TABLE of CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER I.

The Grange had the reputation of being a pleasant house to stay at, in spite of the solidity of its mistress. This was principally owing to the tastes and tendencies of the master. For, according to the reversal of the usual order of things, in the case of Lord and Lady Templemore, the lighter and pleasanter details of life fell to the husband’s share. And Lord Templemore was great in musical arrangements—a real genius in charades and small theatricals of all kinds; moreover, he organized a pionic admirably, and with eminent social talents was the life and soul of a party.

Lady Templemore, with her accustomed good sense, never interfered with the exercise of his natural abilities, as long as they kept within the limits of reasonable expense—and was quite ready to reap what benefit she could from the reputation his exertions gained for her house.

About a fortnight after Madeline’s little adventure, an unusually large party was to assemble at the Grange. The sport was generally good, and that attracted sportsmen, who in their turn attracted fair ladies, who attracted lions and musicians of various degrees, to all of whom Lady Templemore was indulgent; the age of pure reason had not yet arrived, and in the mean time, such addenda were considered pleasant, if not essential, by the world in which her ladyship lived.

The note of preparation, however, scarcely reached the seclusion of Madeline’s schoolroom. Indeed, Lady Templemor was particularly anxious that the excitable Lady Agnes should be kept as much from participation in the gay doings as possible—still, small rivulets of intelligence would trickle through those very porous vessels—the young ladies’ maid,i and the school-room maid. So they heard that nearly all the accommodation at the village inn was taken up by Lady Raw-son’s servants and horses; that my lord was nearly all day in the workshop (as a large room in the out-offices devoted to carpenter’s work was called), with a painter from G-reybridge —who made no end of a mess—doing up the scenes that had lain there since last autumn.

“Now, Miss Digby,” cried Agnes, clapping her hands, “you see if we do not act charades, and all sorts of things; dear papa is always thinking of what is pleasant, and he will get me in to see them, I know.”

The immediate effect, however, of the arrivals, was an increase of the school-room seclusion.

The governess and her pupils breakfasted alone, and only saw the guests at luncheon.

The first and second day, there were not more than half a dozen ladies present—a mother and two daughters, two young married ladies, and a large, stout, richly-dressed woman, with dark flashing eyes, and a high colour; large white hands covered with rings, and a sonorous voice, which she sedulously strove to moderate to the soft nothingness of those about her. She was a naturally jovial creature, though this was suppressed carefully, and ate her luncheon with a zest and enjoyment pleasant to behold.

She was the only member of the party who took much, or, indeed, any notice of Madeline or her pupils; and but for her the mid-day meal would have been dull, for the male portion being away in the stubble-fields, the conversation was languid, and Lady Templemore considered the entertaining of her guests more her husband’s business than her own. So this black-eyed, jovial personage, had the field to herself. She seemed to have taken a fancy to Lady Agnes.

“When I was here last—let me see, two years ago—you were a little creature in short frocks, and now you are a young lady; mamma will be taking you to the drawing-room next season,” she said.

“No, indeed, Lady Rawson,” returned mamma, “nor for three seasons yet; Agnes is not quite fourteen.”

“Oh! young ladies are very precocious now, much more than we used to be. Are you coming to drive with us, Lady Agnes, or are you to be of the riding party?”

“Neither, I am sorry to say,” said Agnes, in a sad tone.

“What! you remain in durance vile with Miss—Miss—I do not know her name,” and Lady Rawson looked keenly at Madeline, who had before attracted her attention.

“Digby,” said Lady Agnes.

Lady Rawson’s countenance changed slightly; hut she continued almost without hesitation, “ Miss Digby, then; though I do not fancy it very terrible durance,” and she smiled and showed a splendid row of teeth.

“And where are we to drive to-day, Lady Templemore?”

“I thought of taking you round by Trevallon. There is a curious pile of stones there, said to be the burial-place of some Welsh chiefs, which is an object for a drive.”

“Yes; any thing to keep us out among the beautiful scenery you have down here. But how is it, the name of Trevallon seems familiar to me? Does it not belong to Dudley Ashurst?”

“Yes; almost all the land about here is his ”

“Imagine that! And yet I am told he is terribly out at elbows. Where is he at present? He has been lost sight of for a long time.”

“He was at Trevallon, a week ago. My son, who had a slight acquaintance with him abroad, rode over there to see him, and Colonel Ashurst returned the visit in a day or two; but we were all unfortunately out.”

‘‘ It is a long time since I saw Dudley Ashurst,” said Lady Rawson, in a musing tone. “I should like to meet him again.”

“We will try and persuade him to join our party while you are here.”

“Yes, do, Lady Templemore,” said the Honourable Mrs. Langley, a pretty blonde, who had been till now absorbed in the occupation of feeding her Italian greyhound. “He was introduced to me at the opera last spring, and then he never appeared again. How handsome he is — quite unlike the modem man.”

“I hear he has plunged the estate into terrible difficulties,” observed Mrs. Bouverie Griffiths, the wife of a neighbouring magnate, who had come with a couple of daughters to pay a return visit to Lady Templemore. “But, I presume that they are only temporary, for when his grandfather, old Lord Hexham, dies, he will come in for the title and estates.” “The title—yes!” cried Lady Rawson; “but a very small property is attached to it. The rest of his great wealth is altogether at Lord Hexham’s disposal, and the turn of a straw might make Colonel Ashurst that most miserable of creatures—a poor peer.”

“I thought Lord Hexham was very fond of his grandson,” said Mrs. Griffiths.

“Yes, I have heard so; but everyone knows he is the most heartless, flinty, whimsical old man in England, with the most charming exterior,” returned Lady Rawson.

Here Lady Chefferil, a silent, irreproachable woman, who seldom troubled herself about anything, observed: “I think the horses are at the door, so perhaps we had better dress,” whereupon everyone rose, and the conversation ceased.

“Do, mamma, please! let me go with you,” whispered Lady Agnes, pressing to her mother’s side.

“Nonsense!” was the reply, sternly said; you may ride when Kate and Mary Bloomfield join us, who are about your own age; but till then stay with Miss Digby ”

“That was what mamma said when I asked leave,” cried Lady Agnes, when alone with Madeline, ‘‘and I will stay with you, dear Miss Digby. I think you would not say ‘ No,’ to me if you were my mother,” and she threw herself half crying, into Madeline’s arms.

Madeline held her lovingly to her heart, which yearned for the fair impetuous young thing, in whom she traced so much of her own tender nature, her own intense love of enjoyment, and beauty, and sunshine; but not her strength.

“Were I your mother, dear, dear child, I would try to say ‘ No ’ when I thought it right, though it would be hard, I confess.”

“But mamma likes to say ‘ No.’ ”

“Hush! Lady Agnes; you do not think so, really.”

It was an unusually hard task to Madeline to play the part of preceptress that day, the conversation at luncheon had so filled her heart with varied painful thoughts. She had by a strong effort of will and common sense nearly banished the memory of her walk with Dudley Ashurst.

She would scarce have been a true woman such as I have endeavoured to show her, with her peculiar instincts and tendencies, not to mark such an event with a white stone; not to dwell long and regretfully on their short conversation; but she was no weakling to let imagination master her, so finding her whole being becoming one recollection, she set herself steadily to suppress it, and thought she had succeeded.

The morning after her little adventure she had told it at breakfast, in precisely the right tone of candour, and. Lady Templemore made no observation, save that “Bracklyn must call upon Colonel Ashurst when he returned,” and then no more was said by any one till this day. Then she was grieved and mortified to think how hitter was the pang inflicted by the gossip at luncheon.

Why was it that the evil magician circumstance had so hurled her from her right, her natural station, that between her and Dudley Ashurst and his like “there was a great gulf fixed? ” She had heard much from Madame de Fontarce of her father’s aristocratic birth, and she felt that nature had stamped her with the hall-mark of nobility. She could hold her place with the finest ladies she had ever met; she felt there was not on earth a presence before which she would be abashed, gentle though she might be, yet she was nothing! The mere fact of Colonel Ashurst being seen with her would imply impropriety, because of the difference of their station.

How was it that the mere fault of poverty neutralized all good gifts? Oh! what an inextricable confusion was life! Where was the clue to its meshes? Where was justice and nobility of heart, and a true touchstone by which to test merit? Ah! poor wandering child, nearly two thousand years ago the solemn question, “What is truth?” was put to the only One who on this earth could have replied; and the questioner, as though hopeless of a solution, “went out ” without waiting an answer! And yet to hearts such as Madeline’s more of truth is perhaps revealed than is given to the “wise and prudent.” But this Dudley Ashurst, the descendant of Norman chiefs, this future peer of England, he it was of all the men (not many ’tis true) she had ever met with whom she felt most at ease, most on an equality, excepting for the natural and gracious degree of reverence true woman feels for true man.

And for herself, what could she do to relieve her spirit, to raise her hopes for the future? To her, sorrow and unavailing regret was insupportable; she must kill it, or it would kill her. Against social distinctions she could do nothing; too well had she been schooled to regard them as immutable; but should they, should anything, destroy the glorious gift of life stretching out before her, at little more than nineteen?. No! she had will enough to guide her own future, and more than ever her mind turned to the stage. There a woman could achieve a position; not certainly so solid, so quietly important, as the head of a family, like Lady Templemore; but more brilliant, and, oh! better still, due to herself alone. Then, perhaps, when she roused the souls of some vast audience, and sent winged words, fraught with tenderness or daring, thrilling into a thousand hearts, and for the moment made them all her own, perhaps Dudley Ashurst might be there, and think, “There is something in life beyond this hour’s rank and station, powdered heads, red tape, ribbons, and rubbish.” However, Madeline soon toned herself down from this flight. The effervescence evaporated, but left a residuum of determination that by the time her year at Lady Templemore’s was done, she would seek her old singing-master, and consult him about her future proceedings.

The evening of this day was almost a failure, to Lord Templemore’s disgust. A singing man had arrived from London-—a pet with the world of fashionable ladies—a universal genius, very much spoiled and exigeant. But unfortunately, Mrs. Meadows, a singing and playing woman, who had the entrie of what is termed the “best society ” in consequence, despite uncertain antecedents, and the suspicion of a mythical husband, had telegraphed that she had a sore throat and must not travel.

The “genius ” cursed the sore throat in his heart, and was undone—he was near-sighted, and could not play his own accompaniments. Suddenly Lord Templemore bethought him, “There was that little syren, Miss Digby, wasting her sweetness in the school-room; she could probably supply the ‘ missing link’ in the chain of harmony.” So Miss Digby was peremptorily summoned. She was in her ordinary dress of black silk, very neat and becoming, yet unfit to appear in so brilliant a company. However, she did not hesitate. Something of exaltation from her mid-day musings still upheld her. Something of a golden mist from the strong light of inner holy reality hung round her, and hid difficulty and doubt for awhile. So when the message was brought, she laid down the work she had taken up, kissed Lady Agnes, and followed the messenger without hesitation.

She entered the music-room by a side door, and so avoided passing through the large drawing-room. She had never seen these apartments lit up and uncovered before, and, unaccustomed as she was to such scenes, she was struck and delighted.

“Well, you really are a good girl to come at once,” said Lord Templemore, pleased with her ready obedience, and kindly giving her his arm. “Here, Mr. Fitzharris, here is a substitute for Mrs. Meadows. I am not sure what she can do, but I am sure she will do her best.”

The “genius” turned the glare of an eyeglass and a distorted eye full upon her, then letting that instrument of torture fall, exclaimed, in a patronising tone, “Your lord-ship is a true magician, to conjure up so fair a substitute at a moment’s notice. If you could have remembered your powers a little sooner, I should have enjoyed my dinner more.”

“What do, you wish me to do?” asked Madeline, simply.

When it was explained, she professed herself ready to do her best, but warned Mr. Fitzharris that she had never played an accompaniment before. However, the “genius” soon set her to work, and she succeeded beyond her own hopes. She had a quick, true ear, and taste, and had no thought beyond the music, no idea of display, which is ruin to an accompanist.

Then Mr. Fitzharris asked her to try a duet; and as he had one or two she had studied with G-, she readily undertook them, really enjoying the performance, to the forgetfulness of company, “toilette,” all but the occupation, and yet she was perfectly content to be in the background. So Mr. Fitzharris was charmed with her, and Lord Templemore was charmed, and the lords and ladies who were accustomed to have their ears tickled were charmed, and the little governess had quite a success.

“You know it is all nonsense,” said Lord Templemore to his wife with unusual spirit, “we cannot have such an acquisition as Miss Digby shut up in the school-room; let her and poor Agnes come in every evening, it will do Agnes good.” So the matter was settled. But Madeline, though she had enjoyed the music greatly, stole away a little wearied, and cried herself to sleep.

Music being all-important in Lord Templemore’s mind at that moment, Madeline soon found the seclusion of the school-room broken in upon. My lord wished her to practice this or that duet with Mr. Fitzharris; and my lady was too much occupied with her multifarious duties and accounts, both considerably increased at such a time, to interfere.

Mr. Fitzharris was very friendly and patronising to Madeline—she was so earnest in her efforts to learn the parts assigned her, so sincere in her admiration of “Little Fitz” (as he was familiarly called), his magnificent voice and finished style—she had so little self-conceit to clash against his—that she soon became a first favourite. Mr. Fitzharris was an old young man, who for years had been a pet with dowagers of rank and musical pretensions. Who he was, and where he came from, no one knew and no one asked. It was sufficient that he wore good clothes, and sung as well as any professor, for the small remuneration of a place at your table occasionally, and the entree of your house. He was also an artist in a small way, and wrote verses. He had even published a volume of “Fugitive Pieces,” inspired, Lord Templemore said “by the grace of God ”—a piece of witty blasphemy suggested, it is to be feared, by a legal document familiar to Irish imaginations. He was a small, thin man, with a great deal of hair both on head and face, and large, innocent-looking, near-sighted eyes. He was a whimsical, uncertain, ill-tempered little man; yet, though he never went out shooting with the other men, or smoked in the stable, but preferred the ladies’ morning- room—where he drew patterns, and recited his own and other people’s poetry—there was still a bit of manhood in him. He could discern beauty or genius, however clouded by circumstance; and he would venture to announce such a discovery, and stand by it too; and whatever he might be to women, he never cringed to men. No one knew how he lived —scarcely where; he was suspected of extreme poverty, yet he did not borrow, at least not from the class of people to be met with at Lady Templemore’s; but it was whispered he had another class of acquaintances, further west still—and also north—rich City families, whose portraits he drew—the husbands’ as presents to the wives—wives’ as mementos for the husbands, and “received his reward,” and that not grudgingly. Yet, though courted and petted, he was sometimes a very melancholy little man; common sense, no doubt, occasionally (when he was bilious, or short of cab hire) suggested that there was but his voice and youth between him and the work-house.

Nevertheless he was useful to Madeline at this time, for he was a thorough musician, so they became great friends; and every evening when the gentlemen came up from dinner, he used literally to “stand by” the little governess.

However, he was not long alone in this. Lord Bracklyn used to come and utter three or four sentences, and then stand staring at her; and so used Captain Harris of the Guards, and young Mr. Bouverie Griffiths. But, what she preferred to them all, Lady Bawson frequently came into the music-room, and spoke very kindly to Madeline. No one was ever anything but polite to her. The shocking rudeness which, according to popular report, is lavished on young ladies in her position, exists, I suspect, very much in the imagination of the sufferers. At stray times she was, perhaps unavoidably, made to feel the difference and distance between her and the free-born women of rank with whom she was temporarily associated.

Lady Rawson, too, used sometimes to be admitted to the school-room, where she was a great favourite, except with “little Fitz,” who hated her for some reason—probably she rubbed him the wrong way too often, for Lady Rawson’s refinement was barely skin deep.

“She is very good-natured,” said Madeline, one morning, in reply to a sneering remark of his, after she had left the room.

“Do you think so? That is because she patronises you; were I in your place I would not he patronised.”

“I am not so sure of that,” returned Madeline, laughing. “You patronise me yourself and I assure you it is not disagreeable.”

“I patronise you, Miss Digby?” he repeated indignantly. “How can you accuse me of such bad taste?”

“I do not think it is bad taste; you are older than I am, you have a higher position, and, above all, you are my superior in knowledge. No; your patronage is quite natural.” “You are a strange girl, Miss Digby.”

“And Lady Rawson’s, too, though I do not recognise her right in the same degree. I fancy I have as much knowledge as she has— except, perhaps, knowledge of the world.”

“Ah! she beats you there, Miss Digby, and is wiser than you,” exclaimed Fitz, bitterly. “She knows how to succeed, at any rate. Do you know her history?”

“No, how could I?”

“Well, she was an actress long ago; not a high-class actress by any means, but handsome, in the fine animal style, and she managed, no matter how, to persuade a very wealthy stockbroker to marry her. He very prudently died, just when he had made a great hit in Brazilian bonds, or Turkish loans, or some such thing, and before he had time to lose the result in Pontgiband shares, or anything else. He left his widow sole legatee. Just after that Sir William Rawson, a thoroughgoing politician, was horribly hard up, a general election was pending, so he married her, and they got on apparently very well. She made his house pleasant—it was quite a private rendezvous for his party, till one fine morning he died of cholera. So she is a second time a widow, and I fancy will rest upon her laurels. She has a splendid house, and affects art and music, and a thousand things of which she knows nothing—a dangerous woman, Miss Digby.”

“She was an actress,” said Madeline, thoughtfully.

“Yes, it is universally known.”

“Yet she seems much sought after and respected.”

“She is rich,” said “little Fitz,” with bitter emphasis. “You are too young yet, Miss Digby, to know the extent to which the golden calf is worshipped.”

The next day there was to be a large addition at dinner to the party staying in the house. Some of the church dignitaries from Greybridge, and one or two superior officers of a regiment quartered at a manufacturing town twenty miles off, yet brought within dinner range by the railroad. The visitors, too, were changed; Mrs. and the Misses Bouverie Griffiths had gone, and were replaced by a Scotch marchioness, with a couple of red-haired and desperately lively daughters, who broke up the still and rather dull decorum which Lady Templemore managed to preserve, notwithstanding her lord’s efforts to the contrary. These young ladies insisted on carrying off Mr. Fitzharris to ride, in spite of his efforts at resistance. So Madeline and Lady Agnes had a quiet morning to themselves, in the course of which Madeline received the following letter. She read it with mixed feelings.

“Ashley Villas,

“September IIth.

“MY DEAREST MADELINE,

“You must think me very negligent not to have answered your dear letter sooner. Believe me, it was not want of interest or decrease of friendship that kept me silent, and I am truly rejoiced to find you are so happy and comfortable. It is a great advantage to be in a family such as you describe, and your life must be quite different from what, mine was at the Vicarage. I am spending a few days with my mother, as we have left Liverpool, Mr. Downing having obtained a much better situation than he had there. He is appointed overseer to some great ironworks at Stapleton, where we shall have a pretty cottage all to ourselves. I fancy it must be somewhere near you, if so you must come and stay with us. I am sure you would be so pleased with Arthur. He, too, wishes to know you. I was vexed to hear about Sam. I always knew he admired you, but I also knew you would not have him. My dear mother is still a little sore about it, but loves you very much. I have a great deal to do just now buying furniture, as we are going to furnish our cottage principally from London. Excuse a short letter, and pray write soon to me. My mother’s kind love, and Mr. Downing’s compliments.

“I am, dearest Madeline,

“Your ever attached,

“JESSIE DOWNING.”

Madeline thought she liked the old name best. She did not fancy Mr. Downing, and pictured rather a snobbish person in her mind’s eye.

However, Jessie was satisfied, and Madeline most earnestly hoped she was happy, “at least she has a good chance of it, and will make a charming home for her husband. Home! What a delicious word!” and involuntarily Madeline thought of her own peculiarities, which forbid her hoping for such a haven. The men of her own position she could not bear. Life with any she had seen was simply insupportable, while those who would have suited her were far above, out of her reach.

“I must find my happiness in other things,” she thought; “I must wed myself to art.” Thus thinking, she sat down and wrote a cordial and loving letter to her friend.

CHAPTER II.

As there was so large a gathering on this evening, Madeline thought it right to make more of a toilette than her usual high clear white muslin and black ribbons. She therefore put on an evening dress of grey silk, with a good deal of delicate black lace, and a jet cross to a black velvet ribbon on her neck. Her hair was also fastened back with a long black lace lappet, which showed exquisitely against its pale gold lustre. She had an undoubted air noble thus attired. The snowy sloping shoulders, the proudly set-on head, the indescribable distinction of her bearing, contrasted with the softness of her expression, made up a whole thoroughly deserving Madame de Fontarce’s term—seuisante. She was with her pupils in the drawing-room when the ladies came in from dinner. Lady Templemore seemed pleased at something, and relaxed her usual gravity a little; she spofe pleasantly to Madeline, and said she feared she had been-much interrupted of late. “It will not last long, however,” she added; and then she introduced Madeline to a kindly old lady with grey hair—quite the type of a venerable English lady—she was the wife of a dean—and Madeline was charmed to talk to her.

Then Mr. Fitzharris came in as usual first, but not in his usual spirits, moreover, he walked stiffly, and seemed anxious to avoid the Ladies Flora and Catherine MacTaggart; soon, however, he drew Madeline to the music-room, and here they were followed by Lord Bracklyn, with a request from Lady Rawson that Miss Digby would sing an Irish melody, or something with English words.

“I can quite understand that Italian is Greek to her ladyship,” said “little Fitz,” who was in an awful humour, “and you may tell her so from me.”

“Hush, hush!” put in Madeline, laughing; “you had better say we were going to sing ‘ La ci darem ’ at Lord Templemore’s desire, afterwards I shall be most happy to sing anything she likes.”

The piano stood at one side of the music-room, clear of the wall, and opposite, a wide doorway, shaded by portieres, was on Madeline’s right as she sat at the piano. As Lord Bracklyn left to deliver Madeline’s message, she turned her head to see if Lady Rawson was in the room, and there, standing in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee, and leaning against the doorpost, was Colonel Dudley Ashurst, looking supremely the man of rank, and the preux chevalier. He was talking with a stout, red-faced, country-looking gentleman, and did not even glance round.

Madeline’s heart, in spite of the severe schooling she had given herself, leaped up, and then beat wildly for a few minutes; her voice at first was tremulous, so that “little Fitz” thought that his cup of annoyance was about to be filled by the failure of his prima donna. But soon the reaction set in; a sense of power, of exhilaration, poured its magic into Madeline’s spirit, and she sang as she never sang before. Unreasonable, absurd, conceited, improbable, as she told herself it was, she felt that she had drawn him there.

“Look, Miss Digby,” said “little Fitz,” “there’s the hero of the evening standing in the doorway—that long man. What an extraordinary thing popularity, or rather renown, is, for Colonel Ashurst is scarcely popular. He is nothing on earth but a retired cavalry colonel, a half-broken-down squire, with a poor earldom in prospect, and yet you would think he had conferred the greatest honour on everyone; first, by coming to dine here, and then by asking all the men over to shoot his grounds to-morrow; that comes of keeping himself to himself; even in London he is made a great fuss about in a certain set; arid yet he has been a horrid scamp.”

Here Lady Rawson came through the doorway, and stopped to speak to Colonel Ashurst, who seemed to attend to her most politely, but not, Madeline fancied, with the sort of chivalrous deference with which he had treated herself. He did not leave his position when her ladyship moved on, nor did he send a single glance towards Madeline; yet how glad she was that “little Fitz ” was silent; It seemed such blasphemy to apply the term “horrid scamp ” to that stately being, who looked the “ideal lord of the creation.” Then Madeline smiled, and told herself that she was a dreamy idiot, and so spoke pleasantly with Lady Rawson 'for a few minutes; then, at her ladyship’s request, sang that most lovely melody, “Has sorrow thy young days shaded.” Madeline’s voice, though clear and high, had in it something of the dusky richness of the contralto, and these old airs were very dear to her; so she threw her whole soul into her song, that was a mode of speech of which none could deprive her. There was a murmur of approbation when she had finished, not so loud, of course, as if Lady Flora, or the Honourable Mrs. Langley, or Lady Raw-son had sung, though it would scarcely have been well-bred to sing so dramatically, and she was about, to rise, when a deep but pleasant voice said, close to her ear, “You sing well—you sing just as I imagined you would.”

