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CHAPTER XV. “Dear Joy,â€"â€"Ploase write and tell me how Cousin Godfrey is. I am staying with Mrs. Dawson, who took care of me when I was a, little girl. I could not bear Starian Towers, when Doctor Giles. said Cousi i Godfrey was dying. Have they found the person who did it ’5â€" Yours, VIOLET. “Address your answer to 010, Mrs. Jones, Stationer, Kilburn High Road, N.W.” ‘ v 1 r 1L. “vFirst of all the police fancied they had a clue, but now they seem to be doubtful about it again.” 5.. , _., , The above letter reached Joy the day after her talk with Sir Godâ€" frey, and it came as a great relief both to its recipient and to Lady Mar‘tindale, who were at their wits’ end to account to the sick man for Vi-olet’s prolonged absence, and who were, moreover, consumed with anxiety as to the safety of the girl herself. ,L “It; wasn’t exactly an accident, was it?” Joy answered impetu-ms- 1y, “somebody did his best to mur- der you. Oh, Violet has been dreadfully anxious, dreadfully up- set! She has looked like the mis- erable ghost of herself.” “I suppose Violet has no idea whoâ€"I meanâ€"I suppose nobody has any notion who my assailant was?” “I believe he knows who knockâ€" ed him down”â€"the quick thought flashed into Joy’s mindâ€"“and I beâ€" lieve he knows it had something to do with Violet.” But aloud she only answered: “In any case I should not pro- secute”: Sir Godfrey still sat up- right, leaning towards the girl, who was in a low chair by the fire â€"â€"“when you write to Violet, tell her this. She may be interest-ed to know that even if thev find the man who struck me down I do not intend to prosecute. As far as I am concerned, he will go scot- free 1” “Poor little girl!” The tenderâ€" ness in Godfrey’s voice was a reve- lation to his listener. Then sud» definly he pulled himself upright on the couch, and leant towards Joy, whisperingâ€" ":‘7Hre certainly knows the truth,” qu reflected again. “Why does she make 5“ much mystery about her address?” Ger- trude said irritably, when Joy handed her the letter. ‘ If she ,wanted to go away, none of us would have prevented her goingâ€" in fact, how could noe prevent her? She is entirely her own mistress. But why all this mystery?” Joy' felt tongueâ€"tied. She was very well able to guess at the solu- tion of What puzzled Lady Martin- dale, yet she felt that it would not be fair to explain her surmises to anyone else, even though the sur- mises amounted to certainties. “Now that Sir Godfrey is so much better,” she said gently, “surely Violet will come back. I will write toâ€"day and tell her he is _ Joy thought Viglet certainly did not look 'as if London had suited *her during the fortnight of her stay there, for she came back with a white, tired face, with deep sha- dows under the eyes, and a drawn 1001: round her mouth made her look altogether a much older and miner Violet. She was very subâ€" dued in manner, and Joy noticed that she was easily startled, that the least sound made her jump nervously, thnt she was oddly restâ€" less at one moment, apwthetic and raad to being quite well; then I am sure she will come back.” Joy’s connlusions were right. Her briefly worded note, conveying the information that the invalid was quite convalescent and adding that this assailant; had not been discov- ered, and that Sir Godfrey would in no case prosecute, brought a, reply by return of post from Violet, saying that she would be home by the end of the week, and she was sorry she had been so stupidly afraid of illness as to run away to London. "I’ve always been a perfect silly about illness”â€"~so her words ran â€"â€"“but I shall be awfully glad to get- home. I don’t like London as much as I used to.” , A DIFFICULT SITUATION; CHAPTER XIV.â€"â€"(Cont’d) OR, THE END CROWNS ALL. languid the next. She had a curiâ€" ous way, too of watching Joyâ€"a certain furtiveness in her glance which puzzled the other girlâ€"and she seemed to prefer Lady Marâ€" tbindale’s society to being alone with the companion of her own age and choice. After a few days it began to dawn slowly upon Joy that Violet was afraid of her, and that whenever possible avoided a tete-a-tete with her. To Sir Godâ€" frey she was almost; like her old selfâ€"almost, but not quite, f” r with him, too, she showed a, certain nervous embarrassment, and she shrank from being left alone with him. He was allowed now to be in the drawingâ€"room for the greater part of the day, and Joy, looking on as the little drama, in which she herself played only a subordinate part, often thought that his eyes, wistfully though they were someâ€" times fixed on Violet’s lovely face, were trying