"No, no, aunt, please," said Eva; "I know it quite well without the music, and I think the gloaming is the nicest part of the day;" and she sat down and began to play over the air; then there was a long pause, for Eva's thoughts had wandered away elsewhere.

"We are all attention, dear," said Mrs. Munroe.

"Excuse me," said Eva; "but I was thinking of something else. I will tell you all about it directly, if you care to hear."

Then, clear and sweet, rang out the words,

"There is beauty all around,
When there's love at home."

And Benny felt thankful that the lights had not been brought, for in the gloom he could hide his emotion. When the song was finished, Eva swung herself round on the music-stool, and said,

"You will think me very silly, I have no doubt, but I never sing that old song without thinking of what happened years ago."

"Dear me, how old you talk!" laughed her cousin.

"Well, Dot, I am getting old; but never mind, I was only a little girl then. Pa and I were returning from Chester, and when we landed from the railway-boat, a pale hungry-looking lad came up to pa and asked him to carry his bag. Well, pa had been delayed, and consequently he was in a hurry, so he said 'No' to the boy in a stern voice, and pushed roughly past, and I saw the boy turn away and begin to cry; so scarcely thinking what I was doing, I went to the boy and asked him why he cried, and he said he was hungry and cold, that he had no father or mother, and that he had just buried his little sister, and nobody would employ him; so I gave him a new shilling that pa had given me, and asked him if he was generally on the landing-stage.

"'Yes,' he said; and his face brightened wonderfully at the sight of the shilling, and an honest-looking face it was too; 'I'm mostly hereabouts.'

"Well," continued Eva, after a pause, "I thought no more about the lad for several days, when one afternoon I was in the dining-room alone, and I began to play and sing 'Love at Home.' When I had finished, I rose to close the window, and there just outside was the very boy I had given the shilling to, his eyes full of tears; but when he saw he was noticed he shrank away, as if ashamed he had been caught listening."

"And so you conceived a romantic attachment to the lad?" chimed in Mr. Munroe.