Madeline kept very quiet, she knew he would come, and was hardly startled, she did not even turn her head, but replied without looking: “How did you form the idea that I sang at all?” .A. proceeding that showed Dudley Ashurst two things: first, that his voice was well-remembered; and second, that already there was a silent understanding be tween them.

“Your voice,” he said, “told me you must sing; and did you reach home in time to avoid Lady Templemore’s wrath?—that you reached it safely I ascertained.”

“Yes; I was in excellent time—but I shall never lose myself again—I shall not again venture to explore alone.”

“It would be better with a companion, certainly—but, Miss Digby, you sing most dramatically.”

“Do you think so? do you really think so?” said Madeline, turning round, and meeting his eyes fully, in her earnestness; how intensely they were fixed on her, and yet tenderly, though as they met hers the expression changed.

“I do, indeed,” he said, offering his arm to lead her to a seat; “but my opinion is not of much value on such a subject.”

“You must have seen a great deal,” replied Madeline; “enough to enable you to judge.”

“Why are you so curious as to your own powers?” asked Colonel Ashurst, with his peculiar smile, half-admiring, half-indulgent.

“Because,” she returned, indescribably attracted to confide in him, and feeling a strange equality that no one else seemed to experience, “I should like to adopt the drama as a profession.”

“Do not think of it: it is a miserable metier, unless you meet with extraordinary success, and that falls to the lot of few.”

“Then my dramatic powers are not, you think, first-rate?”

“I cannot possibly say; but apart from success, there is much in a theatrical career to distress a woman like you.” These last words implied a wondrous and tender respect, that sent the light dancing into Madeline’s dark eyes, and made the soft dimples come round her mouth.

“I must not be over-fastidious,” she said, brightly, “I have myself only to depend on, and I fancy we can make our own position to a certain degree, and influence our surroundings too.”

“You speak bravely. Is the world really before you where to choose?”

“Yes,” replied Madeline, laughing; “only in spite of the wide sounding range, the choice is limited.”

Colonel Ashurst was silent. He thought of the strange destiny which sent this delicate, refined girl to fight the battle of life alone; and yet she seemed so joyous and fearless.

“There is something in you that must bring success, I imagine,” he said, after a pause.

“I hope you will prove a true prophet.”

Here Mr. Fitzharris came to say he wanted Madeline to accompany him in a French song, and so the conversation was broken up. Then the ladies MacTaggart insisted on dancing, and Madeline was pinned to the piano for the rest of the evening. Twice, however, Colonel Ashurst came and spent a few minutes by her side. Though still a young man—not more than five or six and thirty—he assumed a little the tone of an elder with Madeline, and, with a courteous, kindly frankness, asked her many questions of her former life. So, before the guests departed, he had, without seeming to bestow anything beyond common attention, learned the outline of her life. There was something very fresh to him in the species of serene confidence shown by the little governess. It was so different from the way in which' society in general treated him. Yet there was no shadow of freedom in it: It was a natural expression of the feeling—“We understand each other.” She was quite at ease with this “lord of the soil”—this marked man of London society. And though she noticed how frequently and steadily his eyes seemed to fix themselves on hers, it scarce embarrassed her. Nay, she looked frankly and fearlessly at him in return, studying with delight so new a specimen of mankind.

After leaning for a few minutes on the piano, when he last visited the music-room, Colonel Ashurst said suddenly, “I leave almost immediately, so will say good-night now.”

“Good-night, then,” replied Madeline; “and remember you will have to take a box at my benefit one of these days.”

“Time will show,” he returned. “For the present, good-bye; but, remember, I will see you again.”

Madeline was in the midst of a complicated passage meant to inspire the “en award deux” with additional spirit; she could not, therefore, take her hands from the piano, or even speak, but only smiled archly, and slightly elevated her eyebrows with an expression which said as distinctly as words, “cui bono!” F Dudley Ashurst paused for an instant, and then disappeared.

The feelings with which Madeline reflected on this delightful evening were altogether new and strange. But the prevailing one was a sense of exultation. She was not altogether wrong, then, in her estimate of herself when a man like Dudley Ashurst took the trouble to seek her out and converse with her. She felt she was in thought and feeling not unequal with him; and the curious pride which in her took the form of courage, but which was as for above vanity as the heavens are above the earth, led her to rush fearlessly into the dangerous friendship he seemed to offer.

“Yes, I am not altogether insignificant, not entirely unworthy the notice of those bom to rule,” she thought. Then she contrasted her new friend with all she had ever met before. What an immeasurable distance lay between him and Sam Moorcroft, and Mr. John Redman, and even Lord Templemore, well bred and pleasant as he was! Le pere Duseautoir, indeed, was a type apart, but in his own way could bear comparison with any one.

To do Madeline justice, she felt no vulgar triumph in her personal attractions. She did not credit herself with any beauty, and thought it was her mind alone that attracted Colonel Ashurst. Life bore a new aspect, and in her own estimation Madeline filled a different place in it after this memorable evening. Yet was there no warning in her own heart against the master passion which had taken root in it? She little dreamed the Rubicon she had passed —even the brook which separates girlhood from womanhood. She knew it not. She slept and was happy.

CHAPTER III.

Colonel Dudley Ashurst dined again at the Grange. On this occasion the party was smaller. Still he contrived with exquisite tact to secure a good deal of conversation with Madeline without drawing on her any invidious notice; and on reflecting over these delightful moments, Madeline smiled with surprise to think what a tone of easy confidence had sprung up between them, posed as they were at almost opposite ends of the social chain. On this second occasion Lady Agnes Grey Temple was much with her governess, and Colonel Ashurst bestowed a great deal of notice on the bright, fragile girl. More than once he remarked on the species of likeness between Madeline and her pupil.

“I do not wonder at your being a favourite at Lord Templemore’s,” he said. “If I had a daughter, I should love all who were like her.

I am not so sure I should feel the same for a son. Young men are such cubs; are they not, Miss Digby?”

“A great many, certainly.”

“And do you never ride out, or go beyond the precincts of the school-room?” he asked, a little before he bid her good-night.

“Very seldom,” returned Madeline. “In spite of Lady Templemore’s efforts, Lady Agnes is so frequently taken away for picnics, or to ride, that I have no necessity to go out. Indeed, I never venture further than the ruins; but they are, I believe, on your territory.”

“Yes, you are a trespasser; and if I catch you there I will impound you. But there is a charming view from the old castle. I suppose it is a favourite haunt of yours?”

“I frequently stroll there,” returned Madeline; “and long to sketch it, but cannot.” There was much talk that evening of a theatrical entertainment and ball to the county, which was to close the autumnal festivities of the Grange. It was to take place at the beginning of the next week, and every one was gradually absorbed in the preparation. Madeline was prompter and hearer in general of the ladies’ parts, though none was assigned to her—much to Mr. Fitzharris’s disgust—as the piece decided on was a musical sentimental comedy; but there were too many aspirants for dramatic honours of rank and position to leave any place for one who had only ability. Nevertheless, Madeline enjoyed it all. She would certainly have liked to act herself; but, failing that, to share in the preparations was the next best thing.

A few days before the great event came off, the company at the Grange started on a picnic excursion to see some famous slate quarries, about twenty miles distant, in the next Welsh county. In these morning parties Lady Agnes was now generally included, especially since the arrival of one of the dignitaries of the neighbouring cathedral, with two young daughters, for a few days. Madeline was, therefore, as she thought, left quite alone; and, after her early dinner, resolved to stroll up to the old castle, and take her work, in order to enjoy a glorious autumnal afternoon in the open air. She had, however, scarcely issued from the shadow of the house, intending to cross a small flower garden, and enter the plantations beyond, that being the most direct path to the ruins, when Lady Rawson’s smart French maid came running rapidly after her —her ribbons fluttering on the breeze—with a thousand compliments on the part of Miladi, and would Miss Digby return for a few moments before she proceeded on her walk. Madeline, much surprised, of course, complied, and found Lady Rawson in her dressing-room, which overlooked the garden. She was in the act of locking her writing-case, and numerous freshly sealed letters lay beside it.

“Many apologies for my scant ceremony,” she said, with her frank though rather bold smile; “but having been prevented from joining the party this morning by a wretched headache, I think a little stroll would do me a great deal of good. Will you allow me to accompany you?”

“I shall be delighted,” returned Madeline, who had always found Lady Rawson kindly and agreeable.

“I shall not keep you a moment,” said Lady Rawson. “Here, Fanchette, bring me a hat and jacketand in a few minutes they were ready. “I am glad to have a quiet stroll for once,” said Lady Rawson, as they sallied forth. “There is always so much to see at a distance, that I have seen nothing of the home beauties. Let us go up to those effective ruins, and sentimentalise among them.”

“By all means,” returned Madeline. “It is a charming walk—I was on my way there when you stopped me.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Rawson in a peculiar tone; there was a little surprise, a little that was interrogative in it; but it scarce struck Madeline’s ear, so they walked on chatting pleasantly. Lady Rawson was lively and observant, and not very cautious in her strictures on people and things. Madeline listened, throwing in a word or two here and there.

“I leave to-morrow,” said her companion, rather abruptly, just as they reached a little wicket gate, which opened from Lady Templemore’s grounds into the immediate entourage of the ruins , they paused here, for the ascent had been steep.

“Indeed,” replied Madeline, “I did not know it before, and I am very sorry to know it now.” “I thank you, Miss Digby, I think you are; and you are right, I am perhaps the most friendly acquaintance you have here, and when you leave this place, for I see the spell of restlessness is on you, come and call upon me, there is my card,” and she took one from a dainty ornamental note-case. “I might be useful to you in some way.”

“How very good of you,” cried Madeline.

“I consider myself fortunate to have attracted your attention; but why do you think I shall leave Lady Templemore?”

“Because—I do not know,” laughed Lady Rawson, “I feel it, rather than reason about it. Come, now confess you have made up your mind to leave before very long.”

“I have no settled plan,” returned Madeline smiling.

“No, I can understand that, yet you are sure to leave, you are not the woman to be content with the monotony of the school-room. Nevertheless, think well before you leave the shelter of a home like this,” she paused abruptly and Madeline kept silence, expecting her to resume; so she did, in a moment, but it was with a hearty laugh. “How delighted ‘ little Fitz ’ will be when I am gone; I am a very skeleton at the feast to him; though a comfortable specimen of a skeleton, am I not, Miss Digby?”

“Why should he dislike you,” asked Madeline. “I really cannot imagine any one disliking you.”

“Then you must have a very different opinion of me, my dear girl! If you haven’t enough in you to attract the dislike of some, there is very little. Fitz, however, dislikes me because long ago I ventured to give him a friend’s advice. I was more Quixotic in those days, and ready to interest myself in people who thanked me very little; well, I advised him either to turn his voice to account and make money of it, or to cut his fine acquaintances and get a clerkship somewhere—to do anything, in short, by which he could make and save money, rather than fritter away life, and find himself in his old days with no refuge but the work-house. People are seldom grateful to those who amuse them after they are out of sight, but ‘ little Fitz ’ was in the height of his prosperity, poor little bird! so he was very much disgusted, and hates me accordingly. Oh! how weak men are! What will become of him in ‘ the -winter of his discontent!’ ”

“Yes,” sighed Madeline,

“Ayant chants tout l’ete,

Il se trouvera fort depourvu

Quand la bise sera venue.’'

“Just so; now Miss Digby, I wonder if I speak to you as a friend will you forthwith refuse to profit by my superior wisdom—no, experience—and hate me?”

They had been ascending to the highest part of the old keep while Lady Rawson spoke, and Madeline had just began to assure her that whatever effect her advice might have she would take it in good part, when the impulsive would-be woman of fashion, who was almost too honest for her role, interrupted her by exclamations of delight at the splendid view which suddenly opened beneath them—at their feet a sea of foliage, below a richly cultivated wooded valley, rising first into gentle swelling undulations studded with farm-houses and hedge-rows, patches of woodland, and rugged rough grey rocks beyond, then sweeping up into distant blue mountains, with many a magic effect of light and shade.

“This is a delightful spot to sit and work, or sit and gaze rather,” said her ladyship, “and a little further round that fragment of wall it must be better still.”

As she spoke, a tall ^figure in a shooting-dress, with a portfolio under his arm, walked leisurely round the angle which she indicated, and Colonel Ashurst, raising his hat, addressed them. Madeline, in 6pite of her natural self-command, flushed all over for an instant at this most unexpected rencontre. But Dudley Ashurst did not notice her beyond what mere politeness required, entering into a lively conversation with Lady Rawson, and doing the honours of the ruins with frank courtesy.

“How is it you were not of the picnic party?” asked Lady Rawson, when they had seated themselves on a bench which was placed in commanding position.

“I scarcely know; I am growing old for these innocent amusements,” he replied laughing. “I am not sure I was asked.”

“At any rate you preferred sketching here alone,” said Lady Rawson with some significance, and glancing at his portfolio.

“I did,” he returned looking straight into her eyes, a look of hauteur glancing across his proud face, as though he would say, “Pry into my affairs if you dare.” Lady Rawson changed the conversation, and soon after vowed she was longing for a cup of tea, so rose to return to the Grange. Colonel Ashurst accompanied them to the wicket, and there said, “good-bye,” declaring his intention of returning to sketch.

Madeline and her companion walked for a short time silently through the quiet fragrant plantation, when Lady Rawson suddenly broke out, “Sketching indeed I a different sort of art, I imagine! ”

“How?” asked Madeline, bewildered.

“Miss Digby, I asked you just now if I might venture to speak to you as a friend,” returned Lady Rawson, “I repeat the question”

“If you will be so good, I shall be grateful for your kind intention at all events.”

“But you do not undertake to follow my advice, eh? No matter; I will advise you for all that, and the advice can be put into a short compass. Beware of Dudley Ashurst!” Madeline started, and replied simply, “Why?” her composure quite unshaken.

“Because you have had the misfortune to attract him; he is a most dangerous man!”

“I think you must be mistaken,” replied Madeline, still keeping herself calm by a strong effort of her will, “I cannot remember any indication of my having attracted Colonel Ashurst.”

“But I know better. I have noticed how he stealthily sought you out on both occasions of his dining at the Grange. And now, do you believe he came to sketch these ruins? Pooh! he came to meet you—no, you need not look so indignant; I acquit you of knowing anything of it. I thought you did at first, when I sent Fanchette after you. But you were so ready to accompany me to the Castle, I saw your stroll there had no special object. My dear girl, the fancy of such a man can only do you harm. I am not a stuffy, straight-laced woman, and I grant that a few years of brilliant life with Dudley Ashurst would be a charming exchange for the monotony of the school-room; but remember, what would come after! Scarce any man of his rank would think of marrying you, and certainly, he is not the exception. I don’t say you are not to amuse yourself with him, and then turn him off. If you were only strong enough, I should be charmed to see you play that game. But you are not. No woman at your age is, because they are still capable of belief. When you have seen and known as much of men as I have, you will despise them as much as I do; they are such poor creatures, my dear!”

“Lady Rawson,” returned Madeline, deeply stirred in the inner depths of her proud nature, “ you have told me bitter truth; but I know, I have before known it is truth. I know that men like Colonel Ashurst would never dream of wedding a woman unpossessed of any material advantage, and yet, I confess, all men of a lower stamp seem to me revolting.”

“Just as I thought! That’s the misfortune of having tastes and tendencies above your station. You might marry comfortably in it —a nice curate, now, some of them are very gentleman-like men.”

“Thank you,” returned Madeline, laughing, in spite of a pang that shivered through her, “I presume you have some article on hand that might suit. You spoke exactly as the people at Shoolbred’s do when you ask for French merino, and they assure you they have Coburg at twenty shillings less that will answer the purpose just as well.”

Lady Rawson looked at Madeline—at the dark light in her eyes, and the playful smile that contradicted it on her lip.

“You have a bold spirit, my dear—a proper kind of spirit. There are few men I would fear for you but I do fear Dudley Ashurst.”

“Well, Lady Rawson, at all events you have acted a friend’s part in putting me on my guard; but in all sincerity, I do not believe Colonel Ashurst would take any trouble about me.”

“Well, well, I think you are-speaking sincerely. Time will show. If I prove right, remember my warning. Society punishes avowed breakers of her laws unpityingly.”

Madeline was silent, and Lady Rawson, changing the subject, talked on cheerfully till they reached the house. Then Madeline, rousing herself, asked her ladyship if she would condescend to take tea in the schoolroom, to which proposition she gladly assented; and Madeline exerted herself to amuse and entertain her, feeling surprised herself at her own powers. Never before had she exerted them in the same way; but she wished to produce two impressions on her guest: first, that her honest but unpalatable advice had been well received; secondly, that no weakness for Colonel Ashurst, nor galled pride, nor wounded tenderness, lurked treacherously in her heart to lower her spirit, or prevent her free use of the abilities which nature had bestowed. And she succeeded. She gave, at Lady Rawson’s request, a light sketch of her life, from the death of her father to the present time; touching, with a deep quiet sense of the ridiculous, on the respectable Redman, and the elegant Mr. John, till Lady Rawson declared she would know them anywhere. Many of the drolleries and small inconveniences of her life in Paris, too, furnished amusement for her guest. But like those double pictures, which change with the amount of light placed at the back, the deeper shades of sorrow and of feeling were not displayed by the sunshine of humour slightly cast upon them.

But when she was alone Madeline buried her face in her hands, and thought long and passionately. What was her crime, that circumstances should make it shame to have the love of a man that nature told her was her equal? “He, too, feels I am his equal! and I will make him acknowledge it yet. She thinks I have had the ‘misfortune to attract him.’ ” Misfortune she could not think it. No! at the idea, she raised her head, and a proud smile stole round her lips. What! she, who had been patronised by the young Comerfords, and considered lucky to have an offer from Sam Moorcroft!—she could draw the proud, fastidious Dudley Ashurst to wander about those old ruins on the mere chance of meeting her! After all, however, that might be but Lady Rawson’s fancy. Ah! what would she not give to have her dear, dear father back to live and work for— to have a home, however poor, some one to think of beside herself. Then, indeed, there would be no shuddered at her own loneliness, her appalling freedom. Yet she could love so well. She knew this, and heartily did she pray for some charge—some object to be given her, even though it entailed a heavy task. Who cared for her now? Jessie had scarce room for her in her thoughts at such a time. Her aunt, the Countess de Fontarce, even had she lived, had nothing hut politesse to bestow. Mrs. Redman hated a poor relation with the true currish instinct that snarls over an ungnawed and unrequired bone, rather 'than share it with the homeless, starving street-dog. There was poor Miss Foster, a persecuted weak creature—“Yes,” thought Madeline, in the magnificence of youthful imagination, “I will adopt her; as soon as I can see my way to a theatrical engagement, she shall come and live with me — she has always been kind — and, oh! what a dreadful life she leads!”

Lady Rawson had gone. For nearly a week previous to the ball and theatricals, Lady Agnes and Madeline had been less disturbed, and Madeline had fought gallantly against the oft-recurring memory of Colonel Ashurst’s words and looks.

The long anticipated night arrived, and Madeline, after most of the company were seated, placed herself quietly in the doorway of the large drawing-room, the music-room being made a temporary theatre. The drawing-room was darkened to increase the effect of the stage, and Madeline was glad to know a retreat was open behind hef into a quiet passage which led to a side staircase. The play proceeded with the average success of amateur plays, and loud applause.

It was half over, when Madeline became aware that some one had stolen softly in beside her in the dark doorway. She did not look, or speak; yet she knew quite well it was Colonel Ashurst. At last he said in a low voice:

“I suppose you are determined never to walk out alone, since you lost your way?”

“No. I have made no determination, and I often enjoy a solitary ramble.”

“That old castle is very attractive,” remarked Colonel Ashurst, with some slight significance of tone.

“Very. Lady Bawson was charmed with the view, and much obliged to me for taking her there; she would otherwise have left without seeing it.”

“Left—is she gone, then?”

“She left the day after we met you there.” Colonel Ashurst made no immediate reply; but when he spoke again there was a change in his tone, as though he was pleased at something.

“How is it you are not in the ‘ Corps Dramatique?’ ”

“They did not want me.”

“Hum—not so sure of that! though I am reluctant to encourage your fancy for the stage. I must admit, I think you have the dramatic faculty.”

“Ah! how pleased I am to hear you say so.”

“Nevertheless, I imagine you will never go on the stage.”

“Why, Colonel Ashurst?”

“Because I feel there is a different destiny in store for you.”

Therp was something in these words, in the tone in which they were spoken, that made Madeline’s heart thrill. He thought of her then—of her future. What! did he intend to take the direction of it into his own hands? For a moment her brain almost reeled with the wild delight of feeling she was an object to anyone, but especially to such an embodiment of a girl’s ideal as Colonel Ashurst.

Before she could recover herself sufficiently to reply he was gone, as quietly as he had come. The play ended soon after, and the guests flocked to the supper-room. Lord Bracklyn, who had on several occasions annoyed Madeline by a sort of insolent admiration, now sought her out, and insisted on taking her into supper, which she as resolutely declined; and from the noisy pertinacity with which he continued to persuade her, she fancied he was intoxicated. She was greatly distressed; he was in general easily put down, but seemed now quite above or below ordinary considerations. Just as her dilemma was at its height, Colonel Ashurst made his appearance.

“Come along, Bracklyn; Lady Templemore wants you,” he said; and twining his arm through the cub’s, turned him round with a force he could hardly have resisted.

The remainder of the evening was enchantment to Madeline; she danced to the music of an excellent military band, and two of those dances were with Dudley Ashurst, who selected her pupils and herself as his only partners.

“You must give me another waltz, Miss Digby,” he said, when the company were beginning to disperse, “I do not know when I have danced before.”

The waltz lasted some time, and when they were taking the last turn he said—

“Do you know why I wanted this waltz especially?”

“No.”

“Because I am going away.”

Madeline, thinking he meant for the evening, looked up in his face and smiled.

“I mean,” he resumed, “I am going away from Trevallon—probably from England.” Madeline felt as if a bolt of ice had been driven into her bosom; but she was silent for a moment, then raising her eyes, said with marvellous composure—

“I suppose you do not care for the country when the shooting is over?”

“I leave with the utmost regret and reluctance; and never said good-bye more unwillingly than I do now.”

They had stopped as he spoke, but his arm was still round her.

“Good-bye, Miss Digby,” he added, and with the words pressed her for an instant to him — so unmistakably that Madeline felt dizzy with some strange feeling, coloured over cheeks and brow, and then turned deadly pale. Colonel Ashurst drew her arm through his and lead her to a seat near an open window —a door-like French window, opening to a terrace. Having placed her there, he bowed, and was about to leave, when he suddenly turned, bent over her, and almost whispered—

“Forgive me. I have not offended you? Forgive me.”

“G-ood-bye, Colonel Ashurst,” said Madeline, steadily, but with sadness in her tones. He took her hand, looked into her eyes, and the next moment stepped through the open window, and was gone.

CHAPTER IV.

Randal Dudley Ashurst, of Trevallon Hall, Chalkshire, North Wales, had been one of fortune’s favourites, till she became weary of his recklessness. Bom the younger of two brothers, he had been early placed in a cavalry regiment, and seen a little military and much sporting service in India. He was rather extravagant and self-indulgent, for he had never seen or known any other kind of life. Yet he was an immense favourite with both equals and inferiors, from his bright, genial temper, his pleasant voice, his bold, almost too daring, nature. When about twenty-five his elder brother died suddenly, and Randal came into the family estate, then but slightly encumbered. He did not quit the army, but went out as “unattached.” Though a good deal in debt, his debts at that time were'but a trifle to a man of eight thousand a year.

His first three seasons in London, however, with the intermediate shooting and hunting seasons at Melton Mowbray and Trevallon, together with a contested election, rather astonished the family solicitors.

Dudley Ashurst was the observed of all observers; the idol of clubs, drawing-rooms, and green-rooms; a munificent patron of art; a nominally successful competitor on the turf. In four years he had run the round of all possible excitements, and left himself little but the dregs of the cup, and they were tasteless, if not bitter.