also to penetrate the girl’s mind, and to understand what lay beneath her surface love- liness. “Her beauty doesn’t blind him any more,” Joy meditated shrewd- ly. The little countryâ€"bred girl had a. rare fund of shrewdness, partly, perhaps, inherited, partly imbibed from Miss Rachel, who, with all her simplicity, had a large store of worldly wisdom. “Her beauty doesn’t blind him, and he knows something he: didn’t Know before,” so Joy’s thoughts ran on, whilst she sat in the broad win- dow seat of the drawing-room, her work in her hand, Violet’s hurried exclamation still sounding in her ears. ‘ “Don’t ever leave me alone witn Cousin Godfrey. Iâ€"â€"sick people make me feel nervous.” But there came an afternoon when Violet was no longer able to fend off tnat teteâ€"a-tete with her cousin against which she had so long struggledâ€" an afternoon when, as she and Joy entered the drawingâ€"room together, Godfrey laid down the book he was 1reading, and said quietlyâ€" “I want to have a little talk with Violet, Miss Sterne. I am sure you won’t think me- rude if I ask you to leave us alone till tea time 2” He smiled at Joy as he spoke. The girl and he had become good friends in the past few weeks; he liked her sunny face and the hap- py nature which showed itself in making happiness for others. His smile was very kindly, but there was a ring of decision in his voice, and Joy knew t1 at he did not in- tend to be opposed in his wish. Violet, though she shrank back a‘ little, knew it too, and realizing that the hour she had been fighting off had come, she advanced toâ€" wards Godfrey’s corner by the fireplace and laughed lightly. The laugh was forced, but the sunlight that fell across her lovely face and graceful form turned her into such an exquisite picture that for a mo- ment the man who lay watching her forgot his purpose, and drew in his breath sharply. With all his capability and common-sense, Godâ€" frey Martindale was, after all, a man, and a very human man at that; and» Violet’s loveliness made lan appeal to the senses which he lfound it difficult to resist. “You’re ever so rhuch better,l Cousin Godfrey, aren’t you ’2” she said, in the soft, well-modulated voice she was painfully learning to adopt; “you’ll get out. soon, the doctor says.” She sat down in a low chair by the fire, her pretty eyes looking at him with a certain shy shrinking, which greatly en- hanced her attractiveness. God- 'frey experienced a sudden remorse. She looked so slight, so butterfly a thing, the color came and went so delicately in her faceâ€"that half- frightened expression in her eyes made her seem so much less of a woman than a lovely childâ€"ethat he wondered with compunction whe-s ther it was quite fair to say to her ,what he wished to say. “Joy and I are planning to take you for a drive when Doctor Giles gives lgave. ,The country now is beautiful.” ‘ ‘ ' " ‘ ' ‘Vio-let was talking fast. The most unobservant of listeners must have noticed that she was talking at random and against time, and that for some reason she was “Poor little girl,” he said, his natural tenderness towards everyâ€" thing weaker than himself over- coming a certain hardness in his manner, of which Violet had been conscious ever since her return; “don’t look so frightened, my dear child. I won’t. hurt you; but I want to have a clear understand- ing aboutâ€"something that puzzles “Yeâ€"es,” Violet faltered, twisting her fingers together with a fresh access of nervousness, “something thatâ€"that puzzles you?” she re- peated after him. “No, don’t run away.” Sir Godâ€" frey put out his hand and touched her shoulder. “We must have/this talk. Violet. We have already evaded it long enough.” The girl sat back in her chair, as though resigned to her fate; but for a second her frightened eyes lifted themselves to his face; he saw that her lips trembled. “Yes”â€"â€"he looked at her keenly, and leant a little towards her from this couchâ€"“I konw who it was that knocked me down six weeks ago, andâ€"I know why he didl'fi.