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IT is a well-known peculiarity of the nature of things that one never meets with the right person in the right place, especially if such a meeting is desired (for reasons of state) to occur by accident. Those malicious little spirits who watch over human destinies, and who cause us to forget our keys, mislay our railway tickets, lose our tempers, and, above all, to say those things we ought not to have said, and leave unsaid those things we ought to say—are ever on the watch to prevent a happy accident which would relieve us of some perplexity.

It was therefore with no well-grounded hope of meeting Arthur Campbell and handing over to him the letter entrusted to her, that Alice ordered her horse one afternoon, about a week after Mrs. Austin’s visit, and rode over the sands and towards the places he most frequented in his evening constitutionals. The rain had passed off, and the full tide of summer flooded the