In this breathless period he had frequently given promise of excelling in many ways. He had written a political pamphlet; he had made a capital speech in the House of Commons. Men of note had spoken of him as a future minister; but somehow nothing lasted long; his writing was disturbed by a liaison with a certain beautiful viscountess, with whom his name was frequently coupled. Then a general election came on, and he declared he was sick and weary of the humbug of politics, especially as he had no opponent to rouse him to action. Then came an interval of European travel—more necessity for raising money. Then an interval of weariness —a heavy reckoning of crippled resources. And then the Crimean war broke out. Ashurst once more threw himself eagerly into military life, and was considered a most promising officer; none bore hardship better; none cared more kindly and thoughtfully for the wants of his soldiers, until himself incapacitated by a wound, which sent him home, and made it impossible for him to volunteer for India, as he would otherwise have done. So when sufficiently recovered, he departed on a long journey through the countries of Asia Minor, from which he had been scarce a year returned when he met Madeline Digby.

Women had played a large part in Ashurst’s history. He was keenly alive to beauty; yet his was no vulgar voluptuary’s admiration for mere flesh and blood. It is true he had never known the purifying influence of mother or sister; and though he had the natural chivalry of a strong man and a high-born gentleman— that is, he would face any danger to help a woman—yet he had no ideal of female purity or truth. Women were pleasant things to him; and perhaps had circumstances thrown him early with a true woman of the nobler stamp, he might have thought and felt very differently. His whole life would probably have borne a different character. But be judged by what be bad experienced, and so to him women were toys—troublesome, piquante toys—not to be unkindly dealt with, but of no real importance in a man’s life, though he knew that. one or two had done him considerably more harm than good, having turned him aside from graver objects, and weakened him with annoyances he yet despised himself for feeling. He was too well tempered to turn sour; but as he came near the middle term of forty, he felt a dull weariness, a scepticism of happiness he neither could nor would analyze. His days dragged on indifferently, and even his monetary embarrassments ceased to afford him a sensation. In this mood—the chambers both of bead and heart swept and garnished—aching with emptiness, he knew not why, the current of life bore a pretty little straw to his feet—and that straw was Madeline Digby. Not since the enthusiasm of early youth lent charms to every object had his imagination been so possessed as by that quiet girl, with her dark, steadfast eyes, so brave in their innocence, and the contrast of the strong, calm spirit in her fragile, tender frame. Then there was a composed self-reliance, inexpressibly delightful to a man wearied of the fluttering consciousness of common-place, weakly, well-dressed women. Nay, the strange, almost indescribable, way in which Madeline seemed to acknowledge his higher social position, while in matters of taste, thought, and feeling, she addressed him with all the frank security of an equal, roused him to the strongest interest. He could not with her, as he had with so so many—“come, see, and conquer.” She could meet his eye, even when it expressed admiration. She could differ from him, almost defy him;. and her idea took sudden and complete possession of him.

Walking or sleeping she was there, and always seemed to say—“Win me if you can I”

It was the strongest, the most overwhelming passion he had ever known, and he was just at the period when such a feeling obtains the most complete mastery. The glow of the Indian summer which comes back to man in the prime of physical and intellectual life has in it a sultry warmth which the noontide heat never knew! Yet there was much of tenderness in all he felt for Madeline, nay respect; there was a relief in speaking to her, a charm in her voice, a grace in her every movement, inexpressibly satisfying to his fastidious taste, at their third or fourth interview he burned to tell her all he felt how wildly he loved her— but he dared not. He feared to startle her, and he felt hers was no common mind, no common will, to influence it he must go cautiously to work.

When a man of Dudley Ashurst’s temperament and training feels thus towards any object, to obtain it follows as a matter of course. He had therefore determined that Madeline should be his, even when he bid her good-bye, which, by the way, was a mere ruse to see how far he had progressed. It was scarce as successful as he hoped. Nevertheless he was tolerably satisfied, and so departed for London and his solicitors.

The Grange soon settled back to its old monotony after the gay company had gone, yet it was no longer the same to Madeline. Colonel Ashurst’s last words left her a legacy of struggle. But she fought the good fight valiantly. When the echo of Ms words at their last interview would come wMspering with unspeakable sweetness through memory’s caverns, she strove to recal Lady Rawson’s oracular sentence: “The fancy of such a man can only do you harm.”

“Oh!” she often thought wearily, “What is the use of this perpetual effort against nature ?—where will it lead? what reward have I beyond? who cares for me?” Then she grew pale and thin, but still she fought on, and was beginning to regain self-command; she threw herself eagerly into study, and spurred on her pupils till Lady Templemore herself suggested that Miss Digby really worked too hard.

“Moderation in all things is true wisdom,” said her ladyship, “and though you manage to interest Agnes, I think you excite her too much, she looks but indifferent, I fancy a change would do her good. Lord Templemore’s sister, Lady Augusta Hodges, and her family are at a bathing-place near Aberyst-with; we shall go there next week, you will come with us, not to let Agnes run quite wild, so make your arrangements; we shall probably, start about the fifteenth.”

Madeline rejoiced in the probability of a change giving her new strength and fresh ideas, she therefore went cheerfully about her preparations. Meantime a rapturous letter from Jessie Moorcroft, now Mrs. Downing, informed her of her wedding and her arrival at her new home, where she hoped Madeline would soon visit her. Madeline sighed over the letter, feeling, in some curious and prophetic way, that the quiet secure joys of home were never to exist for her.

Two days before that on which Madeline ' was to accompany Lady Templemore and her pupils to Aberystwith, she awoke with an odd dizzy pain in her head, and a dryness in her throat; but she took no notice of it till towards evening, when she was obliged to excuse herself from appearing in the drawing-room. The next morning she was unable to rise, and Lady Agnes’ report soon brought Lady Templemore to see what was the matter.

“You are quite feverish, Miss Digby, your pulse very uncertain, I shall send for Doctor Jones at once, anything or everything may begin with a feverish cold. How do you think you caught it? By some imprudence, no doubt!”

Lady Templemore was always annoyed with people when they got ill, even her own children; she never had anything the matter with herself, and she greatly resented the indisposition of a governess.

As soon as it was possible Doctor Jones made his appearance in obedience to her ladyship’s summons. He humm’d and ha’d, said that the “larynx ” was a good deal inflamed, and the whole system prostrate. Had Miss Digby had any mental distress? for her condition was very much what might be the result of a bad cold supervening on a state of nervous depression.

Lady Templemore said, “No, nothing!; she was as happy as possible. Did Doctor Jones think any infection might ensue?”

Doctor Jones would not commit himself. “It possibly might turn to scarlet fever—small pox was not altogether out of the question; at any rate her ladyship would do well to remove her family out of reach of any possible danger.”

So the result of the doctor’s visit was a bottle, a sixth part four times a day, a gargle, a diet of milk and arrowroot and barley-water, and increased diligence in packing on the part of the ladies’ maids, as Lady Templemore decided on starting by an earlier train than she had intended.

Before Madeline settled for the night, Lady Templemore paid her a visit, attended by the stately housekeeper. “I wished to see you, Miss Digby, this evening, because we start so early to-morrow, the doctor thinks we had better do so, lest your attack might prove infectious, but I shall leave you in charge of Brown,” nodding towards the housekeeper,

“who is an excellent nurse, and will let me know how you go on. I have told Doctor Jones to be very attentive, hut at the same time not to run you up too long a bill, and Brown will see you want for nothing; you will excuse Elizabeth and Agnes coming to say good-bye, it would not be prudent.” So saying her ladyship walked away, and Mrs. Brown remained a moment longer, merely to inform Miss Digby that Susan the school-room maid would sleep in her room and attend upon her. This last piece of information was very pleasant to Madeline. Susan was a sympathetic kindly girl, and had always shown Madeline almost affectionate attention. So the night closed in, the weary night, and poor Madeline alternated between short snatches of sleep tormented by horrible dreams, and long intervals of restless tossing. She could not touch food, she burned with thirst, and next morning, when Mrs. Brown paid her an early official visit, she made a very alarming report to Lady Templemore as she was stepping into the carriage.

“I am sure,” remarked her ladyship to my lord, “it was most fortunate, both that we had made all arrangements to go to Lady Augusta, and also that Miss Digby’s illness showed itself in time to leave her behind.”

“Poor girl,” ejaculated Lord Templemore, “I hope they will take good care of her.”

In spite of the attentions of Susan, the sense of desertion, when she knew the house was empty, pressed heavily on the weakened nerves of the lonely patient. What if she grew worse! What if she died without one friendly hand to close her eyes! one friendly voice to say “Alas! my sister.” Yet, where would she be better off? Jessie would herselfj she knew, willingly come to her. But now “another king had arisen in Jessie’s heart who knew not Madeline,” and even though Madeline sent for her, perhaps her husband would not let her come. Miss Foster? Yes, she would like to be with her; hut that was simply impossible. Oh! to be with the good nuns in the tranquil convent! How lonely, how desolate she was. Her feeling of horror for the Grange became morbid. She would be better off anywhere else. So the weary days rolled over. But Madeline, after all, had only a severe feverish cold, and the fifth night after Lord and Lady Templejnore’s departure, nature came to the doctor’s aid, and Madeline, soothed by a profuse perspiration, slept long and profoundly.

On waking, she announced herself as quite well, she felt such a sudden and complete relief, and Susan rejoiced accordingly : but now an interval of great weakness ensued, which was only terminated by frequent drives in the open air. Then Lady Templemore wrote that she had better arrange to visit some of her friends previous to the return of her pupils, that her rooms might be thoroughly purified, and she might meet them refreshed and invigorated. This was as yet impossible, but in a week Madeline thought she might be well enough to visit Mrs. Downing, if she was able to receive her; Stapleton, the town where the elegant Mr. Downing held the appointment before mentioned, being not more than thirty miles from the nearest station to the Grange.

She therefore wrote to Jessie, telling her how ill she had been; and begging she would say candidly if a visitor would be convenient or not. Feeling much stronger the day after this epistle was despatched, she ventured, for the first time, into the plantation alone, and, enjoying the fresh October day, with its sober grey beauty and deep autumnal tints, she strolled on half unconsciously, till she reached the keep of the castle. She had not visited it since the day Lady Eawson had accompanied her there, and she now sat down on a fragment of broken wall to muse sadly—to try and plan out the future. She would leave Lady Templemore—that she decided. The isolated life she led at the Grange appalled her, though she knew she had no reasonable cause of complaint. She would have sufficient with what remained from the sale of her aunt’s lace, and perhaps the produce of a little more, together with six months’ salary, to keep her till she could find some other employment, and—but her thoughts were checked,'the very current of her blood arrested, by a voice close beside her which said: “I hardly hoped you could walk so far and her hand was gently taken by Colonel Ashurst in both of his.

Startled, overpowered, unequal to control herself^ Madeline shook from head to foot, and the large eyes, larger than ever, because the face was slightly attenuated, filled up, and then welled over, with round pearly drops; yet she strove to smile, and succeeded.

“I am very weak, and you startled me,” she said, drawing away her hand slowly.

Ashurst sat down at her side, he looked kindly and gravely into her eyes: “I see I did, and I am sorry, but I had been watching you for some time, trying to think how I should least startle you, and ended by doing so most effectually. Now tell me what has been the matter with you.”

“Only a bad cold and low fever, but I fancied I was going to die; I suppose sick people generally do, and I never was sick before.”

“And they left you—perhaps to die,” Said Ashurst in a low voice, as if to himself.

“You must not blame Lady Templemore for that; the doctor thought the attack might be infectious, and she was right to take care. I am a stranger, without any claim on her— or,” she added with an irrepressible craving for sympathy, “on any one.”

Colonel Ashurst bit his lip, but kept silent. “You are much better?” he asked, looking into her face with so deep an expression of interest, that a new life seemed suddenly to pour itself through Madeline’s veins.

“Oh yes, much, much better! but how,” she asked, suddenly feeling puzzled, “how did you know I was ill? I did not think you were here—I thought you were in London— or on the Continent—how is it you are here?” “I am here,” he returned, smiling, “and that is all you must know at present;” and then he began to speak on other subjects in a calm, friendly tone, which put Madeline at her ease, and stilled the wild throbbing of her heart, which had so oppressed her at their first meeting. Madeline, however, dared not let herself indulge too long in this delightful interview.

“I must be prudent, and return,” she said, “though the evening is delicious; it would not do to take fresh cold.”

“Let me see you safe into Lord Templemore’s grounds?” said Colonel Ashurst.

“Thank you; and will, you not tell me how you knew I was ill?”

“I will tell you all about it, Miss Digby, if you will stroll up here to-morrow, at the same time.”

Madeline hesitated: ought she not to refuse? The mere fact of seeking such an interview indicated more of interest in her than was safe, with a man of Colonel Ashurst’s station, yet to refuse was to cut herself off from the one enjoyment life seemed to offer, something she could neither define nor resist, seemed to compel her to accede.

“You will probably go out shooting tomorrow, and forget to come,” she said, with a soft sad smile.

“You know I shall not,” said Ashurst, very emphatically; “There is not any extraordinary breach of les bienseances in country neighbours accidentally meeting.”

“Accidentally,” repeated Madeline, with an arch smile.

“Well, designedly, if you prefer the naked truth; but call it what you will, do not refuse my request?”

“If I feel as well as I do to-day I will be here,” said Madeline, speaking low and quickly.

“And if you are not, I shall conclude you are worse, and will come to the G-range to look for you.”

“A desperate threat,” returned Madeline, with a bright smile; and then, as they had reached the plantation, she gave him her hand in token of dismissal. He held it a moment or two longer than was necessary, and then let her go with an earnest “Remember!”

He leant his arm upon the wicket gate, covered his face with his hand, and thought long; then raising his head, with a settled and resolute expression on his countenance, he whistled to his dogs, and walked slowly away in the direction of Trevallon Hall.

Madeline, too, sped homeward, but in a very different mood from that in which she had left it scarce two hours before. She was deeply stirred; she knew she had been unwise in giving a promise to meet Colonel Ashurst, nevertheless, she longed unspeakably for tomorrow; yet, what had he to tell her to which she might allow herself to listen? He entertained no mere feeling of friendship for her, on that point she could hardly deceive herself.

It was for her now to profit by Lady Rawson’s warning, and think of the “hereafter.” Instead of which, she allowed herself to feel that life had still much sunshine; that she was by no means deserted or desolate; that her existence, so far from being poverty-stricken, was full of riches; that Jessie, instead of being in an enviable position, was to be pitied, because she could know nothing of the wild unreasoning delight which filled Madeline’s soul. And all this, because Dudley Ashurst had returned to Trevallon, and was mysteriously well informed as to herself.

“Law, miss, but your walk has done you good!” cried the little school-room maid when she brought in the tea-things. “You look quite another lady! ” Madeline, conscience-stricken, coloured to the roots of her hair, and felt perfectly transparent in poor Susan’s simple eyes. A letter lay upon the tea-tray. It was from Jessie : both her husband and herself would be delighted to welcome Madeline the following week. Arthur was longing, to make acquaintance with Miss Digby. Jessie pined to embrace her, and show her her pretty new house and furniture.

That was all well then. She forced herself to sit down and reply, accepting the arrangement of next week for her visit; yet with a vague feeling that to-morrow’s interview might totally change her future. And then she wrote to Lady Templemore, informing her that the next week might be devoted to the task of purification, and then she would be no longer an obstacle to their return home.

And so,to rest. Wearied with unwonted excitement, she slept profoundly. How delicious was the first waking thought, “I shall see him to-day,” though with the sunshine came the shadow—the “Beware!”—which ever linked itself with Colonel Ashurst since Lady Rawson’s warning. Still, something of a hope that all might turn out better than she dared anticipate, lurked in her heart, glowed on her cheek, and deepened the dark lustre of her eyes.

The day dragged on, the hour came, and she stood with a beating heart at the wicket gate. At a little distance Colonel Ashurst leant against a rowan tree, his dog at his feet.

He came forward to meet her with gentle, courtesy, and carefully regulated voice. The world-trained man held himself well in hand, while the inexperienced girl was as transparent to him in her doubts and hopes, her modest fears, and the traitor love nestling in her heart, ready to open the door of the sanctuary, as if that fair bosom was open before him. There were some ingredients, however, in the spirit he contemplated, of which he was but dimly aware.

Colonel Ashurst met Madeline as if by accident, and they strolled rather silently, side by side, to the fragment of wall where the view was finest.

“You had better rest, Miss Digby; you are looking wonderfully better. Do you feel stronger ?”

“Yes, much stronger.”

“Equal to any amount of argument?” he asked smiling.

“No; I do not want’ to argue. Look, there is the white cairn, that lured me to . my wanderings two months ago. Does it not look near?”

“Yes, very near, only you did not allow for the dip of the ground between—and now, have you no remains of your curiosity? Do you not care to know to-day how I became informed that you had been ill—that Lady Templemore had deserted you, and you were left to recover or die alone?”

“I have told you that you blame Lady Templemore unjustly. I do not. But yes, I should like to know what accident brought all 'this to your notice. Lord Bracklyn perhaps told you? But no, he has been in Scotland.”

“I will tell you all about it The day after Lady Templemore’s ball I went to town. I was obliged. I have been busy ruining myself for some years, and my errand' to town was in pursuance of that employment I was resolved not to be left in the dark respecting you—surrounded as you were by wretched cubs, ready to presume upon their standing, and ill-natured women of the world, ready to construe trifles into evil. Do,you follow me, Miss Digby?” He had thrown himself on the grass, leaning one elbow on the piece of ruined wall where Madeline was sitting, so as to look full into her eyes under the shade of her broad hat. Madeline bent her head. “I left behind me a faithful ally —almost a friend—an old French valet, who has been with me for years. Men laugh at me for keeping so antediluvian a servitor. I do not care. I have learned to doubt many people and things, but I still believe in Antoine! Well; I left Antoine at Trevallori, with strict orders to report every movement of every member of Lord Templemore’s family. I named no name, remember. In due time I received a report:—‘Lord and Lady Templemore have gone with the young ladies to Aberystwith. Mademoiselle Digby remains behind seriously ill.’ When this reached me I was lingering in London, undecided whether to return, or fly from Trevallon—certain to be wretched in either case. These tidings decided me. The idea of your lying ill, suffering, abandoned to the care of .servants, drew me back to Trevallon irresistibly. Yet what could I do for you! Still I was within reach, and I lingered about, and obtained constant information without direct inquiry, and at last I met you! Now,” gently taking her hand, and pressing his lips fondly upon it, “Madeline, you have my secret! You know what has inspired all this thought about you! You must know I love you! But how passionately your nature perhaps cannot divine!”

Madeline’s long-fringed lids half closed, to hide her eyes from his. For a moment she left her hand in his grasp unresistingly—a moment she wished might be prolonged for ever, or that she might pass away from it into eternal oblivion. What words! What a voice for the neglected, unloved orphan to hear—and addressed to herself! Her lips moved but she could not speak. She drew away her hand. “Madeline!” continued Colonel Ashurst, “you have heard me! I love you! I love you!” he repeated passionately, “Speak to me.”

Madeline covered her face with her hands, and then clasping them together, rested them on her knee in an attitude of resignation, and replied with strange calmness: “You love me! Why have you let yourself love me? It is at least discomfort for you. It may, it might be the deepest grief to me.”

“It need not be either, Madeline,” returned Ashurst, watching her closely. She seemed buried in thought.

“Our stations in life are so widely apart,” she said after a pause, “that we ought to be nothing to each other. You are a man of rank, a future peer; I, a humble worker for my bread. Yet,” she continued, flushing quickly, “I cannot feel it. I recognise no difference between us at this moment.”

“Feelings such as mine annihilate all distinctions. I know there is no extravagance or folly I could not commit for you. But I will not deceive you. Marriage with any one is impossible for me. To wed you, dearest, would be ruin—to wed any one else, despair.” “It is as I expected,” said Madeline, with the- same sad composure. “You love me, you would do anything for me, except to link yourself to me for ever! Notwithstanding, you care for me so much, that you are grieved at the idea of my being left alone to the care of servants! You like to leave yourself an opening through which to creep away, and leave me to a loneliness a thousand times worse than any I have ever known! ” She was silent, her heart swelling to suffocation.

“No, Madeline! you wrong me! By heaven you do! I cannot marry; but I would be as true’to you, as constant—ay! a thousand times more so—than the most orthodox husband that ever took the vows in church! After all, what is the difference? You, surely, with your bright intelligence, must have observed the hollow shams which people dignify as domestic virtue and purity of life! Madeline, a real marriage is constancy—intense regard for each other’s welfare. What would be the world’s opinion to hearts that felt like this? Mine has been a cold, hollow life, Madeline. You have taught me love such as I never felt before! You have given me a glimpse of a paradise of companionship such as I never dreamed of! Do not tear it from me! I cannot live without you! or, if I do, it will be a broken and a worthless life! I have never been false to man or woman. Why distrust me? Why destroy the exquisite happiness within our reach for a punctilio? I say ours, Madeline, for you love me!—I feel you must love me!” As he said this he knelt at her feet, and again possessed himself of her hand, looking into her eyes as though he would have drawn her soul through them.

“I do love you—I do!” returned Madeline, the intensity of her feelings lifting her for the moment above her natural reluctance to make such an avowal; “and though I have seen and known enough to make me well aware how unlikely a man of your station should marry a woman of mine, your words have given me a bitter pang. Let us speak no more; let us part here. Why did we ever meet? What have I done? What curse is upon me, that life should be so wretched? Yours is the first glimpse of love I have known since I was left an orphan; and that which might have been so sweet is a grief, a misfortune unspeakable!”

“I cannot let you go yet. listen to me once more. If you refuse me, what does life give you in exchange? Years of toil, of loneliness! To whom do you owe duty or consideration? Who has given you any? With me you would have a happy home; you would be in real truth my wife! We would wander together through all the fairest scenes of the world, untrammelled by the hollow conventionalities of society, and living for each other! I should be another and a better man with your companionship; and while life was left me, cherish you fondly, tenderly—comprehending you as none else could. Think, Madeline, of the long sunny lapse of such a life! And what would it cost? You have no tender parent to vex. If you had I grant you might well hesitate. To me you are all the world! but, dearest, what are you to others? Who else pines for you?—who else thirsts for a glance from those dark eyes, or a tone of that gentle voice, as I do? Then, remember, though I must not wed you, I will never—never, by all I hold most sacred— wed another! No, I will not take an answer now! You are weak; you do not grasp the subject with your usual clearness and strength of intellect, or you would see that I offer you all the real advantages of a happy marriage—all except the name!”

“Sophistry—mere sophistry!” returned Madeline, sadly. “But you must let me go! I shall see you no more.”

“You must get my consent before you can be sure of that. Madeline, do not leave me in anger! Forgive me if I have offended you— if I have given you credit for a little more breadth of view than women in general possess.”

“I forgive you; I am not offended,” said Madeline, with bitter humility, “you are, I suppose, the same as others. I knew that my lot in life was fixed too low to permit of my being anything save a toy to such as you, however superior to such a destiny I may think myself. But, at least, I strove to shim you. Why did you seek me? Why have you shown me a glimpse of paradise which yet I must notenter? Farewell! Colonel Ashurst,” she concluded, rising suddenly, and feeling her voice fail her.

But Dudley Ashurst stopped, again covering her hand with kisses; and pouring forth the most ardent expressions of affection, he swore he would never give her up; that he would love her a thousand times more as a lover than a husband, and only ceased when he saw how deadly pale she became, how exhausted and terrified she looked. Then he was all penitence and regret, and insisted on escorting her through the plantation to the edge of the pleasure ground.,

“I will write to you; and you will reply, will you not?”

Madeline shook her head, and entreated him to leave her, which at last, with evident reluctance, he did.

CHAPTER V.

It was a proud and happy day to Mrs. Downing when, having put her neat little home in order, and enjoined her servant to be sure to have on her afternoon dress by the time she returned, she sallied forth to meet Madeline at the railway station. She was sincerely attached to her former schoolfellow, and she felt sure she would rejoice heartily in her good fortune. Mrs. Downing had some time to wait. These country short-distance trains are seldom punctual. But it arrived at last, and the warmhearted Jessie was greatly shocked and distressed to see how worn and ill Madeline looked.

“I had no idea you had been so ill!” she exclaimed, kissing her. “Why, you only spoke of a bad cold!”

“I am still very weak, and I do not think the Grange agrees with me,” returned Madeline.