“ “Oh l” came‘in a sudden terrified cry from Violet, and she cowered down in her chair, looking more fhan ever like“ some frightened child, her eyes very big and blue, her lips trembling afresh. “I did not ask you to come and talk to me just that we might dis- Cuss future drives, Violet,” he said. “I have something to say to youâ€" something to ask you.” His grave tones drove the color from Violet’s cheeks. She looked away from him, and half rose, the impulse of flight strong upon her. afraid of the quiet; man on the sofa. That flurry in her speech turned the scales of Godfrey’s com- punction- against her; and al- though, when he began to speak, his voice was very gentle, he spoke with a firmness that did not intend to be gainsaid. “Yes,” Godfrey repeated deliber- ately, “I know .why he did itâ€"at least, I.kn0w why he says he did it, and I want to ask you to tell me the real truth.” f‘The â€" real â€"â€" truth?” Viol-eh Whispered. “But \vhatgfwhoâ€"J’ “Let us be honest with one anâ€" other,” Godfrey interposved quietâ€" ly. “Whilst I wasfill I thought a good deal about 'the‘ evening of my â€"-accident, and I want to try and get at the facts. I want to know whetherâ€"Mr. Jem Stibbard was tel- ling me the truth, or merely blufâ€" fing A faint gleamof hope flashed in- to Viol-et’s eyes; a way of escape seemed to be opening before her. She raised her hand with a more as- sured air. “I was walking home on that February afternoon,” Godfrey went on, “and I had just; reached the bend in the lane beyond what your little friend Joy calls ‘the great view,” when a man came up to me. He looked flushed and angry; he was obviously almost be-‘ue himself with rage and jealousy, and he poured out a torrent of words, the gist of which I did not at first grasp. Then, all at once, it struck me that he was talking about you, andâ€"perhaps I got angry too, for in the references he made to you he was very insolent and familiar. He said”â€"Godfrey’s eyes never left Violet’s down-cast face~“he said that you belonged to him, that you had promised to marry him, and that you were play- ing fast and loose withâ€"him and withâ€"me . ’ ’ Violet lifted her head, her eyes, shining with tears, looked full into her cousin’s face; their glance was one of hurt innocence. “Oh! butâ€"that isn’t true,” she said with a little sob. “Iâ€"I’ve not done right, I know I haven’tâ€"â€" perhaps I ought to have given up all my old friends when I came here. But Jem and meâ€"I mean Jem and I â€"-- we’d always been friendsâ€"like brother and sisterâ€" and it seemed unkind to give him up altogether just because I was richer than him.” In her excite- ment her grammar became of more and more doubtful quality, but Godfrey, looking at her flushed face and innocent eyes, forgot to notice her grammatical errors. “I shouldrnot want to ask you to give up old friends,” he said; “but Mr. Stibbard told me you were more than friends. He said that you and he were bound to one anâ€" other; that you were his promised wife. He vowed that I had come between you, and, whgn yalked may,“areiusénswto,~hear'}i'm01i¢, . he gave me 'a.‘ blow thaLnearIy cost me: my fife.” ,- “Oh E don’tâ€"36ft I” Violet cried, covering Her face with he!; hands and slipping from her chair to kneel beside his couch. “I can’t 277 bear it if you talk like thatâ€"if you look at me so crossly. Iâ€"â€"Jem was wrongâ€"he was wrong !” The words poured from her in a torrent of passionate vehemence. “He’d no business to have come down here-â€" he’d no business toâ€"to tell you 7 Her voice faltered, but she lifted her head and looked at Godfrey. Tears were in her eyes, tears were lies.” on her lovely, flushed face; she did not flinch under his gaze; her hands went out tremblingly and touched his hand. Once more all his doubts vanished, lulled by her beauty and by the innocence of her eyes, and drawing her close to him, he kissed her. His kiss seemed to affect her in a. strange and wholly unexpected way: she shrank back from him, her eyes wide and terâ€" rified, the color fading from her cheek. “You-mustu’t do that!” she sta-mme‘red. “I ought-n’t to let you ~I meanâ€"0h! I don’t know what to doâ€"I don’t know what to do I” and before Godfrey could stretch out a hand to detain her, before he could even speak to her again, she had struggled to her feet and _fled, sobbing, from the room, leaving a sorely puzzled and distracted man behind her. “She can’t have thought I was playing with l1er”â€"so his thoughts ran as he lay pondering over the interviewâ€"“she must have known that the very fact of my kissing her meantâ€"well meant everything. I was going to ask her to be my wife, poor little girl! I could protect her then from these old friends of hers. Did I frighten her? Was I too sudden? What does it mean 7” Gertrude found rather a fractious and absentminded Godfrey when she came into the drawingâ€"room at tea time. He was evidently disin~ clined for conversation, and his distrait manner surprised her no less than Violet’s non-appearance surprised and disconcerted Joy. What, the girl wondered, had takâ€" en place between the'two after she left them alone together? How much had Sir Godfrey said to Vio- let“! How much of the truth did he himself know? And if he knew any of it, had he divulged it to Violet? Could they have quarrelled’.l That something serious had happened