the Lessons at Church and everything else apply to it, so she made me resolve to say nothing about it on Sunday.”

“And she has brought out nineteen copybooks full of it,” added Armine.

“Yes,” said Babie, “but the little speckled ones are very small, and have half the leaves torn out, and we used to write larger when we began.  I think,” she added, with the humility of an aspirant contributor towards the editor of a popular magazine, “if Lord Fordham would be so kind as to look at it, Armie thought it might do what people call, I believe, supplying the serial element of fiction, and I should be happy to copy it out for each number, if I write well enough.”

The word “happy,” was so genuine, and the speech so comical, that the Editor had much ado to keep his countenance as he gave considerable hopes that the serial element should be thus supplied in the MS. magazine.

Meantime, the two mothers were walking about and resting together, keeping their young people in some degree in view, and discussing at first the subject most on their minds, their sons’ bodily health, and the past danger, for which Caroline found a deeply sympathetic listener, and one who took a hopeful view of Armine.

Mrs. Evelyn was indeed naturally disposed to augur well whenever the complaint was not hereditary, and she was besides in excellent spirits at the very visible progress of both her sons, the one in physical, the other in moral health, and she could not but attribute both to the companionship that she had been so anxious to prevent.  She had never seen Duke look so well, nor seem so free from languor and indifference since he was a mere child, and all seemed due to his devotion to Armine; while as to Cecil, he seemed to have a new spring of improvement, which he ascribed altogether to his friend.