“Well, I shall nurse you and send you back quite strong; and Arthur will be so pleased to see you. He would have come to meet you, but cannot get away from his work in the daytime, except just to dinner, and that is a great comfort.” Jessie prattled away so cheerfully that she did not observe Madeline’s silence and pre-occupation; nor had she, in the joy of, meeting, noticed that a tall, aristocratic-looking gentleman had stepped out of the railway carriage directly after Madeline had left it. In truth, the journey had been a trying one to Madeline. For Colonel Ashurst had joined her, to her great astonishment, at the next station, after she had got in; and as no other passenger had interrupted their tete-a-tete, he had an opportunity he did not fail to use to the uttermost of repeating and renewing the arguments and protestations—backed by many a fresh suggestion—which he had before urged. He had written to Madeline, but she had not replied. She found it easier to neglect a letter than to resist pleadings enforced by the inexpressible charm of voice, and look and manner. The journey then had been exhausting to her, weak as she was. She felt, almost irresistibly inclined to let herself go, and float down the current that seemed setting too strong for her. But she roused herself, and desired Colonel Ashurst, with a sort of despairing ' languor, to molest her no more.

She presented, in consequence of this agitating interview, anything but an air of convalescence to her friend’s eye. However, Jessie, full of the delights of her own home, reckoned with certainly on the revivifying effect such a moral atmosphere would have upon her friend.

“You see it is rather a smoky place, dear, but our cottage is in a much better part, and when the wind is not west we do not get any smoke at all.” So said Mrs. Downing as they drove through the dingy, ashy-looking streets. “Neilson & Co.’s works are by the river, quite out of the town, and our cottage is just outside, on their grounds you know, and we have no rent to pay, which is a great help. We hope to have a nice garden next summer. Arthur understands all about gardening, and, indeed, I believe, about everything, but the evenings are too short to work at it now.”

“Very likely,” said Madeline, speaking reluctantly. She wanted Jessie to go on, and leave her to recall the tender, impassioned, refined tones so freshly vibrating on her heart.

“You are quite exhausted, I dare say, and it is nearly six o’clock. We will have tea directly we go in, whether Arthur has come home or not.” Here the fly skirted a high, flinty-looking wall, from behind which came a constant din of hammering and rattling of metallic substances, like theatrical thunder. “These are Neilson’s works,” said Jessie, eagerly. “They employ altogether nearly three hundred hands, and my husband has charge of more than two hundred. You know that is a great responsibility, but he is quite equal to it, and, I believe, gives his employers the greatest satisfaction. That is the principal entrance.” Here they passed a wide gateway with a blue arch, bearing the inscription in gold letters, “Neilson & Co.: Iron Foundry,” through which came and went sooty men in white trousers and jackets much smeared with black.

“There is another smaller gate close by our house,” continued Jessie, “which is a great convenience.”

The wall now ceased, and they came out on a road which overhung a river, with a pretty orchard-covered bank opposite, and a bold single-arched bridge in front, and soon drew up before a new-looking cottage, in what builder’s call the “Indoresque style,” built of coloured bricks. An open space covered with stones and ragged grass intervened between it and the road, from which it was fenced off by a very fanciful iron railing, and behind at some distance towered the foundry wall.

“Here we are, dear Madeline,” cried Jessie, with sparkling eyes, “at Woodbine Cottage, at least, it will be Woodbine Cottage next year, when the woodbine has grown,” and with a hearty kiss, Mrs. Downing ushered her friend into a little porch, and then into a passage somewhat dark, and with a fresh mortar smell. There was a kitchen, and small living room at the back, with a view over a potato-patch to the foundry wall, and a tolerably-sized sitting room, with a projecting window in front, which Jessie designed to be her drawing-room. Four bedrooms above, and an Indoresque garret for the small servant, completed the abode of bliss.

The furnishing was as yet incomplete; the future drawing-room had only blinds and a carpet—a dark-green mossy-looking carpet, which Madeline admired, greatly to Jessie’s delight.

“I am making the curtains myself.”

“Indeed,” said Madeline, her kindly heart warming to her friend’s happiness, “you must let me help you while I am here.”

“How delightful that will be,” and Mrs. Downing clapped her hands.

Then Madeline was introduced to her room, a neat little chamber, hut as yet curtainless: and then tea was announced.

There was a cheerful bit of fire in the common sitting-room, the furniture of which was complete, and a tempting tea-table daintily spread. Jessie herself in a pretty grey dress, and pink ribbons, while on the hearth-rug stood the master.

Mr. Arthur Downing was a spare man, of middle height, with small sharp black eyes, and a wide thin mouth. He was an intelligent, capable, square-headed young man, and kept his hair neatly parted, and conveniently short. He wore a morning coat, and trousers of iron-grey, and had on his slippers.

“How are you, Miss Digby?” he said, advancing a step or two from the rug, on being introduced. “Sorry to find Mrs. Downing thinks you hut indifferent—must try and pick up here.”

Lord Templemore was not one half so patronising as was Mr. Arthur Downing.

The combined sense of importance as a husband and a householder was almost too much for his mental balance when in his own territory. Of course, out in the world of men, he was quiet and business-like enough. But home and an adoring wife would develop the weaknesses of any man.

Madeline, however, accepted his patronage with great philosophy; it rather amused her, and diverted her thoughts. In short, the total change, the tone of wholesome reality, did her good, and one of her best symptoms was a return of her sense of humour.

Tea was a serious meal at Woodbine Cottage, and in honour of the invalid, a spatchcock fowl graced the repast.

“This is better than last time, Jessie,” said her husband, with grave approbation. “Let me send you a wing, Miss Digby—try a little Worcester sauce and butter with it—you’ll find it palatable. Jessie, there is no Worcester sauce on the table.”

“Oh, dear me I I forgot,” cried Mrs. Downing, penitentially, and jumping up, “but I have it in the cupboard.”

“That’s not on the table,” said her husband, facetiously, with a loud laugh at his own wit. “ I fancy, Miss Digby, they taught you very little that was useful at Miss Jones’s. You see, a man does not want French, or Italian, or music; but he does want a comfortable meal, and a neat house, with the smallest possible outlay. Jessie has a deal to learn, and I suppose you are no better.”

“We certainly had no chance of studying cookery at school, and it must he a terrible loss when a woman is at the mercy of an ignorant servant through her own want of household teaching; but I suppose it is quickly acquired—when there is a will, there is a way.”

“Still,” said Mr. Downing, with his mouth full, “the acquiring costs a lot of money.”

“Come, Arthur,” said Mrs. Downing, with a smile, though there was the least possible shade of pain in her face, “I have not managed so badly—eh?”

“You might be worse, and no doubt, you might he better, too; but you’ll do yet—if you mind me.”

There was a pause. Madeline felt half-indignant for her friend. Here was this man infinitely her inferior in taste, nature, culture, treating her like a servant, while she was humbly grateful for any crumbs of approbation he choose to let fall. He had asked her to fetch him his pocket-handkerchief which ' he had left outside in his over-coat, and had sent her with a message to the kitchen touching hot water; and all this without once offering to stir himself. He talked a good deal, and described his intended improvements in the cottage at great length, and then he asked many questions respecting Lady’ Templemore’s house and management, and Madeline’s position there, and seemed rather astonished to find she was shown any courtesy or attention. Then he recounted, for Madeline’s benefit, the history of Lady Templemore’s father, evidently receiving encouragement and pleasure himself from this record of successful industry.

From his conversation, Madeline thought she could foretell that he would he a rising man. His objects seemed few, and clearly set before him; he had a strong narrow intelligence, a firm will, and a decided affection for self. How Jessie could love this hard, common man, and believe him a superior being, passed Madeline’s comprehension; she feared her friend’s future did not promise to be so blissful. as she had hoped. In such a union Jessie would have to give all, and get very little in return. How would it be in moments of weakness or depression—when she wanted tenderness, soothing, sympathy! where was the faculty to supply them in the accurate, self-satisfied Mr. Downing? He would pay a doctor for her; but beyond this, he could or would do nothing. Then, when the words and tones she had listened to that day came back to her in startling contrast, she could hardly keep down the thought, “Better be the mistress of Dudley Ashurst, than a wife like Jessie!”

However, all was sunshine to her friend’s simple nature—a nature that must look up, and had no thought of self. The fact of Arthur’s immeasurable superiority was far more clear to her than any worth of her own -r-a view in which her husband fully coincided —and moreover, whatever small grains of humility had leavened his self-satisfaction as a lover, three or four weeks of marriage sufficed to extract them, and leave him the conviction that he was a deuced good-natured fellow to have taken pity on the little girl and married her, though, indeed, she was a credit to his taste; but then, he never made a mistake in taste!

After an hour of conversation, Mr. Downing became drowsy, and quietly stretching himself on the only sofa, was soon wrapped in slumber.

Madeline and Jessie continued to speak in a low voice, not to disturb the “master’s imperial repose they talked of school characters and incidents—innocent gossip! till Madeline, wearied after the day’s excitement, asked to go to bed.

It was long, however, before she slept. The reminiscences recalled by her talk with Jessie, seemed to bring out with startling effect the deep chasm between her present and her past; she recalled the dreams and aspirations of those early, lonely days—and now she was as lonely as ever—with just a glimpse of exquisite enjoyment and companionship; but across what a Rubicon! What would the passing of that barrier cost her?

The love and regard of Jessie, the respect of honest men and women, the contemptuous triumph of her grandmother in the fulfilment of her own prophecy, “the daughter of that Digby would never turn out well.” And Ashurst? what was his love worth if it subjected her to all this? She recalled all the dignified axioms concerning a lover’s devotion and esteem for the beloved object— all the homilies she had ever heard or read about female modesty and virtue, still she could not lash herself into anger against Dudley Ashurst.

The lessons that she had been so bitterly taught on all sides, of her own insignificance, of the insurmountable nature of worldly considerations, of the vast importance of social rank, and lastly, of the heinous folly of supposing any man, not an idiot, would sacrifice his self-interest for any woman, had sank deep into her heart. As for Dudley Ashurst thinking of her as a wife, she never dreamed of such an impossibility; and yet she could not be. angry with him for loving her; and, oh! he did love her!—right or wrong, moral or immoral—he loved her; and she could not resent it; she only dimly, wearily wished he had never told her so—never broken the monotony of her life with so fair, so fleeting a vision.

The breakfast at Woodbine Cottage was early, too early as yet for Madeline, so she kept her room; but she heard Mr. Downing making a great to-do about his boots and his breakfast, his pocket-book, which he had left up-stairs, and divers other behests; and she recognised Jessie’s light quick step up-stairs and down, with little intermission, till the closing of the little gate outside, and a sudden lull within, told her that the “lord and master ” had departed.

Immediately afterwards, Jessie made her appearance, carrying a little tray covered with a snowy cloth, and bearing a nice cup of coffee, a fresh egg, and some crisp toast.

“My dear Jessie! why add to your fatigues by waiting on me! you have been running about all the morning; you should have made your servant bring me my cup of coffee.”

“You do not suppose t would let any one else bring you your breakfast; besides, I enjoy being busy and active.”

However, when Madeline came into the little sitting-room, about an hour after, she saw plainly that Jessie was tired, and glad to sit down.

They had a pleasant morning, working together at the drawing-room curtains. At one o’clock Mr. Downing came home to his dinner. It was a short repast, and he said little, except to speak sharply and sternly respecting a dish-cover; which was not so bright as it ought to have been. Madeline thought it odd that he should bestow the scolding on his wife, who did not clean the covers. However, she said nothing, remembering that the interference or even the notice of a third party would probably make matters worse. The evening was rather better. Mr. Downing, in the course of conversation, mentioned some newly-invented 'machine for abridging labour, and Madeline questioned with sufficient intelligence to interest him in replying. On a subject of which he was master he spoke well, and proved a much more agreeable companion than on the previous evening.

It was agreed, before they separated for the night, that Mr. Downing should take Madeline and his wife over Mr. Neilson’s works, as soon as the former was sufficiently strong.

But for the deep-rooted disturbance in Madeline’s heart, she would have been very happy with Mrs. Downing, especially during those hours when the lord and master was absent. The quiet routine of household duty was pleasant to her womanly nature and instincts. She often thought how sweet it would be to decorate and regulate some humble home—such as that in which she now was—till it became a very heaven of refinement and peace. But to enjoy it,' she must not be “mated to a clown,”—no! nor to a fine gentleman; but at least to a large-minded man. It is the petty vanities of men, perpetually fighting with a vague consciousness that manhood ought to put them above such small things, that renders so many difficult to live with, and cruel in the exercise of the power to torment which they possess.

“It is, indeed, as good fun as a cynic could ask,” to hear a man, after worrying over a dozen minor miseries, all suggested by some accidental rub to a hidden raw on the surface of his self-conceit, turn upon his wife—baited into a fit of crying—and from the proud eminence of his superior reason, tell her she is a “weak fool.” Well, there are, heaven knows! women enough to revenge these petty wrongs; and it is an awful sight to see a fine broad-souled honest man worried and stung by the small jealousies and meanness of a commonplace irreproachable woman.

Alas! that the tendency of life’s current is to drift the round men into square holes, and vice versa!

The fourth day after Madeline’s arrival at Woodbine Cottage, was Saturday, and the morning post brought Mrs. Downing a letter, which she read with a slight increase of colour.

“Hand it over,” said Mr. Downing, who had not quite finished his breakfast, in a tone of command.

Jessie unhesitatingly obeyed.

“Oh! oh!” said Mr. Downing, in a loud jocular tone, “so Master Sam’s coming today, is he? Deuced odd, Miss Digby, that he should get his holiday just now. I wonder what the attraction can be—don’t you?”

“Is your brother coming to see you V asked Madeline, a little puzzled by Mr. Downing’s enigmatical address, and colouring with annoyance.

“So he says; but I did not ask him, Madeline! He says it is convenient for him to take his holiday now, and he always promised to come and see us as soon as he could.v

“Of course—of course!” replied Madeline, doubly annoyed by this species of apology.

“Come, little woman,” said Mr. Downing, “don’t you be so green. I daresay Miss Digby will not be implacable; and, at any rate, no one can deny Sam has a right to come and see his relatives! ’specially when he knows he is welcome.”

The rudeness of this speech rather amused than irritated Madeline. Mr. Downing was so thoroughly an accident in her existence, that she did not feel even faintly ruffled by his constant and careful assumption of mastery. She smiled, and said quietly, she would he glad to see Mr. Moorcroft.

“Now,” said Mr. Downing, “I like that! that’s frank and honest, and no nonsense about it. I’ve a word or two more to say to you on the subject of Sam, but I haven’t time now. Eight thirty, by Jove! I must be off. Jessie! get a lobster for supper, and something substantial besides.”

Madeline did not think more of Mr. Sam Moorcroft’s advent. His fancy for herself had probably died a natural death; and if not, she was lifted far away out of the reach of all such things. It was utter desecration that she, who was loved and sought by Dudley Ashurst (even with the left hand), should be looked at or dreamed of by other men.

Besides, she began to wonder she had heard nothing of him since they parted at the station. He said that if she persisted in rejecting his proposition, that he would quit England— Europe—and she should hear no more of him. Could he already have put this threat into execution? Jessie called her away from these unhealthy musings. “If they worked hard, the curtains might be ready to put up after the early dinner, and, as it was Saturday, Arthur might get a man from the works to assist.”

Madeline, delighted to have the current of her thoughts changed, threw herself heartily into the undertaking, and, Mr. Downing being half an hour late for dinner, they accomplished their task. Saturday was a half holiday, so Mr. Downing remained at table some little time, and indulged in a pipe, the fumes of which were rather too much for Madeline, accustomed as she was exclusively to the companionship of women. “What I wished to say to you, Miss Digby, is this,” (puff, puff) said Mr. Downing, as he sat the “monarch of all he surveyed.” “I have a regard for you as my wife’s friend, and I have a respect for yourself. I think you have the making of a capital helpmate for any man. But then men don’t trouble much about finding helpmates now—Lord bless you!—they are a drug in the market; and a nice young man with a nice business, like Sam Moorcroft, might have a dozen for holding up his finger. Now, on the other hand, you’re a nice girl. I don’t want to flatter; but you are a nice girl, and more sensible and practical than many would give you credit for at first sight (that dish of soles, done French, as you taught Jessie, is very fine); but you aren’t the only nice girl in England, and tho’ you ought to have lots of tin, I daresay you hav’nt. Now, just attend to a few practical observations, and don’t take offence where none is meant. Don’t you go and throw cold water on Sam Moorcroft—he is a steady fellow—he’ll be a rich man yet; he’ll make a capital husband in one sense, for he’ll give you a deuced deal too much of your own way. He is (I think) a fool to run after a girl that has rejected him; however that’s his look-out; but I must say, from what I have seen of you, you’d make him a good wife. Now he is coming down after you, and take my advice; think twice before you throw away a good chance; a governess’s life isn’t all smooth and easy—youth slips away uncommon fast. How do you know you will ever have such another offer? ”

“Oh! Arthur, dear!” remonstrated his wife.

“I am speaking common sense, Jessie.”

“The words of wisdom from the lips of understanding,” returned Madeline, amused, yet irritated at the impossibility of making a creature like Mr. Downing comprehend the immeasurable distance between herself and his world. “I am not offended, hut a little amused, and yet I am obliged to you for interesting yourself in me. I see that although you condemn French morals, and French marriages, you adopt the same view of the subject. You are quite aware that I have no personal regard for Mr. Moorcroft, however grateful I ought to be for his preference, nevertheless you recommend me to accept him from prudential motives.”

“By Jove,” interrupted Mr. Downing, “they are the best motives.”

“Very likely,” returned Madeline, coolly. “I have, however, my own views of life, and shall tell you them, after which you will see if I am still a desirable helpmate for Mr. Sam Moorcroft. To remain as a resident governess anywhere is impossible. I have not enough employment—I have too much restraint. As a visiting-teacher of music or languages I should make more money, work harder, and live freer. This I intend to do early next spring. The difficulty of living alone I shall surmount in some way; but beyond this, by being so far my own mistress, I can employ any and every spare moment in studying music and dramatic art, as the opinion of my master, Signor G-, and my own inclina tion, direct me to the stage.”

“Oh, Lord!” ejaculated Mr. Downing, disgusted.

“For my own part I see much to be avoided in married life. To me it would be great happiness or great misery. Now, as long as I can support myself, I would prefer being independent.”

“But, Lord bless me, Miss Digby!” said Mr. Downing, laying down his pipe with virtuous indignation. “Do you mean to say you would prefer exhibiting yourself on the stage to being the wife of an honest man; to be talked of and joked about by all the scamps in London, to a quiet home, with your children about you?”

“Yes,” said Madeline, quietly. “I should not hear the disrespectful remarks (if they were made), and I know that Mrs. Charles Kean and Helen Faucit arenas much respected as any women can be.”

“And have to put up with the society of vagabonds, and be a vagabond,” put in Mr. Downing, warmly.

“The vagabondism has an attraction for me,” returned Madeline, unmoved.

“Left alone in your old age without a friend or relative to close your eyes,” continued Mr. Downing.

“I tell you what my conclusions are, Mr. Downing,” said Madeline. “It seems to me that either the beginning or the end of life, for some, must be miserable; one person thinks it wise to sacrifice youth for the possible chance of being comfortable in age; another prefers the full enjoyment of the most enjoyable period, and lets age take its chance, this is my view. I see women offering themselves up on the shrines of husband and children, and does this secure them tenderness or comfort when the weariness of age comes . upon them? unless they have money to leave behind them! I have elected my line—I do not see the necessity of marriage to happiness, nor does the stage necessarily entail loss of character. I think I have that in me to keep me straight. If I am successful, I shall both make and save money. If not, I can still keep myself by teaching; and for the future! it will be no worse for me than for many others. Were I to do your brother-in-law the injustice of marrying him, I should be a miserable disappointed woman, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure.”

“In heaven’s name go your own way,” said Mr. Downing, a good deal startled at her tone, the curious indifference it expressed of all that a young girl values, especially opinion. “Only if you should come to grief, do not say I did not warn you.”

Mr. Downing’s disgust, however, was not proof against the common occupation of hanging the drawing-room curtains, about which he laid down the law as usual. All was serene when Sam Moorcroft arrived, which was in time for a late supper. Mr. Sam had evidently devoted much consideration to the subject of adornment. He had on a new chocolate brown suit, his hair had been recently cut and curled, and his whole turn out was intended to convey an idea of superior London fashion among country bumpkins. He was less shy—more assured than formerly. Success was giving him belief in himself.

Madeline met him with frank kindliness, which even Mr. Downing, in his place, could not have construed into encouragement. Indeed, there was something of the great lady about Madeline, though she was perfectly unaffected. The extreme simplicity and repose of her manner, originating in complete freedom from any regard for the effect she might produce, and a certain reliance on her own convictions, irrespective of the opinions, at any rate, of those with whom she was now associated. Yet was she always gentle, and tenderly considerate of others, and this seeming softness led such superficial observers as Mr. Downing to believe her a timid, self-distrustful girl, till some chance word or topic disclosed the broad grasp of mind, the boldness of thought, the daring spirit, that lodged in that fair slight form.

Mr. Sam Moorcroft had much City gossip for his brother-in-law, and a pair of antimacassars, knitted by her own hand, a present from his mother to Jessie. He asked, with apparently deep interest, about Mr. Downing’s sister, Miss Lizzie, declaring she was a most charming young lady. Mr. Sam was far too polite to term any one above the rank of a servant a girl. But thon, as Jessie thought, every one could not possess the polished ease of an Arthur Downing! Poor Sam’s efforts to rouse Madeline’s jealousy were quite useless, and Mr. Downing, beginning to feel annoyed at her attitude of quiet superiority, bethought him that the desired lobster was missing—absent without leave.

“Jessie, I thought I told you to have a lobster,” he said, rather crossly, “what’s the reason I do not see one ?”

“Oh dear! I am so vexed about it, Arthur. I went all over the town this morning, and could find but two, and they were so small, and so dear, I really had not the heart to buy one. I dare say Sam will excuse it.”

“He may,” said Mr. Downing portentously, “but I don’t know that I shall. If there was such a difficulty, why did you not mention it to me at dinner-time?”

“Well, it would have been better if I had, but I quite forgot it.”

“Ah! there’s nothing so fatal to a man’s comfort as a wife with a bad memory.”

“Come, come, Downing,” put in Sam, with a polite simper, “you will give Miss Digby a bad impression of matrimony. You cannot expect perfection, and a husband ought to make all sorts of allowances.”

“I tell you what,” retorted Mr. Downing, sharply, for he was annoyed, he scarce knew at what, “a husband has a right to expect every attention and thought from his wife, considering he boards and lodges her!”

Madeline felt a strong repulsion to the speaker, at this base rendering of the sacred obligations of matrimony, and could not resist remarking, with quiet irony, “A very practical, sensible view of the matter, Mr. Downing, but of course the amount of attention and consideration must vary with the class of accommodation provided. For instance, a man who can keep two servants is entitled to a closer watchfulness than he who can afford only one. But where is the human heart that can supply a wealth of tender consideration sufficient to repay the man who gives his wife a carriage and horses, and new potatoes at Christmas!”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mr. Sam, but Mr. Downing did not like it at all. He fidgeted on his chair, and observed he did not think so sensible a young lady as Miss Digby could talk such nonsense. Madeline laughed good-humouredly, and the subject dropped. However she soon saw that she had ceased to find favour in Mr. Downing’s eyes. Her impious preference for the stage, compared to the nobler occupation of ordering Mr. Sam Moor-croft’s dinner and mending his socks, had damaged her considerably in his opinion, but her application of his argument completed his disapproval.

The presence of Jessie’s brother, together with a sort of undefined surliness in the mas- ter of the house, put an end to Madeline’s comfort. She therefore availed herself of a note from Lady Templemore, to say her presence was required at the Grange, and cut short her visit by some days, parting from Jessie with infinite regret and many tears. She felt that her true-hearted, unselfish friend had passed into a terrible bondage, and she only prayed that she might never recognise it, but go on for ever believing in the superiority of her Juggernaut! Poor Jessie thought all Madeline’s grief was on her own account, and was quite afflicted to part with her, yet evidently dared not urge her to stay, so they hid each other adieu, Madeline much disappointed at the result of her visit, which she had indistinctly hoped might have opened some loophole of escape from her own weakness, and the force of temptation she felt pressing upon her.

CHAPTER VI.