was sufficiently evident both to Lady Martindale and to Joy, for all the rest of that day and all the next Violet stayed in her room, pleading a violent headache as an excuse. On the day after that, Sir Godfrey insisted upon being driven home to Hosday Hall. declaring that he had already trespassed for too long upon the hospitality of Standon Towers. Violet avoided seeing him again until the very moment of his departure, when with the rest of the party she stood in the hall to watch him go. There was no opportunity for any private conversation, only, as Godfrey wrung her hand in farewell, he stopped a little towards her and whispered: “I shall come over soon to ask you another question,” and when she shrank back and blushed vivid- ly, he told himself, dear deluded man, that all that had puzzled him was due to her sweet maiden mod- esty, and that he had been totally misjudging her. When wet boots are taken off fill them quite full with dry oats. This‘ grainvhas a great fondness for danifi", ’ arid will rapidly 'gbsér'b 5 the lastlyegtig‘q V offlithme swat, «leather; " A- new and delicious dish is to ge the smallest possible onions, boil them, peel till they are no larger than your thumb and mix them with French peas cooked with a little cream. | THE PREfiERVINQ TEST N has FROM YOUR GRO CER. The Canada Sugar Reflnlng '00., limited. Montreal Established in 1854 by John Redpath. EXTRA GRANULATED SUGAR stood thé searching test of preserving time. This is only possible because of ins consistent high quality. (To. be continued, FOB NEARLY 60 YEARS NIAGARA DISTRICT NEEDS PRBTECTION. Enough Peaches in Georgia Alone to Supply America. _The relationship between Can- ada. and the United States as re gards the fruit industry, and the manifest need of 3 Protective tariff for Canadian fruit growers have been clearly shown in a. series of articles by Dr. George Charles Buchanan of Beamsville, Ont., Pre- sident of the Ontario and Western Co-operative Society. Dealing with the Niagara peninsula Dr. Buchanan says:â€" There are in the» Niagara Penin~ sula. about 350 square miles of land on which fruit can be well grown, not counting such districts as An- caster and Dundas. Between To- ronto and Hamilton there is an- other 100 square miles; in all at least 288,000 acres. Not all of this is peach land, no“ even probably 20 per cent. of it. But very little of it is of no use for any fruit. Much can be made fine peach land by drainage, or good apple, plum ‘or grape land; some is only good for berries, but all 01 it is in a good fruit climate. The implanted land is waiting to double or quadruple in value, whenever the market demands more fruit. It may be assumed that the value of this land for general‘ farming is not over $100 per acre,‘l and that for fruit purposes it; isworth $500 per acre; although} mugh of the peach land is worth‘: $1,000 per acre‘; and that where it. has to be drained, draming will average about; $20 per acre. It can further be stated tha‘Lx peach land at $1,000 per acre is known to pay a good return on the investment in the hands of practiâ€" cal growers. If we take the very low estimate of 10,000 acres plant- ed at $500 per acre we have a value of $50 000,000 for the orchard and berry lands. Now as our home market grows, and in our home market we- have no competition, every acre of this 288,000 has potentially the same value, and fully half is unplanted. There are in Canada about 8,000,- 000 people, the United States claim 93,000,000. However that may be, our present soft, fruit acre- age is fully equal to supplying Canada. It is safe to say there i: not over 12,000 acres of peaches in Eastern Canada. If this supplies 8,000,000 people .it would take 150,000 acres to supply 93,000,000 people, but there are 180,000 acres of peaches in Georgia alone. Blinks, after inviting to dian his friend Jinks, who had just re turned from abroad, was telling him What a "fine memory his littfl son Bobby had. “And do you suppose he will rd member me?” said Jinks. “Remember you? Why, he 11 “Remember you? Why, he r members every face that he ev saw.” An hour later they entered tit house, and, after Jinks had shak hands with Mrs. Blinks, he calle Bobby over to him. “Course I do. You’re the £83111 fellow that dad brought last sum mer, and ma was s?) crosfi abou it that she didn’t speak to him fo' 8. whole week.” “Aid do you remember me, In! little man 2” " Motherâ€"â€"-_“Why’did 31,011,1th Harry kiss 51.092”! v,Ed_ith+i‘0h1?h§mas~, pressing, ahdâ€"” Mothei "’ “That’s no excuse. 'You mu: learn to say ‘No!’ my child.’ I Edithâ€"“That’s just what I did say, mother. He askefi'me if I won! be angry if he kissed me." A FIN E MEMORY.