Lady Agnes was really pleased to see her governess, there was always much sympathy between them. Lady Templemore and Lady Elizabeth were properly polite, but Madeline imagined there was an indefinable change in the former, as if she did not approve of Miss Digby so cordially as she used. But Madeline put the idea aside, as the result of a morbid and nervous state of feeling. Of this she was conscious. It was the unavoidable result of physical weakness, and a deep mental struggle.

Soon after her return to the Grange, she received a letter from Colonel Ashurst. It was calmer than what he had previously written, though breathing the most exquisite tenderness. He said it was a last appeal. He felt she did not love him; he had deceived himself. It was his part to implore her pardon, yet was she still resolved to wrench from him and herself too, the greatest happiness? Finally, he would remain in London, whence his letter was dated, for a week, by which time, if he received no reply, he would conclude her decision to be irrevocable, and proceed abroad, he knew not where, but he would never cross her path again.

This letter Madeline read and re-read; at one moment she crushed it in scorn' of the sophistry her clear intelligence detected, the next, pressed her lips to the loving words, which found too ready an echo in her heart. He asked her for happiness, and in return for that would rob her of her social standing, ay! unfit her ever again to take her place among her equals, humble though they were. Not, indeed, that she had much to renounce, tossed, as she had been from childhood, hither and thither by the icy currents of enforced charity. Even a stranger, like Jessie’s coarse-minded husband, thought himself entitled to give her advice, and rend the veil with which general consent wraps the delicate topics of love and marriage.

Still pride, or conscience, or some dim sense of striving to do well, came to her aid, and, with resolute lip and pallid cheek, she committed the oft-read letter to the flames, and then bitterly counted each day as it passed, till the allotted week was accomplished, sternly, holding back her hand from pouring forth the burning, reproachful, tender thoughts, which welled up, like the quick springing waters of some deep-fed fountain! Not even to say “no ” would she write—she knew the danger of continuing the correspondence.

But the Grange, and all in it, except Agnes, became insupportable to her. The restraint, the monotony, the dearth of sufficient occupation, the smooth littleness of the life, all seemed detestable to her unhinged mind, and she looked paler and thinner each day.

At last she determined to tender her resignation to Lady Templemore. Any defined prospect of escape from, a place so fraught with painful associations would be a relief; and the wholesome effort to push her fortunes in some line more congenial than the unexciting routine of a resident governess’s existence would probably prove a tonic to her spirit. Yet Madeline was not naturally a restless or a dissatisfied woman, but, for the present, the moral harmony of her nature was broken into strange discords, therefore “she wandered through dry places, seeking rest and finding none.”

It was towards the close of November, a bright clear day, a light frost crisping the paths, and condensing the vapours on the distant lowlands into soft mist wreaths, oveT which the towers of Greybridge rose with a sort of unreal beauty, as though suspended in mid-air. Lady Templemore was starting with her eldest daughter to pay a visit at some distance, and Lady Agnes had been invited by her father to accompany him on horseback, a joyful summons to his daughter.

“Oh! Miss Digby,” cried Lady Templemore, coming hastily into the school-room, “will you be so good as to take this note to the vicarage. It is a nice walk, and then Mrs. Wray can tell you all about those poor people, the Prices, who applied to me yesterday. I do not like to do anything more till the case is inquired into; your seeing Mrs. Wray will do just as well as me, and save me an hour.”

“I will attend to it,” said Madeline, and when the sounds of hoofs and wheels had died away, she put on her walking things, and started on the errand.

The vicarage was on the edge of the grounds, but down the hill, in an opposite direction to the old castle, the scene of so much joy and sorrow, and stamped with such chequered lights on Madeline’s memory, never, never more to be effaced. The fresh clear air braced Madeline’s nerves, as, with light quick step, she walked to the vicarage.

Her way led through a belt of plantation, across a bare pasture-field, and finally through a wood, the boundary of Lord Templemore’s grounds at that side.

The vicar’s wife was at home, and a long discussion, on the merits of the poor people in question, followed the perusal of Lady Templemore’s note; but, at last, charged with divers and sundry messages, Madeline set out . on her homeward way.

The day was still beautiful, and pleased to be alone, she took a different path from that by which she came, intending to prolong her ramble and enjoy the early sunset, gleaming with its gold, and violet, and crimson, against the tall straight stems of the beech-trees, and the lace-like tracery of the leafless elms.

She should have liked Jessie Moorcroft as a companion to enjoy it with her, but scarcely as Mrs. Downing, for she knew her friend’s mind was hardly ever free enough now from the incubus of the elegant Arthur—his claims and rights—to permit light-hearted enjoyment. And herself! How curious that she should be so much alone. No tie—none that she could call her own! She had met much friendliness, but little individual attachment. Her aunt she had hoped- and expected to love and regard as a mother, and now, looking hack, how clearly she saw that had that pleasant and astute personage been spared for a longer period, it would but have led to estrangement with increasing knowledge of her character: her grandmother was simply an object of aversion: and of the various people with whom she had been brought in contact, her heart warmed most at the memory of poor Kit and Mrs. Fitzwarrenne, and the much-enduring, kindly, weakly Miss Foster. “Strange indeed,” she murmured, almost aloud, “that I have none to love, and none to love me!” A quick, firm tread caught her ear, and the next moment a hand was laid upon her arm, and a voice said “ Madeline!” A voice!—the voice, rather—the voice that struck the inner chords of her heart with such responsive power! Some unaccountable change passed over her spirit; first a wild, unreasoning joy shivered through her, and a sort of reckless determination to enjoy the present moment succeeded, lending her a strange daring—a sense of power that made her suddenly resolve to show this proud man, who, in spite of reason and conscience, she passionately loved, glimpses of the heaven she knew she could bestow, and then withhold it, or not! “Shall you have the power?” asked conscience; “fire is a dangerous plaything.” “Time will show,” was the answer of the dauntless something which had got the mastery over her. And all this ebbed and flowed through her brain before the deep-toned music in which her name was uttered had died away. “You here, Colonel Ashurst?” she replied, without pausing, and turning her head away to hide the joy she knew was beaming and sparkling in “eye, lip, and cheek.”

“Yes, Madeline; and you are not surprised? You must have felt I could not leave England without seeing you—without trying to overcome your objections to be happy, and to bestow happiness.”

“Hush!” said Madeline, with a pretty imperative gesture of her little hand. “Do not vex me with the subject again. I have been frank. I have shown you my real mind—its doubts and weakness; and I tell you, you may tempt, but you cannot blind me!”

“I do not wish to blind you, Madeline—my Madeline, for you are mine in heart; rather should I wish that you understood fully all that might spring from my proposal, and then you would see how great the .gain, how few the drawbacks! Who is there to love or cherish you, dearest? Who cares for you, dear as you ought to be? Who recognises the rarity of the gem, because the setting is poor and dull? To me you are the one great good of life; I cannot look forward without you. To me, without you, there is nothing.”

“At present!” said Madeline, with sad emphasis, and raising her eyes to his, yet smiling, as though mocking his professions. “Yes, at present I am a good—an unattainable good— and therefore to be coveted. Ah, Colonel Ashurst! how long would the intrinsic value of the gem counterbalance its faults of setting, once it was yours? How long would it be before some other unattainable good might supplant that for which you now pine? Leave me in peace, and think!”

“Madeline,” interrupted Ashurst, “I cannot, of course, answer such objections as these: they are plausible. I can but say that I feel for you what I have never felt before. There is a charm for me in your every tone, and look, and gesture. More than this, I am much your senior. I have seen much of life, and tasted the bitterness of satiety—you give me back something of youth, and faith, and enthusiasm! I dare not openly, avowedly, link myself with you. But do you therefore think I would love you less truly, tenderly, constantly, than if we were legally tied to each other? Do you imagine that men are faithful and devoted to their wives only? You have known little of reality if you do! No; you must listen to me,” for she tried to speak. “Hear me out, and then I will hear you. The real marriage is constancy—that sympathy which makes separation death! You might be my wife by all the rites of law and religion, and yet a gulf between us! you might be but a. beloved companion, and indissolubly linked to me for ever! With me ever at your side, my respectful affection visible to all, your future provided for, your grace and ability rendering my house and table doubly attractive to those men of literary and political power, which, with ambition once more kindled through your sympathy, I would collect about me, loving and loved, what a life offers itself to you, Madeline! How strong a contrast to what you would choose! How cold, how isolated your lot would be! And it is not yourself alone whom you would thus sacrifice. Rejected by you, I feel I shall never reach to the position I might otherwise attain. I shall again sink into the apathetic distrust—the careless, fatal cui bona strain of . mind and feeling from which my love for you has roused me. And I love you, Madeline! I love you!” He stopped abruptly, as if language could help him no more, and all eloquence was exhausted in the passionate, half-smothered cry, “I love you!”

“Oh, heavens!” cried Madeline, deeply moved, “how shall I answer you! My way is indeed lonely and sad, but that my love can he of such importance to you I cannot believe. You, a great gentleman, with all the privileges and responsibilities of rank, wanting the love and companionship of a poor girl like me to make you act your part in life. No, Colonel Ashurst, I cannot believe it! I know well that you are far above me, too far, to think of me as a wife. My ignorance is not so great as to leave me in doubt on this point. I neither ask nor expect so great an elevation,” a slight smile curling her tremulous sensitive lips, “but I do ask that you will not think of me at all! Not;” she continued, turning her face fully to him, her large dark eyes deepening, even enlarging with the strong emotion stirring her pulses so wildly, “Not that you over-rate me, or what I might he to the man I loved, or let myself love! I know I could be his loving, capable friend— his faithful confidant, the intelligent worker out of his details ; and I feel, too, that besides the higher companionship, I could sweeten his weary moments with tenderness, such as strength only can give. Colonel Ashurst, I seem to recognise myself at this moment for the first time, and know all I could be to the man I could love, and— and—” she turned deadly pale, “your picture is a tempting one, it is! and what have I to look at as opposed to it! Toil, loneliness, perhaps poverty; no beauty, or elegance, or love. I see it all stronger and clearer than you can paint it, and I have none of the tender scruples which grow up in the sweet, warm atmosphere of home. I am a waif and a stray, yet—yet— I must hot do this thing.”

There was inexpressible pathos and dignity in her voice and manner, and though her works struck like electric currents through Ashurst’s veins, lie was silent, collecting himself for one more effort, and fancying lie saw signs of capitulation. He was probably sincere in much that he said—men so^readily mistake a dominant fancy for a real want; moreover, his enthusiastic exaggerations must, he thought,

- help him with a girl so peculiar and intellectually proud as Madeline. He had not given her credit for so much fire, and thought her simply a gentle, graceful, loving girl, with more brains than usual. They had continued to advance while speaking, and now reached a fence, crossed by a stile, consisting of three steps. Ashurst went first, and turned to assist his companion, but either she was shaken by her emotion, or the slight frost had made the stones unsafe, her foot slipped, and she would have fallen forward, had not Ashurst caught her. Naturally, irresistibly, he held the fair, slight form to his heart, and, to his delighted surprise, her slender arms softly, tenderly, pressed him in return. Nor were the lips withheld from his, but with an upward look — a prayerful expression, as if imploring aid from some invisible power, beaming from the liquid depths of her dark eyes—Madeline gently returned his embrace, which some undefined feeling had rendered less passionate than he himself anticipated. The next instant, extricating herself from his arms, and flushing all over for a moment, she exclaimed in a broken tone—

“Enough! I could not refuse the first loving arms held out to me since my poor father’s dying clasp! I have never known the kiss of affection since, and yours may be but seeming, yet it is sweet.” And she stood apart a moment, her hands clasped, and lost in thought, and Ashurst, the bold lover, the assured man of the world, the disbeliever in woman’s truth or reality, stood silent and bewildered beside her.

It was but for a moment. Recovering himself, he took her hand with an air of the ten-derest respect, and softening his voice to its most insinuating cadence—

“Now Madeline,—beloved, best!—you will no longer condemn yourself and me to separation and misery.”

”Do not speak more to me now,” returned Madeline, in low and hesitating tones. “Leave me, for I am too near the Grange to allow of your accompanying me further, and I want to be alone. I implore of you not to speak more to me to-day.” There was so much entreaty in her voice, that Ashurst thought it wiser to comply.

“I obey,’ he said; “but I will write to you to-night, and before I leave you, promise me you will consider my letter, and reply.”

“Yes,” returned Madeline slowly and dreamily, “I will consider and reply.”

“Good-bye, then, for a day or two. Ah! Madeline, if you could but know how fondly I love you. Adieu,, dearest!”

He stood looking after her for a few moments tempted—strangely tempted to hasten to overtake her, to exclaim—

“You are worthy a better man than me. Deign to be my wife—mine in the face of all!” But worldly wisdom rose up, and rebuked the heart’s impulse. Had he ever found any woman worth a sacrifice! and though this was an exquisite specimen of the pleasant toy, was he not deceiving himself as usual. Besides, it was no real downfall for a little governess to become the petted mistress of Dudley Ashurst, provided for for life. He was not a man to let a woman he had ever fancied want. Above all, she had promised to consider, and— “She who deliberates is lost,” he muttered to himself, as he retraced his steps towards the loneliness of Trevallon.

The next mid-day’s post brought two letters for Madeline, one of which she put in her pocket to be read when alone. The second she opened at once, for it was addressed in Miss Foster’s nervous spidery writing, and ran as follows:—

“MR DEAR MADELINE,

“It is so long since you have written, that I should have been quite uneasy if I had not met Mrs. Moorcroft by the merest accident about three weeks ago at Piccadilly Circus, where we were both waiting for an omnibus. I should never have known her if she had not stopped me. She told me how well her daughter had married, very nice and satisfactory, I am sure. She also said you had been ill, and had been staying with Mrs.- (I forget the daughter’s name); and she was so pleased to see you, though she feared from all accounts you were rather spoiled at Lady Templemore’s.

“Now, my dear Madeline, pray excuse me, but I fear you have too much of a spirit for your own good. It was such a pity you contradicted your dear grandmamma about that poor young Mr. Moorcroft. Mr. John says he is quite a rising man, taken into partnerr-ship in some large commission firm; though, to be sure, if you did not really like him, I suppose you were right; but you might have tried, you know. And this brings me to the object of my letter; but, first, I ought to mention, that I told your grandmamma of Mrs. Moorcroft’s news, and how you were a great favourite of Lady Templemore’s (of course I said nothing about your being spoiled, that would never do). She just gave a little grunt; you know the sort of grunt, very expressive, but I do not know exactly what it meant on this occasion. However, she did not seem angry, so I asked her if I might write and tell you the news. She said I might, if I chose. You see I think it would be a] nice opportunity for you to write and wish her joy. You will, I am sure, be delighted to hear that Mrs. John Redman has presented your uncle with a son and heir, one of the sweetest babies you ever saw, with quite a head of black hair. He was christened last "Wednesday, “John Thomas,” after his father and grandfather. Mrs. Redman was much pleased, and sent me to buy a hood for the sweet infant, and I got a beauty at Capper and Moon’s—such a bargain, because there was just a tiny dust-mark or two on the side, which I quite hid with a few more loops to the rosette. Now I have told you all my news; and I hope you will write soon, either to me or to your dear grandmamma, it is such a good opportunity. And I trust, dear Madeline, you will not be carried away by the fine people you are with, for I am sure your grandmamma is your real friend, and sincerely attached to you, though she conceals it. I should greatly like to have a nice long talk with you, for somehow I have not felt strong of late, and get foolishly low and nervous, which is very weak, of course. But I am taking a preparation of herbs, ninepence-a packet, and it makes a bottleful, which lasts a fortnight, much cheaper than a doctor, and highly recommended in the advertisement. Do write me a long letter, and believe me,

“Ever your affectionate friend,

“CECILIA FOSTER.”

“Poor Miss Foster! How dreadful to be low and weak in the house with my ‘dear grandmamma,’ ” thought Madeline, her eyes moist at the idea of the kindly helpless creature sinking under a rule so eminently calculated to “break the bruised reed.” “I wish she could leave, that she had any retreat. It is so cruel to see the rich and the strong devouring the lives they ought to cherish and befriend. I must write to her, but first-”

Her thoughts here ceased to he coherent, and she grasped her unopened letter; first, that must he considered and replied to.

The day over, the last good-night exchanged with Lady Agnes, Madeline locked herself into her pretty bedroom; a bright fire glowed in the grate, and all looked neat and cheerful. She put her candle on the dressing-table, and looked steadily at the reflection of her own face in the glass. It was deadly pale; her eyes had a strained expression, and looked haggard from the dark shade below them. “What beauty does he see here?” she muttered; and then throwing herself into an arm chair, she drew forth and opened Dudley Ashurst’s letter.

It was well written, passionate, tender, explicit. It promised provision for life, and then repeated much of his arguments of the previous day. Madeline read it through with a set brow, sometimes pressing her lip till the blood nearly sprang under the small white teeth; then she let the hand that held it drop, and thought intently. Again she read it, and threw it from her, burying her face in her hands. What lay before her? A youth of toil, a lonely old age; perhaps like poor Miss Foster, without a refuge from the icy despotism of circumstance. A life without love! Oh! what had she done to be so desolate. And then, who was there to suffer by her acceding to Ashurst’s prayer? No loving mother, no proud father to be degraded by her act. What were social claims or laws to one who had only suffered from their pressure? They might be all very beneficial to certain classes, but hers was an exceptional case, and to her they were oppressive barriers, not protective lines, rather keeping her out in the wilderness, than sheltering her in the fold! And then, the oscillations of her religious training had left her sadly denuded of those wholesome spiritual restraints which have been as a tower of strength to many a weaker woman. Wearied with the gloomy, unreasoning puritanism of her Clapham school, then cloyed with the sugar and water insipidity, the over-done glitter and seductiveness of the well-meaning ladies of the Annonciades, Madeline had small chance of a fixed religious belief; and it never occurred to her that living with Dudley Ashurst as his wife without marriage would be displeasing to the Great Ruler of the universe.

Yet she was not without religious tendencies, no mind of a high stamp is; but the altar of her heart might justly have been inscribed, like the Athenian altar of old, “To the unknown G-od,” whom she ignorantly worshipped. Nevertheless, she now raised her heart to Him: “Send me strength and wisdom,” she ejaculated. Why should she turn from the delightful picture of the future painted for her by Dudley’s pen. Surely so much of good more than counter-balanced the evils attendant upon it. Oh! the joy of yielding! The bright companionship, the love, the beauty, the refinement of her life with Ashurst! How glorious it would all be! No longer compelled to study her utterances, lest her bolder views might press out and disturb the orthodox routine of her associates’ thoughts; no longer obliged to accept gratefully the crumbs of courtesy which fell from rich men’s tables, but sit at a continual feast of observance and love spread for her alone. And Ashurst himself. Though she affected to treat as exaggerated his picture of all she might be to him, she felt there was more of truth in it than perhaps he himself thought. Then the absence of care or thought for the future!

It was a mighty temptation, and the reverse of the picture was so chilling. Once more she took up Ashurst’s letter, and re-perused it, her tears, large heavy drops, “like the first of a thundershower,” fell upon the paper. Then she opened her writing-book, set the paper in order, and walked up and down the room. “I have more to gain than to lose,” she murmured, “ there will he none to mourn my fall, as it will be called.” She paused by the writing-table, the die was almost cast, she thought of the words in which she might best express her agreement to his proposal. Suddenly, as though a veil had been raised, her father’s death-bed was before her, his inarticulate blessing sounded in her ears, “God guard my child!” she stopped short in her walk, and thrust back the disordered masses of her hair;—free as she was from home-bred scruples, there was an undefined something within her which forbade the unsanctified union—a small voice, which whispered in stilly, penetrating accents, “Make the wrench now, do not wait until months, perhaps years of companionship make it a thousand times harder and more deadly, for the wrench must come, sooner or later.”

“God give me strength and wisdom,” she ejaculated, and then the tide turned, she was herself once more, hut feverish, eager to decide her fate. She seized the pen, and on the sheet destined for such different expressions, rapidly traced the following words :—

“Colonel Ashuest, “I have considered—and I have decided—better part now than hereafter, when it would cost you less and me more. This is my last word. I have fought with my own weakness, which was a harder task than to resist your temptations, much as I could have loved you, and I have conquered. I am not high enough to be your wife. I am worthy of better things than to be your mistress! Farewell.”

CHAPTER VII.

The Christmas festivities were nearly over at Abingdon Villas, and a mere handful of mincemeat left at the bottom of the jar; nevertheless the parlour at No. I3 was decked for reception, and not the parlour only, hut wonderful to relate, a fire was being lighted in the drawingroom, and the covers of that sacred apartment were being removed. Miss Foster and Sarah had been hard at work all day, for Mrs. Redman was to entertain at tea and supper that evening not only Mr. and Mrs. Comerford Miss Comerford, and sundry young Mr. Comerfords, but Mr. and Mrs. John Redman, which was the cause of much extra preparation.

In fact the entrance of the last-named personage (and a personage she was determined to be) into the ranks of the Redman family had considerably troubled the tranquil waters of their existence.

She was a large, handsome, florid woman, on the remote side of thirty, with large brown eyes, and thick brown hair, and a “fine bust” rather than a good figure. She was a well-dressed showy woman, liking parties to the theatre, or the opera, with a good substantial supper and lots of champagne to conclude; and parties to the Crystal Palace, and to races, and generally to everything suggestive of a party. And she talked loudly and frankly to men of all kinds, and was herself generally denominated “a very jolly woman” by her admirers, who had always been numerous. Her training from her youth up had prepared and fitted her to sustain such a reputation. She was the daughter of a jolly quartermaster of a jolly regiment, and she had been for several years a real and valuable helpmate to the favourite medical man in a small sea-side town, where her popular manners, and appetising little suppers, had wholesomely corrected the effects of the doctor’s nauseous draughts and staggering accounts.

The doctor died, and the interesting widow came to town about some business connected with the will of her late husband. As she placed the matter in the hands of Messrs. Harridge and Blyth, that eminent firm of Chancery Lane, she was frequently asked to the house of the junior partner, whose acquaintance (and that of his wife) she had made during their summer visit to Rockville-super-Mare a couple of years previously. There she met the redoubted “Mr. John,” who was speedily fascinated by her full-blown charms, and easy elegance. In short he was carried away captive, almost before he knew it, and though the lady had the reputation of having a pretty little fortune of her own, the particulars concerning it could never be ascertained either from her lawyer or her husband, much to old Mrs. Redman’s mortification. Between these rival personages a species of guerilla warfare soon sprung up, in which Mrs. John had much the best of it, for she had the good temper generally possessed by persons of robust health, first-rate digestion, a thick moral skin, and high animal spirits. Mrs. Redman’s conjectures respecting her money fluctuated according to the degree of offence or conciliation offered by her daughter-in-law, who had a provoking way of never seeming to give the matter a thought.

“I wish you would have another pair of candles put on the cabinet,” said Mrs. Redman querulously to her companion, as she entered the drawing-room in a cap of extra size and complications, and a thick black satin, just before the hour at which the company were to assemble. “Where is the use of promising to see to everything when you leave me to think of most of them? I shall have Mrs. John complaining she can’t see our faces when she comes. I say she can never have had much money of her own to take care of or she would not be so careless of other people’s. I’m sure the extravagance of that house,” meaning the very comfortable tenement rented by Mr. John, “is enough to—to make one ill; though for all the hints and advice I give John he never lets out what she had, no, not to save one from bursting of curiosity. Well, I hope he may not repent it! forcing one to sit up here out of the usual way; uncovering everything, as if the parlour was not good enough.”

. “But then the drawing-room is so pretty and cheerful, dear Mrs. Redman,” urged poor Miss Foster; “and, after all, what is the use of keeping it shut up?”

“There! you are just like the rest; using her very words, I declare. The folly and waste that that woman has introduced! There, there’s the front door bell. Just run and see that the candles are lighted in the spare room. I daresay it’s Miss Nettlethorp; she is always early.” And poor weary Miss Foster, her heart beating far too fast at every sudden word or sound, went hastily up-stairs.

The rings now became frequent, and soon the party was nearly all assembled.

Several of Mrs. Redman’s most esteemed neighbours, who were habitually admitted to the honour of a hand at cribbage or “spoil five ” with the amiable hostess, persons of severe aspect and irreproachable respectability, were added to the family circle. They were principally old maids or widows, with the exception of a retired East Indian, considered a very courtly personage, and a stockbroker, also retired from business, with his wife, and, strange to see at an Abingdon Villa soirie, a son, a young and rather good-looking man, whom the mother had the day before, with much solemnity, asked leave to bring to the hospitable mansion of Mrs. Redman.

Nearly all were assembled, and the business of the evening had commenced by the appearance of large trays bearing tea, coffee, cake, &c., selon les regies, carried by Sarah, in such a dainty cap; and the greengrocer of the neighbourhood, a man of the highest reputation as a purveyor of vegetables, and as a waiter. In short, he was looked upon as a perfect and confidential master of the ceremonies by the “ladies of the vicinity,” as he would have termed them. There was an aristocratic air about him that was irresistible, and to hear him gravely ask your name as you removed your cloak, in order to announce it, as if you had never bought a shilling’s worth of potatoes and three-pennyworth of greens from him, had a courtly flavour about it truly imposing. The commencement of such a gathering is in general difficult, not to say depressing. No one appears to have anything to say or to do. The jingle of a tea-spoon falling is a relief. So in.this case the gentlemen gathered at the end of the room, and conversed in a low tone at long intervals about the last telegrams and the curious expose of the latest limited company, while the ladies sipped their tea and nibbled the bits of cake which lay upon their saucers in default of plate or table. Poor Miss Foster felt it oppressive, and that in some mysterious manner she would be held accountable for failure, for hers was no limited liability, poor soul! She made a sort of convulsive attempt to go round and speak to the ladies, and, if she could, manoeuvre young Mr. Compton into the centre of the party. He had just stepped forward to relieve Miss Comerford of her teacup, with a boldness and address never to be sufficiently admired, when a loud ring announced the missing guests and gave a pleasant sensation of sound and movement to the hearers.

The entrance of Mr. and Mrs. John Redman created quite a sensation. He was as well dressed as ever, the side parting of his hair as clearly defined, the wave over to the left side and into a curl as full and well arranged; his voice, too, was still pompous and sonorous. Yet a change had passed upon the man, an undefinable something had gone out of him. Mrs. Redman was looking splendid, in a blue moire, with a great deal of blonde lace about the shoulders, and a vast display of “bust,” white enough, but somewhat too plump; and she had a piece of black velvet round her throat with a diamond brooch in it, and very long streamers behind. Then her hair was dressed -in a most intricate manner, and decorated with a complicated contrivance of scarlet velvet and gold. And she had a scarlet fan with gold sticks, and a few inches of pocket-handkerchief with miles of lace round it; with a great variety of bracelets, with lockets and crosses, and miscellaneous bunches of charms dependent therefrom, which made an incessant jingle when she shook hands, or fanned herself and stirred her tea. Mr. and Mrs. John entered arm in arm, but immediately separated, “madame ” at once shaking hands with Miss Foster, then with Mrs. Comerford, and sweeping her way to the lady of the house, with a running fire of remarks in a clear ringing voice. “Shocked to be so late, Miss Foster. How do, Susan? Well, grandma’! how are you this cold weather? The skating was great fun today. Mrs. Blyth and I were nearly two hours by the Serpentine to-day, and as we were returning I stumbled on an old friend of mine, Captain Hawkshaw; so I carried him home to dinner, and that made us a little late. I would have brought him here, too, only he was engaged to a supper at Evans’s with one or two brother officers. Thank you,” to the ex-East Indian, who advanced a chair for her accommodation; “much obliged. Oh, dear me! I have disturbed you I am sure.”

“Will you have some tea?” asked Mrs. Redman, stiffly. “I will order some to be made; you are so late, the first lot is all cold.”

“Oh, then, I think I must trouble you,” returned the daughter-in-law, with a sort of fat laugh that shook her shoulders, adding, with an arch look at the East Indian, “I was sworn at Highgate, and always avoid cold tea if I can get it hot.”

“Coldness of any kind must be a stranger to your experience,” returned that accomplished individual, with a courtly bow.

Mrs. John spread out her fan and made believe to hide her face, exclaiming: “Ton my word, one doesn’t hear such speeches as that in Abingdon Villas every day. Why, grandma’, you must present this gentleman to me.”

“Introduce him, I suppose you mean?” returned grandma’, with a cold dissonance in her voice, as if the chords of her nature were being stretched beyond harmony or endurance. “Mr. Lavington, Mrs. John Redman whereupon Mr. L. repeated his courtly bow, and Mrs. John made an upward and forward movement of her massive shoulders, and almost immediately after electrified the company, and completed her mother-in-law’s disgust, by calling in audible tones, and with an air of command, to her husband—“John, come here! Just get my cloak! I am all of a shiver. I am sure, grandma’, you’ll take your death of cold if you don’t try and warm this room better; it’s—oh, law! it’s several degrees below zero!—What do you say, Mr. Lavington?”.

“There is, undoubtedly, a deficiency of caloric,” returned that gentleman; and the irate hostess felt as if the fact had been proclaimed trumpet-tongued:—

“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Mrs. Redman, of No. I3, Abingdon Villas, never lights her drawing-room fire except when she has company, and can’t help it.”

In a humbler and less artificial sphere of life, she might have given her daughter-in-law a black eye, or thrown vitriol over her, or otherwise relieved her feelings, after the fashion of sensitive matrons in Whitechapel or St. Giles’s; as it was, she contented herself by beckoning Miss Foster, with an imperative gesture, from an amiable effort to entertain Miss Comerford and JJr. Compton with a book of prints—stale, but not ancient. “Why don’t you get out the cards, or do something, instead of meandering about in that ridiculous way. I will have more coals put on,” she added, in her most acute accents; “you’ve just perished every one, never lighting the fire till seven o’clock.”

“Why, Mrs. Redman,” began the astonished Miss Foster, conscious of the direct orders she had received on that head.

“There! don’t talk,” interrupted her mistress. “Get me a cup of hot tea. Here’s your tea, Mrs. John,” she continued, to that lady, who was absorbed in an animated conversation with Mr. Lavington, accompanied by much tossing up and down of her head, opening and shutting of her fan, shaking and shrugging of her shoulders;—“and what’s this?” pursued Mrs. Redman, taking up a letter that lay on the tea-tray. “Oh! it’s for you,” handing it to Miss Foster. “I’m sure the time you must spend reading letters, to say nothing of answering them, or the money spent in stamps, would earn you a fortune, if you were inclined.” (Mrs. Redman always condemned poor people as though some moral obliquity of personal choice only kept them back from riches.)

“Dear, dear!” returned Miss Foster, brightening up in spite of her mistress’s disapprobation. “It is from Madeline. I am so glad. ’

“Hum,” said Mrs. Redman. “You had better put it in your pocket and mind your business at present.”

Miss Foster obeyed, and was soon after to be seen ‘ meandering ’ about the room with a pack of cards in her hand, trying to make up a whist-table; and then Mrs. John, having got her scarlet and gold opera cloak, and wrapped it with ostentatious care around her; and sundry cups of tea, with cake ad libitum, proposed a round game—“ving toon” as she suggested; and challenged Mr. Lavington to play thereat, and so depriving Mrs. Redman of her favourite partner at whist. “He do play so steady,” she was wont to say, “and is always the gentleman, whatever way the tricks go.”

“Then you are not for whist this evening?” she observed, in her most acidulated voice.

“No!” replied Mrs. John for him, “he is going to join the young people this evening, but John will make up your table, he plays a tolerable game. Here John! John! you are wanted; whist with your mother.”

Again “that tone of command as if he was her servant—her footboy,” thought the aggravated old lady. “John here, John there, John plays a tolerable game, indeed.” He whose dictum had ever been accepted as an irreversible fiat by the card players of Abingdon Villas. What horrible spell had this woman of uncertain property wrought upon them?

The whist players settled with due gravity to their solemn amusement, and Mrs. John, with much noise and laughter, settled all about counters, and lives, and stakes, and the pool, and had it all her own way; moreover, she sat between Mr. Lavington and young Mr. Compton, and fascinated both; though Miss Comer-ford, in an elegant white tarlatan spotted with blue, sat at the other side of Mr. Compton in a condition of the greatest mildness and refinement, she barely received the civilities of polite society, while the jovial ex-widow, by her little agreeable off-hand flatteries and lively sallies, absorbed every one’s attention. “Quite disgraceful, indeed!” as Miss Nettle-thorp—who sat opposite her with a momentarily increasing severity of aspect, losing three and fourpence without receiving the slightest commiseration—observed the next day to Mrs. Compton. “Too bad; a woman like that, quite middle-aged, to set herself up against a nice modest lady-like girl such as Miss Comerford; and she that had had a double allowance of matrimony too !”

However, Mrs. John little recked of opinion so long as she could amuse herself without injuring her own prospects in any way, and amid many exclamations of joy or despair as the game fluctuated, she kept herself the centre of public notice till old Mrs. Redman, aggravated beyond endurance, despatched Miss Foster prematurely to see if supper was ready.

At that repast it boots not to tell how Miss Comerford nibbled genteely at a microscopic sandwich, and delicately spooned up a little raspberry cream, when any one was at leisure to give her some, and Mrs. Comerford was also fain to be thankful for what chance threw in her way, while all the male portion of the guests seemed absorbed in the agreeable task of administering to the wants of Mrs. John.

All things however, come to an end, and as the guests not belonging to the family circle departed, Mr. John and Mr. Comerford appeared to have settled down into a most interesting conversation in which the words “early application for shares,” “no second call contemplated, “a first-rate board of directors,” might be caught at intervals.

“It is very cold and raw to-night,” said Mrs. Redman, with a certain sense of relief as her guests disappeared. “Ring the bell, Miss Foster. I feel a sort of a shiver. I had better have a little hot brandy-and-water before I go to bed this last was a gentle hint to Mrs. John, who had drawn a chair to the fire and was warming her feet on the fender. “An excellent idea, grandma’,” was the cool reply, “and we’ll join you,” a suggestion no one negatived.

“You had better open your letter and see what that girl has to say for herself,” said grandmamma, pouncing on Miss Foster in revenge, and not knowing that a tolerably brisk correspondence had existed of late between her granddaughter and the companion. Poor Miss Foster coloured and fidgeted, she did not know what might be in the letter, and dared not read it aloud, nor yet refuse. “Come,” said Mrs. Redman, “tell us what it’s about.”

“Why we haven’t heard anything of Madeline since she refused young Moorcroft, like a little fool as she was,” said Mr. John rising and coming up to the fireplace. “What has become of her ?”

Thus urged, Miss Foster could no longer hesitate, and proceeded to open the envelope. As she unfolded its contents, a scrap of newspaper fell to the floor, which Mr. John picked up and held, while Miss Foster skimmed the epistle.

“She is quite well, and—oh, dear me! where is it?” said the lecturer, suddenly interrupting herself, and looking down and around her.

“Here,” said Mr. John, handing her the bit of newspaper.

“Oh, thank you. She is quite well, and hopes Mrs. Redman is quite well. They are having very little company at the Grange this Christmas, for Lord Templemore has lost an aunt, and Lady Templemore seems to be acting very kind, and there is nothing more worth mentioning.”

“What is that piece of newspaper for?” asked Mrs. Redman, in awful accents.

“Oh, only an advertisement she wants me to inquire about.”

“An advertisement!” repeated Mrs. Redman. “I’ll engage she’s going to leave her situation—turned away probably—and you are both trying to deceive me about it. The worthlessness and ingratitude of that girl is past belief, and you are nearly as bad.”

“No ma’am. Pray do not say so,” cried Miss Foster, fairly run to ground. “She is going to leave Lady Templemore, but at her own desire. The place does not agree with her, and she wishes to get music pupils. Lady Templemore is very sorry to lose hep, but you see after having been so ill, she made up her mind to leave, and now Lady Templemore has found a lady to fill her place, so she is coming to town immediately.”

“So you have been corresponding unknown, you deceitful creature. She is coming to town, is she? but she shan’t come here, I can tell you! Let her provide for herself, as she said she would; and scorned my advice the last time I set eyes on her, not seven months ago. She’ll find it a hard matter to make both ends meet in London without help, and she needn’t look for it from me. Mark my words, Madeline Digby will come to no good. It is not likely one of her name ever should.”

“Who is Madeline Digby, and what is it all about?” asked Mrs. John, leaning back in her chair.

Whereupon Mr. Redman and his mother opened a sort of duo, in which Mrs. Comer-ford occasionally joined, and poor Miss Foster threw in a deprecatory word or two, completing the confusion. However Mrs. John, with a degree of acumen highly creditable to her intellectual powers, managed to trace the leading facts, and also to discern (which was less difficult) the bias of her mother-in-law’s mind. This decided her view of the case.

“Well, it is fanny I never heard this story before,” she said. “How sly of you, John, to keep it so quiet! Law, my dear, no man need be ashamed of having poor relations— everyone has some, and this girl seems a plucky one. Come, grandma’, I think you’d better take her in and do for her,” and Mrs. John winked the eye furthest from her mother-in-law, at the astonished and terrified Mrs. Comerford.

“Oh, you do, do you?” said the amiable-grandma’. “Did I ask your opinion? Perhaps you’d better take her in yourself, ma’am.”

“I don’t care if I do,” returned Mrs. John, with careless magnificence. “Of course any relation of John’s is welcome to me.”

“But she’s not like a relation. She is a sort of an impostor forced upon us; and as for you, you are glad of an excuse to spend money any way,” exclaimed Mrs. Bedman, provoked out of the caution which usually marked her intercourse with Mrs. John, whose standing, in her estimation, represented an “unknown quantity,” and was best let alone.

“Oh, my goodness! just listen to that, John!” ejaculated his wife, with perfect good humour. “There’s a libel!”

“My dear,” cried Mrs. Comerford, anxious to throw oil on the troubled waters, “you little know the grief and annoyance mother has had with Madeline, without receiving much gratitude in return, I must say.”

“She’s self-willed, certainly; but not a bad sort of girl,” observed Mr. John.

“And she doesn’t want, or expect to come here at all,” put in Miss Foster.

“Well, I must say it is an extraordinary way to treat a parent and a benefactor (glaring at Miss Foster) in her own house, and partaking of her hospitality, to contradict and brow-beat her about—a creature that would be in the workhouse but for my charity,” cried Mrs. Redman, her huge cap trembling with the fury of the wearer. “I don’t know what she means writing to you, if she didn’t want to get in here.”

“If you would just listen, dear Mrs. Redman,” urged Miss Foster, in her most persuasive accents, feeling herself guilty, however involuntarily, of having thrown down the apple of discord, “You see she sends me this bit of newspaper—an advertisement—from a lady’s school, for a resident music-teacher to receive board and lodging in exchange for lessons three times a week, with the power to take out-of-door pupils, and asks me to make inquiries for her the first day you can spare me.”

“And if you do anything of the kind, you leave my house,” cried Mrs. Redman; “so just choose between me and her. Such impertinence! Sending you on errands, when she knows how she and I parted. It just shows she feels sure of you, and that you would throw me over for her. ‘Birds of a feather!’ You always took her part; but now mind what you are about. If I find you spending your time running after Miss Digby’s errands, you had better leave my house.”

“I’m sure I never thought you would be so vexed,” stammered poor Miss Foster, with an hysterical choky feeling in her throat (she had been quite overtasked that day); but with a fixed resolve to do Madeline’s bidding welling up in her kindly, weak, womanly heart, bound as it was to obedience by Madeline’s few words of apology—“Excuse this trouble; but you are my only friend.” To be necessary to any one—what new life and courage it lent the desolate companion; but her thoughts, “uttered or unexpressed,” went for little in the Babel of excuses, explanations, and apologies which now arose. All, save Mrs. John, were eager to exonerate themselves from the indiscriminate blame lavished upon them by the “respectable Redman,” and to soothe the somewhat unaccountable wrath of that venerable matron; ultimately she declared herself quite unable to partake of her brandy-and-water under such trying circumstances, so rang for Sarah, and, with a frozen and general “good-night,” retired to her room, declining Miss Foster’s aid.

“Well,” cried Mrs. John, “for goodness sake, what was it all about? What set the old lady off? Why will she not allow her granddaughter to leave one place and look out for another without going into a tantrum?”

“Hush! my dear Mrs. John,” said Mrs. Comerford, eagerly, but in a subdued voice you don’t know all the ins and outs. And I must say it was rather injudicious of you, Miss Foster, to go and read that letter aloud.”

This was a fortunate suggestion, and everyone pounced upon it.

“Decided want of tact,” said Mr. John; “raking up old sores.”

“It was so unfortunate! for grandmamma was evidently uncomfortable all the evening observed Miss Comerford, mildly.

“And brought us all into disgrace, somehow,” added her father.

“Why, how could I help it?” cried poor Miss Foster, on the verge of weeping, “Didn’t she tell me?—did you not ask me, Mr. John?”

“What is the use of making ourselves uncomfortable?” said the audacious Mrs. John. “I vote-”

But her suggestions were cut short by the re-entrance of Sarah, who, addressing herself to Miss Foster, said, in the primmest of tones, “My missis would be glad if you could spare her the brandy; she thinks a little, with hot water, and a couple of cloves, might enable her to sleep.”

She spoke as if Miss Foster was in the habit of consuming a bottleful every night; and seizing the one on the table, walked demurely off with it. Mrs. John looked after her, a little crestfallen; and on Mrs. Comer-ford proposing (still in a subdued voice) that they should all go home, offered no opposition.

The party, therefore, broke up; all bidding Miss Foster good-night in somewhat re-proachftd tones. How thankful she was when the front door closed on the last of them! But even still more so when Mrs. Redman refused to see her, alleging, as a reason, that she wanted to go to bed in peace, but requesting (through the door) that she would lock up the remains of the supper, and see the lights put out.

Weary as she was, and cold as was her “tower of refuge,” i. e., her bedroom, the lonely woman read over Madeline’s letter before she laid down to rest.

“MY DEAR MISS FOSTER,

“I have just had an interview with Lady Templemore who tells me she has heard of a lady, who will, she thinks, exactly suit her as a governess; and as we agreed, when I originally spoke to her, that I should wait her convenience, I am to leave whenever this lady can come to the Grange. Lady Templemore has acted with her usual justice; though evidently annoyed with me, at first, for leaving, now offers me a half-year’s salary instead of a longer notice. I must, however, provide some place of abode, as I cannot go into lodgings alone. I therefore enclose you an advertisement, sent me by Mrs. Downing, some days back, and should feel greatly obliged by your calling at the address and inquiring about it—what duties are expected, and if the place seems respectable, &c. Pray excuse this trouble; but you are my only' friend! The sooner you can get this information the better, as my stay here is uncertain.

“How glad I shall be to see you, and have your kind sympathy in my plans (such as they are) for the future. I fear you are not well! How can you be well in Abingdon Villas, where the only ray of human kindly feeling is what warms your own heart?

“Well; though perhaps not worth much, believe in the sincere gratitude and affection of

“Yours,

“MADELINE DIGBY.”

It need not be either, Madeline,” returnedp>Miss Foster’s tears fell thick and fast upon the letter—poor soul! It made her feel her loneliness more than she usually did. Her daily routine of oppression and slights, and moral blows; the sort of way each one seemed to look upon her as a harmless machine, which might be made use of, rather than a self-asserting fellow-creature, would never have drawn forth these tears. It was the unaccustomed word of affection and appreciation, giving a momentary glimpse of what she might, and ought to be. Pleasure, too, had some share in these tears; she would soon see Madeline’s fair young face, and feel her warm embrace. And if these strange feelings of sinking weakness—these oppressive heart-beatings — continued, Madeline would not leave her to die alone, with the perpetual ring of Mrs. Redman’s grumblings, for the last earthly sounds in her weary ear. Yes! she would do Madeline’s bidding if a dozen Mrs. Redmans threatened her! And though the companion might crouch before her mistress’s rebukes, and he overcome at the disapproval of the august Mr. John, there were few dangers she would not have dauntlessly faced to do a service for the one being, in all the wilderness of life, who loved and trusted her.

CHAPTER VIII.

Miss Foster’s inquiries were satisfactorily answered, and about a fortnight after the scene last described, Madeline found herself installed in rather a dreary locality, and in a position widely different from that which she held with Lady Templemore.

Mrs.Williamson’s “select establishment” was on a cheap scale, and the general tone not particularly refined. She was herself a small, querulous, but naturally kind woman, and was assisted by a daughter of the gushing sentimental order, who suffered from a chronic, though unhappy, attachment to the curates who examined the young ladies in religion and theology. . There was a variety of these gentlemen, as the curacy of St. Bride’s, Notting Hill, changed hands frequently, but they nearly all produced the same effect on Miss Amelia Williamson. She was given to find confidants, too, among the older pupils and younger teachers. So that, upon the whole, though two better meaning, good natured women, than Mrs. and Miss Williamson could not be found, I should not have liked to send a daughter of mine to their select establishment. The moral atmosphere was scarce sufficiently bracing.

There were about twenty pupils, considerably crowded in a moderate sized edifice, dignified with the high sounding appellation of “Leamington House.” And the most difficult point in the agreement between Madeline and its mistress was the question of a separate bedroom; this, however, was finally balanced by “French conversation,” and Madeline became temporarily the possessor of an apartment about fourteen feet square, where from her bed she could reach the wash-stand, the drawers, and the dressing-table, which two last were in this instance “one and indivisible.”

The scramble, the jabber, the quarrels, and the confidences, seemed strange and bewildering after the repose, the order, the elegance of the house she had left. Moreover, she found her music lessons, three times a week, to fourteen or fifteen pupils, in various stages of progress, nearly all them so imperfectly grounded that they had to unlearn as well as to acquire, a very wearisome and complete day’s work, at the end of which she felt too stupid to do anything; nevertheless, in the intervening days, she enjoyed the unquestioned liberty with which she went in and out, Mrs. Williamson never seeming to think she had the slightest responsibility regarding her teachers. Gradually Madeline was induced to give an hour or two in the morning, to hear French reading, for with all her good nature Mrs. Williamson knew how to extract the most work from her employees, though, to do her justice, it was not in a disagreeable way.

And how was our little heroine, after the fire and the storm! What comfort had she from the “ still small voice?”

In truth not a great deal. Were conscience always clear and decided in its awards, we could scarce remain unconsoled for the resignation of any delight, however delightful. It is doubt in all cases that is the real malicious devil. The question which arises, when the heroic exaltation of the struggle and the victory has passed, and the chill succeeds the glow, “What was it all for?” “Was all this self denial and bitter renunciation necessary?” “What have I gained by it?”

And Madeline was peculiarly without defence against such whispers of Beelzebub.

She did not regret her decision, for hers was a strength springing from pure moral health, and from the clear sightedness of reason. Nevertheless, she did often dream of the joy and rapture of a life with Dudley Ashurst.

She had never seen or heard from him since their interview in the wood, but she had heard incidentally that he had left Trevallon, and it was reported had gone abroad. That page of her life was turned over and passed by for ever, and the present one seemed very blank, and colourless, and insipid. She walked wearily and mechanically through her days, yet not content with this loss of life, but by a wholesome instinct groping, almost involuntarily, for some reviving influence.

Her pupils offered small interest; to inspire them with any abstract love of any study whatever was simply impossible. Very few girls possess a nature sufficiently deep or strong to preserve the artistic tendency, even if originally in them, unquenched by the influence of the first ten years of their lives with the constant pressure of every circumstance in an adverse direction; while those in whom it might be developed are almost always trained in opposition, the prevailing opinion of orthodox Englishmen and women being, that all such leanings on the part of girls—love of art, in short, in any shape—is probably immoral, and at any rate decidedly bad.

Of the intense enjoyment, the enduring pleasure of a pursuit which cannot disappoint, and is apart from all exterior influence, few dream, or they would not wish to shut women out from what, in their still lives, is so supremely calculated to be a consolation and a support.

Madeline had been nearly a week with Mrs. Williamson, and had got into the full exercise of her duties agreed to, or imposed, and as yet she had seen or heard nothing of Miss Foster; this was a subject of some conjecture to her, as she had no idea that her grandmother could or would object to the companion’s visit.

It was Tuesday afternoon, Madeline, a good,deal tired after toiling through a succession of common-place music lessons, broken only by dinner, which was anything but a social meal, was arranging some music in the drawing-room, where she had been obliged to retire for the last two lessons, before the advance of the elocution, or calisthenic, or some other professor, who came to usurp the usual music-class room.

The drawing-room window looked out on a damp garden, where some pincushion-shaped beds and skeleton shrubs adorned a very dingy grass plot. The short January day was fast closing in, and the fire had burnt low; it was altogether a very cheerless spot and house —-just the time suitable for all kinds of useless regrets, and memory plied her busily with them. The day’s work over, she had before her, tea with Mrs. Williamson, her daughter, and the English governess, at which meal there would be probably a discussion more or less acrimonious on the rival merits of the opposing popular preachers of Notting Hill, a general abuse of the servants, and a little talk of the last murder, elopement, or other sensational bit of intelligence in the newspapers; then Mrs. Williamson would go to sleep, the governess go back to the school-room; and Madeline, taking her needlework, would for another hour be the recipient of Miss Williamson’s whispered confidences touching the last curate’s last enigmatical observation. “And now, my dear, what could he mean by saying, ‘ I noticed you were not in church on Sunday, Miss Williamson, and trust you were not unwell.’ It was not the words, you know, but such a very peculiar manner, &c., &c.!” Not a very enlivening prospect! What an exchange for-

But Madeline’s musings were cut short, for the door opened, and a lady, almost undistinguishable in the closing twilight, came in hesitatingly. She too could hardly discern Madeline, and was beginning—

“Dear me, I beg your pardon,” when our heroine sprang forward, and clasped her in her arms.

“Ah, my dear Miss Foster! my kind good friend! I have been longing to see you. Why did you not come sooner?”

“Well, my dear, I couldn’t very well. You see grandmamma has been very poorly —very poorly indeed, and I was always wanted. I am not sure she knows you are in town and Miss Foster sat down in an arm chair.

Madeline had drawn near the window, and then seated herself close beside her, prepared for a confidential talk, though scarce able to see each other.

“I am sure, Madeline,” said Miss Foster, after an interchange of inquiries, during which she held her young friend’s hand, for she was more than usually tremulous and demonstrative, “that you have not been happy, dear, or comfortable; there is something sad in your voice.”

“Indeed you are mistaken. I was most comfortable at Lady Templemore’s, and kindly treated, but you know I am very lonely, and it is not cheering to have to fight for one’s own solitary existence. You must know that! I wish you and I, poor isolated things, could set up together. Would it not be delightful?”

“Delightful indeed,” sighed the companion, “but out of the question.”

“Perhaps,” returned the younger, and consequently more hopeful speaker. “I never like to think anything I wish for quite out of the question, until I have looked at it on every side.”

Here a servant entered to light the gas, so the friends could see how time had dealt with each since last they met.

“I fear you were very ill, Madeline, last autumn. You look very thin, and worn too. I hope you will like this place.”

“No! dear aunty, I shall not.” Madeline used sometimes to avoid the formality of repeating “Miss Foster” by adopting this appellation, and from this time it became more a habit—“I shall not remain long. It is agreed that if I do not choose to stay, or Mrs. Williamson to keep me, I shall leave at the end of the first month. But in the meantime I must endeavour to get introductions and pupils. Lady Rawson—a lady I met at the Grange—will soon be in town, I suppose. I will call upon her, for I am sure she could be a powerful friend. If I could secure some pupils before leaving it would be a great help.”

“I tell you what, my dear,” exclaimed Miss Foster impressively, “you must call upon Mrs. John!”

“What! My uncle’s wife?”

“Yes; she is quite a clever fashionable woman, and so good-natured. She is very anxious to make your acquaintance. She said so that night your letter came, when grandmamma was so vexed. But oh! I forgot you know nothing about it.”

“Then pray tell me!” said Madeline, “you know I ought to be informed of the Redman politics.

After some further entreaties poor Miss Foster gave a very mangled account of the famous tea party “at grandmamma’s,” in which she strove to soften asperities and make matters as little mortifying as possible, till connection and almost grammar were lost in the attempt.

Madeline’s knowledge of the dramatis personal enabled her to form a very just idea of the facts; and she hastened to relieve her friend from her difficulties.

“I understand it all. Mrs. Redman would be furious with you for helping the grandchild she dislikes so much, and you have endangered your own position, such as it is, by striving even surreptitiously to serve me! How good you are! Well, aunty, you may trust me. I shall not betray you. Now what is Mrs, John like?”

“Oh! you know I could do anything for you, and indeed I do not see why I might not. But then Mrs. Redman is a little peculiar, and so perhaps it would be better not to mention anything—that is (though I have no doubt every right to do what I can)—it would be better to say nothing about it.”

“Aunty—my poor aunty,” cried Madeline, smiling, “you and I are both bond slaves to poverty; therefore we have no rights—none! We must just gather up what crumbs Ml from the tables of the rich! But for ourselves we have nothing and Madeline pressed her hand for a moment over her eyes, in a sort of suppressed fury at the “circumstances over which she had no control”—a polite phrase cut and ready for many occasions, yet containing the epitome of life’s most tragic aspect—circumstance, inanimate yet iron despot, before which the living spirit must bend or break.

“I am stronger than you though,” she resumed, after a pause, which Miss Foster did not interrupt, because she felt puzzled, and not quite sure what she ought to say, “and I will fight a good fight with poverty yet.”

“Well indeed, Madeline, you. have a wonderful spirit, and, as I was saying, Mrs. John is quite a stylish woman, a little careless of money perhaps, but keeps her house in great style. She gives parties, too, and knows lots of people—very elegant parties I am told. I have never been at one, though she was good enough to ask me; but your grandmamma said, in her droll way, ‘ What do you want with Miss Foster—she is neither useful or ornamental at a party? which I was weak enough to feel annoyed at, for there war a time, Madeline, when I had my share of good looks, and my poor father!—but that has nothing to do with it-”

Miss Foster stopped short, and the tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

“You are both, my dear aunty! No one could look at you, and not see that you are pretty still,” cried Madeline, with tender flattery, “and as to usefulness—you are my one comfort and stay in the world! Do you not know that?”

“Ah! you are a good girl, Madeline! You think too much of me. But you had better go and see your aunt soon. She will be delighted with your French ways, and singing, and all that, and if she is pleased, uncle John will be the same.”

“Ah! I see,” said Madeline.

“And now I must go. I shall hardly get back in time for Mrs. Redman’s tea. You will call, will you not? If so, perhaps you had better say nothing of my visit, eh!”

“Certainly not. I shall be guided by you. Ah! what thraldom you are in. How I wish we could live together. But time solves many difficulties. I form, as yet, no plans for my future after I leave this.”

“And you are determined to leave?”

“Yes; when I can see my way. I shall call at Lady Rawson’s to-morrow to know when she will be in town, and on my return I shall go and see Mrs. John Redman. Where does she live?”

“Not far from this. At No. 34, Warwick Gardens.”

“I suppose I may say you informed me of her address, and encouraged me to call. She will not betray you.”

“Oh, no! I should think not. And now, good-bye, dear! I have not a moment to lose!”

Miss Foster’s visit cheered Madeline, though she was grieved to see the worn and depressed aspect of her friend. A strong desire to rescue her from her killing life developed the germ of a plan, even that very day, as she sat dreamily listening to Miss Williamson’s whispered confidences.

She was unable, however, to carry out her intentions of calling on Lady Rawson and Mrs. John the following day, for the German professor of the piano, whose friendship she had won by her appreciation of his national music, and her frank appeal for his assistance in procuring pupils, informed her that he had recommended her to a lady, whose elder daughters he taught, and consequently she must wait upon the fraulein that morning. Madeline readily obeyed. Movement, employment, were essential to the complete recovery from useless and sentimental regrets, which she so earnestly sought; and, in truth, she had a keen practical sense of her position and its necessities, having a strong aptitude for business. She therefore lost no time in keeping the appointment made for her by the good-natured little German, where she secured three little pupils of a much higher stamp than the young ladies of Mrs. Williamson’s select establishment. This, she felt, would be great news for Miss Foster, though the distance from her present abode to her pupils’ in the neighbourhood of the Marble Arch was somewhat of a drawback. However, encouraged by this success, she proceeded to the Governesses’ Institution to enter her name and qualifications on the books. If she could but earn a couple of pounds or thirty shillings a week, and poor Miss Foster had anything to add to the common fund, they might set up together.

By the time this was accomplished it was too late and too dusk to go to Lady Rawson’s, so she returned to Leamington House, meditating on her next step.

Madeline’s next open day was wet, a damp drizzly wet, that clung to hair and clothes clammily. Yet she sallied forth. At her morning toilette she held long discussion with herself. Should she pay her first family visit to Mrs. John, or to her grandmother. The latter was an infliction she would fain escape; but was it not a question of duty? To that unpleasant grandmother she owed her elevation from abject poverty—from the most vagabond style of existence, to a certain standing and refinement. True, she might have appealed to her Parisian aunt, but knowing that agreeable personage as she did, how much attention would she have received had there not been an English “grandma’ ” of fabulous wealth in the background? Besides, Mrs. Redman was the mother of Madeline’s mother. Her mother!—that pale faint vision of her childish years which she fondly, yet imperfectly recalled, and so ardently longed for! For Madeline’s was a very Irish nature, and all that intense family love, which is nowhere else more strongly and passionately developed, existed to the full in the poor starved heart, reduced as it was to feed on husks, while hired servants had bread enough and to spare at her father’s table. Yes; her first visit that day should be to Abingdon Villas.

Madeline started early, intending to call on Mrs. John, after seeing the “respectable Redman.”

All things, save the weather, looked the same as on that memorable morning when little Kit brought her to make an appeal to her grandmother’s natural feeling and liberality, and she vividly recalled the mixture of terror and hope with which she had looked forward to that interview. Her father had scarcely ever mentioned Mrs. Redman, but Mr. Fitzwarrenne had gathered a few facts concerning her which proved a splendid source of fiction. She was a woman of rank and fortune—she would adopt and adore Madeline, who, from henceforth, would shine as an heiress, and a woman of fashion, and patronise Eat, lending him importance in the eyes even of London managers, &c., while Madeline herself anticipated a stern reception from a stately dowager, in lace and velvet, who would presently melt, and crying, “’Tis the voice of my lost child!” take her to her heart, and implore her forgiveness, &c. &c. Madeline smiled to herself as she recalled these childish imaginings, and the contrast they presented to the reality of her experience. Yet die had a good deal of romance left still. At nineteen or twenty it is fortunately hard to eradicate it.

Mrs. Redman was of course at home, and, as on the occasion of Madeline’s first visit, sitting in her front parlour, listening while Miss Foster read aloud the Times; that timid female changed colour, and made several grimaces, expressive of warning, to Madeline, as though she must inevitably inform her grandmother of her visit.

“How do you do, grandmamma?” said Madeline, cheerfully.

“Pretty well,” was the reply, accompanied with a slight holding out of four rigid, unbending fingers, and an inflexible thumb.

Mrs. Redman looked more angular than formerly; her face, too, was a trifle paler; but her cap was as elaborate, and her black satin as glossy as ever. She did a few stitches of her knitting before she spoke again. Meantime Madeline greeted Miss Foster, and, unbidden, sat down beside her grandmother.

“So you’ve left Lady Templemore’s?” was the next observation of the oracle.

“I have.”

“Hum! You were foolish enough to go there, and you are a greater fool to come away, unless you were obliged, which I expect is the case.”

The manner in which these words were jerked out made them especially insulting, hut Madeline was determined not to take offence, and seemed in some mysterious way to be lifted above them; in short, she felt she had passed out of her grandmother’s keeping into her own, so she replied good-humouredly— “No, indeed; I left voluntarily. The Grange did not agree with me; and you know health is of paramount importance.”

“I suppose the family will be in town great part of the year, and I think you might have put up with the country for awhile.”

“Lady Templemore wished me to remain behind with Lady Agnes while the rest of the family came up to town.”

“Well, you will always go your own way; but remember, if you get into difficulties through your own obstinacy, you must not look to me for help!”

“I am innocent of any such expectation,” returned Madeline, with inflexible, but by no means insolent good humour, which, nevertheless, enraged her grandmother. Here was this penniless chit, the creature of her bounty, speaking and acting with the most insulting independence,—actually standing morally upright in Mrs. Redman’s presence, though without capital of any kind, or a solid basis to the amount even of one hundred pounds sterling for her pretensions! and worse than anything else, she could not be put down! She was too well-bred to utter a disrespectful syllable to a woman of Mrs. Redman’s age; and the undefinable superiority which galled the coarse, strong nature of the irascible old woman, while it kept clear above out of her grasp, irritated the highly respectable matron almost beyond endurance. She felt instinctively that on no personal topic could she “rile ” her granddaughter. So the detestation of the moment lent her insight enough to strike through unoffending Miss Foster.

“Indeed, if you hadn’t acted so badly, refusing an excellent match that would have relieved your relatives of you altogether, I wouldn’t mind having had you by me to read aloud and keep accounts; for though I say it to her face, Miss Foster has been very trying of late—fancies she can’t read for more than an hour at a time, and often breaks off at the most interesting point, and lets her voice drop till it’s painful to listen, and-”

“My dear Mrs. Redman,” interrupted the object of these candid remarks, crimsoning to the eyes—too sensitive to be yet hardened, even though so long trained to “companionship,” “I am sure I must have been very tiresome, but I am better now, you know; and though I have been reading off and on the whole morning, I do not feel very tired yet.”

“Well, I do not know about being better,” ejaculated the amiable grandmamma, “I only know you turned stupid over some very simple accounts yesterday, and because I just said it was stupid, began to cry in a ridiculous manner one could scarce excuse in a young girl, but was nonsensical in an elderly woman like you.” And here Mrs. Redman expressed a very common feeling. What ready sympathy is given to the tender tears of youth, which only make ensuing smiles seem the brighter, but how many are ready to consider the scalding drops which depression, disappointment, and the wearing conflict of everyday life, wring from the heart of an elderly woman, as nonsensical! Madeline’s bright chivalrous spirit sprang up at these gratuitous insults to one she loved and pitied, but with the impulse rose the caution instilled by the severe lessons of her early youth, and she checked the retort already quivering on her lip. Why should she make make matters worse for Miss Foster by irritating the ogress whose purse gave her such power, when she must leave her friend in her clutches?

“You are looking ill, certainly,” observed Madeline, gazing earnestly at the gentle worn face, the soft dim eyes hill of tears, the pale lips quivering. “If Miss Foster had change of air and scene, as doctors say, she would be quite set up, and able to read to. you interminably.”

“Well, I wonder where the money is to come from,” Mrs Redman was beginning, when Mrs. Comerford came in to pay her daily visit to her mother, and take her usual dose of snubbing. Mrs. Redman was really pleased to see her. Here was some one who devoutly believed in her supremacy, and never ventured to stand upright in her presence. Here was a loyal upholder of legitimacy to encounter that young red republican Madeline, who brought with her always an atmosphere of freedom and independence, in which Mrs. Redman’s authority seemed to wither and fade away.

“Here’s Miss Digby,” said Mrs. Redman shortly, almost before Mrs. Cojnerford had wished her good morning—as though that statement was at once an accusation and a causus belli.

“Indeed!” returned Mrs. Comerford, puzzled, yet too good-natured to be rude. “Very glad to see you, I am sure; I did not know you were in town.”

Madeline rose and shook hands with her aunt, while Mrs. Redman continued—

“Left Lady Templemore’s just in the same obstinate manner she refused that promising young man, Mr. Moorcroft, and I can tell her she is not likely to get another offer. There are few men who would marry a poor governess like her.”

This shaft struck deep. Did she not know it but too well, and perhaps at that moment she did passionately regret not having accepted Dudley Ashurst as a lover. Since none were willing to have her as a wife, was she therefore to be condemned to lead a lonely, joyless, colourless existence?

“Well, well,” returned poor Mrs. Comer-ford, “it was rather foolish, but it can’t be helped now, though really it was a pity. John says he is a most rising young man, and has been made one of the directors in that new company—oh! I forget the name, something about tubular bridges.”

“You don’t say so?” ejaculated Mrs. Redman, to whose old world notions the word “director ” conveyed vague ideas of power and unlimited respectability. “There now, I am sure there never was a woman more disappointed than I am, to have a grand-daughter living I don’t know how, from hand to mouth, when she might have been comfortable and respectable, and my son married to a woman that treats me like the dirt under her feet.”

“Oh hush! hush gran’ma’ dear,” interrupted Mrs. Comerford, with a warning glance at Madeline.

“Mind your own business, Susan,” returned her mother angrily. “What do I care if that girl goes and repeats everything. I suppose,” to Madeline “you are going to see your uncle’s wife?”

“I intended to do; so I always found him very kind, and I hope he is happy.”

“There! I knew it,” cried Mrs. Redman triumphantly to Miss Foster. “I told you she would be currying favour with Mrs. John.”

“If you desire it I will not call,” said Madeline, putting her grandmother in a corner.

“I desire nothing of the kind, you may do as you like; but I do desire to know where you are staying and what you are doing; you shall not disgrace me if I can prevent it.”

Madeline quietly handed Mrs. Redman her card with her address written thereon. “If you feel inclined to call I shall be most happy to see you.” Madeline’s calm good breeding somewhat bridled the old woman’s indiscriminate irascibility.

“Hum,” she said, “it might do you good to let the people see you had some one respectable belonging to you; what do they pay you?” “Nothing; I get board and lodging in return for lessons in music.”

“Well, that is a poor affair. But how did you happen to go there?” bristling up again, “I suppose, Miss Foster, you disobeyed me and treated my orders with contempt!” Poor Miss Foster was undone had not Madeline stepped in.

“I greatly regretted.having troubled Miss Foster on the subject, when she told me you forbid her performing my commission.”

“Ha!” returned Mrs. Redman, sinking back in her chair, robbed of her prey.

“I will say good-morning, then,” said Madeline, rising and thinking she had borne enough.

“Good-bye to you,” said Mrs. Redman, a shade less ungraciously than before.

“G-ood-morning, my dear, and I shall be happy to see you any day you like to call—that is,” remembering herself, “I should be if dear grandma’ can approve of your conduct, and you—in short I shall he happy to do anything,” concluded Mrs. Comerford vaguely, not daring to be too civil, and yet finding it difficult to patronise the well-dressed, well-mannered, self-reliant girl before her.

“Good-bye, dear friend,” whispered Madeline as she pressed a kiss on Miss Foster’s pale cheek, “you must get away from the giant's castle or you will die, and I must help you.”

The weather had cleared a little when Madeline sallied forth, and she decided on paying her intended visit to Mrs. John, especially as Warwick Gardens lay in her homeward way.

As she walked quietly across Kensington Gardens, she felt her spirits rise at each step which bore her further from her grandmother’s oppressive presence.

How strange it was that this old woman should be a grief to herself, though possessed of the means to make life lovely, dutiful children, friends to esteem her—more then enough of this world’s goods, and yet never happy, never content. “If she could have loved me,” reflected Madeline, “what happiness she might both have given and received!” Certes, among the phenomena of life none are more puzzling than that intense selfishness which defeats its own ends, by shutting out sympathy in the joys or sorrows of others.

Mr. John Redman’s house in Warwick Gardens was of the usual modern suburban type, it was semi-detached, had a dining-room at one side of the entrance, and two drawing rooms at the other, a small back parlour dignified by the appellation of the “library,” and a glass box on the first landing called a conservatory. The steps were very white, and the brasses very bright, and a very smart parlour-maid answered the door in an extra fashionable cap. Mrs. John was at home, and Madeline was shown into the drawing-room, a chilly apartment, with a good deal of gilding and looking-glass about it, blue and gold brocade curtains, and all the furniture in brown holland pinafores; there were albums and wax flowers too, but as yet cartes de visite were not.

Before Madeline had completed her survey of the room, she heard a loud quick voice exclaim outside, “Mary Anne bring back the cold mutton,” and thereupon Mrs. John entered; she was attired in a dark linsey, very elaborately braided, with collar, cuffs, and apron all selon les regies, and large fat white hands covered with rings.

“How do you do, Miss Digby? Very glad to make your acquaintance. You must want your luncheon, and I have not quite finished mine, so come into the dining-room. I generally sit there of a morning, it is cosier.”

So saying, she shook Madeline’s hand cordially, and then gave her a little push towards the door. Madeline accepted the invitation, and crossing the hall was conducted into the dining-room, which felt warm and comfortable, with a large fire blazing up the chimney, and the orthodox Turkey carpet, sideboard with looking-glass back, and bronze ornaments on the mantel-piece.

The further end of the dinner-table was covered with a table-cloth, and the smart parlour-maid was in the act of replacing a cold shoulder of mutton.

“Have you come here direct, and where are you staying?” continued Mrs. John, cutting two 6r three thick slices, as though prepared to feed the hungry.

“I have come from my grandmother’s,” replied Madeline, “and I am at present staying at a ladies’ school not far from this.”

“Oh! if you have come from old Mrs. Redman’s I fancy you must want your luncheon; some beer, Mary Anne,” said Mrs. John all in a breath. “I have often heard Miss Foster speak of you, but you are not the least bit like what I expected to See,” she continued. “I fancied you would be a tall fine-looking girl”

“Instead of a small insignificant one,” returned Madeline, laughing good-humouredly.

“Well, you are not very big, and you do not somehow look English, but you will do very well; and how did you get on with grandma’—what an awful sour old thing she is! and she hates me like poison. You see they are all so afraid of her, and I have been too much accustomed to be looked up to all my life to knock under now, I can tell her; besides, she hasn’t so much to leave behind her, and my husband, thank God, does not want it—take some beer,” concluded Mrs. John, who, even in the exercise of opposition to her mother-in-law, evinced by hospitality to Madeline, would never have thought of wasting her dinner sherry, at thirty shillings a dozen, on a dependent.

“Mrs. Redman certainly has not a sunny nature,” returned Madeline, “hut I owe her much; now, however, I think I am in a fair way to maintain myself, and do not intend to let her peculiarities distress me.”

“Well, I think she hates you worse even than me, but do you just take my part, and you’ll find I can be a good friend. I hope to see a good deal of company this spring, and I will always ask you in the evening, and you can sing, you know, and all that, and I shouldn’t he a hit surprised if you picked up a good match.”

“Thank you,” said Madeline, laughing, “I am afraid you rate my chances too high.”

“Oh no! you seem good-humoured, and there is nothing men like so much as laughter and jolliness. I am always in good spirits, and you can’t think what a favourite I have been and am; and then I dress well, that is another point—by the way, what is the stuff in your dress? I never saw any like it.”

“This is a French cloth, I got it in Paris, and Lady Templemore’s dressmaker at Grey-bridge made, or rather altered it, for me.”

. “Indeed! will you just slip off your shawl, and let me see the cut? Very elegant, I declare! and you have an uncommon neat figure, I must say. Did her ladyship lend you the pattern?”

“Oh no!” returned Madeline, “I would not wear a dress made like Lady Templemore’s.” She spoke sincerely, for her taste, formed on the Parisian mould, was fastidious, but this morsel of “bumptiousness ” did her great service with Mrs. John, who was ready enough, like most of her calibre, to take people at their own valuation.

“Ah! I forgot, you have been abroad, a long time in Paris, I believe? Now I dare say you could give me some useful hints when I want a new dress?—and you sing, too. Miss Foster has told me all about it, and oh! law, what a life the old lady leads her. She had better be in a penitentiary.”

“Poor Miss Foster!” ejaculated Madeline, somewhat imposed upon by the species of cordiality, with which Mrs. John’s love of novelty, amusement, and gossip, clothed her selfishness. Madeline was so ready to receive and reciprocate kindness, that, although this newly-made aunt somewhat offended her taste, she was grateful for the warmth of her reception, contrasted as it was with her grandmother’s. and gave Mrs. John credit for warmth of heart, if not elegance of manner, and so, with courteous frankness, continued, “I owe the pleasure of this visit to Miss Foster, you know she arranged for me to come to my present abode, without Mrs. Redman’s knowledge, and when she came to see me there, said she thought you would be good enough to receive me en amie, or I should not have come.”

“I’m sure I am delighted,” returned Mrs. John, charmed with the importance this seemed to reflect upon her, “and your uncle will be pleased too. Can’t you stay to see him? he comes home to what we used to call a meat tea at Rockville, about seven.”

“Thank you, I do not like to absent myself from Mrs. Williamson’s tea-table, without giving notice, and now, if you will let me see the baby, I must say good-bye.”

“Oh to be sure! He is a fine little fellow, nearly four months old, so different from the Comerford children. Even grandma’ is proud of him, and he is the image of me.”

The bell was duly rung, and the baby paraded, in a very fine frock. He was a monster of fat, with an inconvenient head.

Madeline, who was totally ignorant of babies, and had no great instinct for them, though extremely fond of little children, exclaimed with genuine surprise at his growth and fatness, which sufficiently satisfied the mother’s vanity, and then Madeline reassumed her shawl, and parted very cordially with Mrs. John, who promised to “go and see her,” to “invite her one Sunday to see her uncle,” “to see if she couldn’t pick her up a smart young man,” &c., calling out some witticism on this head, in very audible tones, after Madeline as she descended the steps.

“It is well,” she thought, “there is one among my few relatives who is not refrigerated towards me by Mrs. Redman; but what a droll strange person Mrs. John seems.”

CHAPTER IX.

Madeline’s month of probation was drawing to a close, and she felt still undecided. Mrs. Williamson’s was not a very happy or desirable abode; yet she was by no means hopeful of improving her position by any change.

In this uncertainly Mrs. Williamson found her one morning, and suggested her continuing to the end of the quarter, adding many compliments as to her agreeabiliiy as an inmate, while prudently suppressing all commendation of her abilities as a teacher, Madeline had no reply, no plan ready. Lady Rawson, on whose friendship and counsel she almost unconsciously placed the greatest reliance, had not yet come to town. To go into lodgings alone was not to be thought of, even had she the means to support herself there; so, after a hasty mental glance at her circumstances, she consented. Hardly had she done so, when a feeling of regret—a chafing, as it were, against prison bars;—arose within her, and feeling utterly unsettled, she determined to walk over to Abingdon Villas after the midday dinner, on the chance of having a word or two in private with Miss Foster.

The dinner was scarcely over, when the somewhat unusual sound of wheels stopping at the front door attracted attention, and a few minutes after the servant informed Madeline “she was wanted in the drawing-room.” Thither she repaired, and found Miss Foster very pale and tremulous, with Mrs. Williamson, who was elaborately entertaining her by elegantly-expressed praises of her own establishment, system, connection, &c. Madeline immediately saw that some unusual occurrence had shaken her friend’s nerves, almost beyond the power of self-control, so she speedily carried her off to the privacy of her own little bedroom.

Directly they were shut into that small sanctum, the poor companion broke into almost hysterical weeping.

“Oh, dear Madeline,” she said, through her sobs; “she has sent me away, turned me into the streets. I have my boxes on a cab at the door, and nowhere to go to! What shall I do? The only relation I have in the world is my nephew, and he is a clergyman in the north with a large family. Oh, Madeline! it seems foolish for a woman at my time of life to come to yon for help; but indeed I do not know what to do.” And the poor nervous creature wept and shivered like a helpless beaten child.

Then Madeline put her arms round her, and soothed and hushed her with tender, firm expressions.

“Try and compose yourself, dear friend, and tell me all about it, that I may comprehend what is the matter.”

“Well, you see,” began Miss Foster, taking up the tale which, amid many sobs, she brokenly related. “You see, Mrs. John came to see her yesterday, and that always puts her out; and Mrs. John did go on so about you, dear. I’m sure I was, or would have been, delighted to hear her, only your grandmamma is so peculiar, she seems vexed when you are praised. And then she said something about your being very comfortable in the place I had got for you, and suddenly it all came out, how I had managed it all unknown to Mrs. Redman; then she went into such a fury. Oh, you never saw anything like it! I thought she would have murdered me, nothing was bad enough to call me. And Mrs. John took my part, and tried to laugh at it all, and that made her worse. Then, my not being strong, you know, I began to cry, and said I would go away. And she said I might, for I was no use to myself or any one else; and then I had a sort of a fit up in my own room. And Sarah (the housemaid, you know, she really was very kind, I couldn’t help giving her five shillings when I came away; well, she sent up three times that afternoon to know when I was going.”

“Who, Sarah?” asked Madeline.

“No, no; Mrs. Redman. I really did not think she meant it. After living together nearly nine years. Yes, it would have been nine years next June.” And poor Miss Foster, overcome by the recollection of that terrible blank, that space of slavery, burst out afresh. She had in truth borne the burden and heat of the day, and had gained her dismissal. “You see,” she resumed, “ Mrs. Redman had been thinking me useless for some time, since I had been so poorly, and thought this was a good opportunity for getting rid of me. I have never thought it before, but it seemed to flash upon me all at once, last night, the third time she sent to ask if I was going. So I just sent word that I should leave in the morning as soon as I could get my things ready; and she breakfasted in her room, and only came down when the cab was at the door: even then she said a great many unkind things, though I do think she will miss me when she gets another companion, especially when she has to pay; for you know, Madeline,” continued the poor bruised reed, apologetically, “she is a little too fond of money.”

“It is her only instinct,” murmured Madeline. “And do you mean to say she paid you no wages; that you served her all these years, endured the misery of being with her, for nothing? Surely you might have done better than that.”

“Well, you see, dear, I had a little of my own, not enough to live upon, about thirty pounds a year; and when my poor brother died (he had been long ill, I lived with him, and was of use to him in some ways) his son (the clergyman, you know) advised me to advertise for a companion’s place, and to put salary hot so much an object as a comfortable home,’ and do you know, no one answered it but Mrs. Redman; she said she would give no salary, but a very comfortable home; and it was really very fortunate, for just then I had not a penny, my poor brother having left some little debts, which my nephew and myself felt ought to be paid; and with his large family (though it was not so large, of course, then) could do very little. 'But, dear, dear, I am running off into all sorts of things. So I was bare enough when Mrs. Redman took me, and what with making a respectable appearance, and making up mistakes about change when she sent me shopping, I could save nothing more than ten sovereigns, which I have in my purse, and half-a-crown, which will not pay the cab; and that brings me back, dear Madeline, to ask what would you advise me to do? What shall I do?” There was positive despair in the tone of this last question, followed by a short pause, and then impelled by a sudden prick from conscience, she exclaimed : “Oh! I ought to say, she certainly gave me a silk dress every second year, but I always paid for the making and trimming myself.”

“Say two pounds ten per annum for your companionship, care, and endless perusals of the police reports,” said Madeline, smiling rather bitterly. “But, dearest aunty, this is a serious matter, we must act in some way to- day; let me think, you must get lodgings, and food, and—yes!—I will go with you to find them. Listen to me, dear aunty—you have ten pounds, I have twenty; you have thirty pounds a-year, I make a pound a week by my music lessons now, and hope soon to make more. Could we venture to start in partnership on this capital? You know all about prices and food, which I do not. Could we, do you think, get lodgings for your thirty pounds a-year, and food for my pound a-week?”

“Oh! we could live on a pound a week,” said Miss Foster, brightening at the bare idea, “but I am afraid about lodgings, we could get very poor ones for eleven or twelve shillings a week.”

“Let us try and find them,” said Madeline with her usual energy, “think of having a home together! Evenings free from Mrs. Redman or any other mistress! Aunty, I feel wild with joy at the idea! You and I have had a horrible life of it; come, in heaven’s name let us start on a joint voyage of discovery to find a better one. I have unfortunately committed myself to Mrs. Williamson, to-day, but I shall get out of that, and-- but come along, we shall see what we can do.”

Madeline quickly assumed her out-door dress, and then, after a moment’s reflection, asked Miss Foster if she had any friend where she might leave her luggage for a day. Poor Miss Foster ran her mind’s eye over the whole range of polite acquaintances whom she had made while Mrs. Bedman’s companion, and in the worse than savage isolation of London life could think of none, till at last she said—

“There is a very respectable woman, the wife of a greengrocer, in fact the man who goes out waiting—quite a gentlemanly man —-she used to do a little dressmaking for me before they took to the greengrocery, I once helped her to nurse her little girl, who was ill (Mrs. Bedman was away with the Comer-fords at Bamsgate, at the time) and ever since she has been very grateful, I think she would take in my boxes.”

“The very thing,” cried Madeline; “there we can dismiss the cab, and your friend may probably give us some advice about lodgings.” So saying she opened the door, and Miss Foster, who had bathed her poor swollen eyes, and otherwise removed as much as she could the traces of her emotion, followed her young directress down-stairs.

The greengrocer’s wife proved faithful to her expressed feelings, took in the luggage, and piled it in an empty potato bin; moreover, on being asked to recommend some humble hotel in the neighbourhood where Miss Foster might pass the night, eagerly and deferentially urged her acceptance of a night’s lodging under her roof, and to this they ultimately agreed. Her advice too, respecting their search for lodgings proved very valuable. Madeline frankly told her the small rent they could afford, whereat she looked surprised, at the discrepancy between the refined appearance of the speaker and the miserable sum named. She however suggested that in the large old-fashioned houses that border the New Hoad, bed-room floors were sometimes let at lower rates than could be afforded by the owners of smaller and more modem houses. The locality was also in the vicinity of Madeline’s pupils for often it is but a mere step in space that separates the sublime of fashion from the ridiculous of non-fashion.

It was weary work, and the slightly lengthening February afternoon had closed in before they had fixed themselves. Poor Miss Foster was nearly exhausted and half hysterical, but Madeline was intensely bent on finishing her work of emancipation; at last she returned to a house very clean and tolerably airy, which at an earlier hour the friends had rejected because of the extreme scarcity of furniture, and after some discussion of preliminaries with the owner, a severe but honest-looking woman, agreed to become the tenants of a large three-windowed room on the second floor front, with a thread-bare carpet, dingy curtains, half-a-dozen chairs, a table, a sofa, (which was also a bed) and a cane-bottomed, misnamed, easy-chair; this, with a smaller room behind, scantily furnished as a bedroom, was to be theirs at the large sum of twelve shillings and sixpence per week.

“Rather more than thirty pounds a year, love,” whispered Miss Foster.

“Is it? never,mind,” returned Madeline in the same key.

“How about references, mum?” asked the severe landlady. “I am always very particular. Mr. Varley, the minister of the Wesleyan chapel in Burton Lane knows me well, and will tell any one my character.”

“Our reference,” returned Madeline calmly, “is Mr. John Redman, 22, Warwick Gardens, Notting Hill, and Size Lane, City;—stay, I will write it down on Miss Foster’s card for you.”

“Oh mum, that will do, I know Warwick Gardens—elegant houses, and the best quality, carriage people many of them, live there; when would you like to come in ladies?

“To-morrow,” replied Madeline decidedly; “to-morrow at tea-time.”

“Very well, ma’am,” said the landlady, mollified by the quiet old-maidish respectability of Miss Foster, and the air of distinction which was so visibly stamped on her young companion.

“My dear,” said Miss Foster as they took their way towards the Marble Arch, “were you not afraid to give Mr. John’s name as a reference without his leave?—perhaps he might not like it.”

“Nothing venture nothing win,” said Madeline, with a laugh. “Our new mistress, the landlady, would not have taken us in had I hesitated a moment; and I will write to my uncle this evening (enclosing the note, open of course, to the redoubtable Mrs. John, and begging her good offices), explaining the whole business; but in all probability no inquiries will be made. Now, aunty, dear, I must leave you. I have a great deal to do to-night, and don’t you go and cry and make yourself wretched. Bemember, you have not to meet Mrs. Bedman at breakfast to-morrow, that you are free, and that we are going to be very happy.”

Madeline had certainly sufficient work for that evening, and the next day also. Her most difficult task was to appease and arrange with Mrs. "Williamson. This was at last accomplished by her promising to give her music lessons as usual for one month without remuneration. Nevertheless it was a joyful day. When she started to meet Miss Foster at their new abode she was a little in advance of her friend, and therefore, to her great satisfaction, ready to receive her. Miss Foster looked better than the day before, but the poor thing’s gentility was a little startled and affronted by the short, sharp, and decisive appearance of the landlady, who rose for a few seconds above the head of the kitchen stair and uttered a careless “Good day, ladies. You’ll find the rooms all right. Come, Hemma,” to the servant, who was assisting to bring in the trunks, “I want you downstairs.”

“One moment,” said Madeline, pleasantly. “If you cannot spare your servant how shall we get our luggage taken up?”

“Well, I can’t spare her; but there’s a boy down-stairs will help for a sixpence, I daresay.”

“Let us have him, by all means.”

So the landlady went down, the boy came up, and the friends’ belongings were duly stowed away.

“Let us set to work at once and settle ourselves,” said Madeline, “and then go out and see the neighbourhood, and buy bread and tea, and things. You shall give me a lesson. Look here, aunty. This cupboard by the fireplace is not very elegant, but we can put quantities of things away in it, and there are two more in our bedroom. And what a number of carriages and omnibuses seem to pass; you will be quite amused here of a morning while I am away.”

It was certainly not a brilliant beginning of partnership, yet how delightful it all seemed to our two wanderers. No sudden parting lest, any one should be waiting and scold; no hesitation about uttering the thought within lest it might give offence; no ever-present sense of constraint and slavery, but the freedom, the heart-rest, which constitutes home.

Both were somewhat weary when they sallied down-stairs to ask directions from the landlady, who recommended the different shops with a sort of reserve, as though she feared she might be held in any way responsible for their debts. And their shopping was . a new source of delight; and what,a charming repast they had of tea, brown bread and butter, and eggs, and afterwards, though Miss Foster was rather fidgeted by the extreme sootiness of the small servant, and discomfited by the request, “Please, mum, Mrs. Rumble says you’ll find it better to keep up the kettle, for it’s the kettle as belongs to this floor, and then it will be always handy.”

“What a horrible black thing!” said Madeline, with a gay laugh. “Could it not be made to look a little better, Emma?”

“Oh, yes, miss,” returned Emma, brightening at her genial manner and sympathetic tone. “It might be, a deal, but—but I had better not take it down now," she concluded, with a little something of awe in her voice.

“I understand. You shall take it when you can.”

“But, dear, dear! such a thing will quite spoil the look of the sitting-room,” sighed Miss Foster.

“The general appointments are so elegant,” returned Madeline, laughing heartily at her distressed tone. “But courage, dear aunty; in a few days we shall make it all much better.”

While Madeline spoke thus cheerily her eye glanced round the room and took in its mean details, aptly finishing with the retreating figure of the sooty servant, and her taste shrank from it all with loathing. And now, but for her rejection of his proffered love, she might be revelling in all the refinements of wealth and station with Dudley Ashurst; yet, strange to say, she did not feel that aching, yearning, longing for him she often experienced, though feeling the contrast between the actual and the “might have been ” most keenly. It seemed that even this poor approach to home offered a rest to her heart; the adoption of the dismissed companion supplied a tie to her life that reconciled her to those social laws from which as yet she had reaped little benefit.

The morning’s awakening sense of freedom was also delicious, but soon after breakfast Madeline was obliged to leave Miss Foster to her own devices and hurry away to her pupils, leaving their domestic arrangements in her hands.

It was a bright cold day towards the end of February, when Madeline had been about a week installed as partner, guide, and protector to her friend, when, as she was returning from a hard day’s work at Mrs. Williamson’s, she crossed the Bayswater Road, intending to return through Kensington Gardens. As she stepped upon the pavement she was accosted by a smart servant, who touched his hat and said: “Lady Rawson’s love; would you be good enough to speak to her?”

“Lady Rawson! where?”

“In the carriage, just here,” said the man, and Madeline became aware of a dark, elegantly-appointed brougham, with one superb horse, which was drawing up beside the footway, and in it she discerned Lady Rawson’s brilliant complexion and flashing black eyes.

“How do you do, Miss Digby?. I thought it was you, and, coute que coute, determined to stop you. Where are you staying, and what are you doing?”

These point-blank questions were accompanied by a keen, searching glance, which Madeline felt took in every detail of her dress and bearing. So much of meaning did it convey to her that she coloured deeply, while she answered, with a smile: “I am busy getting up what is called ‘ a connection ’ with pupils for music, and I am living with a lady who was companion to my grandmother. I had intended calling upon you, Lady Rawson, according to your kind permission, but did not know you had come to town.”

“Only arrived the day before yesterday. I am delighted to see you, and will do all in my power to help you. Come to luncheon with me. Let me see!—to-morrow, at two— can you?” said Lady Rawson, with great cordiality.

“To-morrow!—yes, certainly. I shall be most happy!”

“Give me your address, then, lest I might by any accident miss you. And now I must go on, for I have fifty things to do. I can’t say how glad I am to have met you.”

And with a smile and warm pressure of the hand, Lady Rawson drove off.

“Well, my dear!” cried Miss Foster, when Madeline reached home, “who do you think came to see us to-day?”

“I cannot imagine!”

“Well, Mrs. John—herself. She came in great style—in a brougham. Mrs. Rumble showed her up; so that will prove we are not common people! She was very kind, indeed, and very curious to know how Mrs. Redman and I parted; but I said as little as I could. She was very much disappointed not to see you; and begged you would call soon. But, oh! Madeline! she seemed quite disgusted with the rooms, and asked what we paid for this wretched hole.”

“Well, her opinion does not add to its wretchedness, aunty, does it? By-and-by, when we grow richer, we must beautify it a little. Now hear my news!” and Madeline recounted her meeting with Lady Rawson, which adventure immediately raised the most brilliant expectations in the sanguine heart of Miss Foster.

“I am sure it is most fortunate! She will, no doubt, ask you to her parties, and I should not be surprised if some-great rich man fell in love with you. Ah! Madeline! you are a strange girl, and so reserved in some ways; but now we are living so happily together we ought not .to have secrets; and I confess I have often suspected that it was some love affair made you leave Lady Templemore.”

Madeline felt suddenly pierced by this random shot, and the painful reluctance she felt to tell the simple-minded modest woman that she had been sought, not to be an honoured wife, but a toy too slight for any permanent tie, revealed to her the suffering she had escaped by her choice of life, and flashed out in an instantaneous blaze of light the full force of general opinion on this subject. “I did wisely—I did well; yet would to God I were with you, Ashurst!” was the inner utterance of her heart. But she said aloud—

“You are right, dear aunty; and as it was altogether a painful affair, let us speak of it no more. I am out of humour with love and lovers.”

“Dear, dear!” returned Miss Foster, with a wistful look, sorely disappointed not to be the recipient of a long sentimental confidence; but despite Madeline’s great tenderness and consideration, them was a certain power in her character and manner which Miss Foster always lovingly obeyed.

The subject, therefore, dropped, and the partners applied themselves to the examination of the week’s accounts, in order to insure their not overstepping the limits they had laid down for themselves. On this occasion they were highly satisfied, and found, after all payments made, a balance of four shillings out of the allotted sum.

“This is charming!” cried Madeline, “What do you want most, aunty, in the shape of toilette ?”

“Oh, nothing! I am rather well off, you know, and here I can wear an old drees such as I used to be obliged to give away.”

“Suppose, then,” said Madeline, with an air of the deepest reflection—“suppose we buy a new kettle, and then Emma can keep it tolerably clean, for I do not think she can ever make much of this one.”

“I think, dear,” suggested Miss. Foster, with much hesitation — “but remember, I only mention it!—we might buy a teapot instead. You know we may keep the kettle, but the teapot goes up and down; and the difficulty of getting that teapot in time to have your tea ready when you come in, words can’t tell! Indeed, if we could collect a tea-set of our own, it would make us most independent.”

“Well thought!” said Madeline, kissing her, “your forte is domestic management. I could never get on without you. We shall have a charming menage one of these days.”

“Then you agree with me? I should be sorry to dictate in any way; but I think a teapot—eh! Madeline?”

“A teapot, decidedly; and there are the four shillings; go and buy one to-morrow.” They were wonderfully happy, these two insignificant pawns on life’s chess-board, in their somewhat desolate freedom. If health was spared them they could get on—if not? —Well, it was no use to meet trouble halfway; they hoped all would go easily, and to them the future was far from gloomy.

“If I could get something to do,” said Miss Foster, “even plain work, or gimp trimming —or anything. It is terrible to live on you, dear.”

“But you do not; you are a woman of independent fortune, and you pay the rent! I tell you what I wish for—nay, I fear I must get ere long—a piano. I must practise. My living depends on my voice and skill. We will see! I hope it will be fine tomorrow, as I shall dress as well as possible, and after my music lessons must go on to Lady Rawson’s. So now to bed—to bed! aunty.”

Lady Rawson’s house was very new—in a new quarter—and decorated and furnished with the newest taste and appliances. She was writing letters in a small study, or book-room, opening off the first landing, when Madeline was ushered into her presence.

- “Punctuality itself!” said her ladyship, rising, and greeting her cordially; “and you look as fresh as a morning in May. (Madeline had walked quickly across the Park, for the day was dry and clear.) Now, take off your bonnet. Luncheon has just been announced, and you ought to be healthily hungry with that colour.”

So saying, Lady Rawson gathered her papers and writing materials together, with a sort of rough method, and drawing Madeline’s arm through hers, in a kindly patronising way, conducted her down-stairs, where, in a small dining-room at the back of the house, a tempting luncheon was laid out—a roast pheasant and sweetbreads, besides sundry small and delicate dishes of dessert. A stately man in black rendered solemn service, and Lady Rawson, performing dexterously and hospitably the task of carving, pressed Madeline to eat, and set her a good example.

“Barnard, put the Madeira on the table, and you may go.” The solemn man placed a decanter on her ladyship’s right, and departed.

“Now then, Miss Digby, take a glass of Madeira, it is very rare wine, which I do not offer to everyone, and tell me all about it.”

“About what?” said Madeline laughing, and accepting the Madeira.

“Oh, you know what I mean!—that captivating colonel. My dear! do you know I got quite a turn, as housemaids say, when I met you. I did not know what to think, or rather I had very little hope, for considering the conditions of the case I did not think there was a chance of your escape. Don’t colour up, and look like a small Nemesis. Young as you are, you have too much brains not to know I speak truth, and, moreover, I do not wish to hurt you. That Ashurst was a dangerous man—the worst sort of a deceiver, for he deceived himself! Come now, confess I was right, that he was desperately smitten, and ready to offer you everything, but — marriage!”

Madeline. shrank from this terrible baring to the light of all her agony and mortification, yet there was no unkindness in Lady Rawson’s tone, though a good deal of curiosity, and no more of coarseness than is inevitably imparted by the hardening effect of life in the so-called “ world.” So she nerved herself to reply. She knew that she must make a Mend of this hold, active woman, and she knew also that an exhibition of strength, rather than sentiment, would attach and interest her.

“You were a true prophet, or rather, your wide world-knowledge was unerring. It was as you suppose.”

“And how did it all end! For you were in love with him. I am certain you were. I don’t wonder at it. I think I should be in love with him myself, with all my knowledge, if he made love to me. How did you manage to refuse, eh?”

“I did not choose to be his mistress,” faltered Madeline, “though, Lady Rawson,” she exclaimed in a firm tone, her suppressed feelings blazing out, “I would rather have been his mistress than the wife of another! Oh! you who know life so well, who have seen and observed so much, tell me—have I acted wisely, or have I thrown away the substance for a shadow?”

Lady Rawson paused.

“You have done wisely,” she said at last; “though, I confess in turn, that life is such a muddle, and a few years of happiness such a rich possession, I almost hesitate to say so. I do not think Ashurst is a man to behave shabbily or basely to any woman, but he would have left you as certainly as he then adored you! When the old grandfather dies, and he dons the earl’s robes, they will suggest new duties and pleasures, legitimate heirs, and all that sort of thing, and the woman whose love and devotion to himself put her beyond the pale of legitimacy would be thrown aside inevitably. I do not see that she could expect anything else! Besides, though I am not strait-laced, but see things by the light of reality and! worldly wisdom, it is disgraceful for a woman to give herself to a man who cannot acknowledge her in the face of society, who openly avows by his conduct that she is only good enough for a temporary companion!”

“Thank you, Lady Rawson,” said Madeline, gazing dreamily out of “her large dark eyes at the word-picture conjured up by her companion. “You reassure me I have done wisely. To you I dare speak truth, and I must say that I very nearly consented to go with him abroad, and that I have frequently since regretted I did not. I have nothing of a martyr’s spirit, and it seems to me that if you can neither bestow nor obtain pleasure there is no use in existing, and my life has been so desolate, so denuded of ties and tenderness. I can imagine hearing trouble and grief for any one you loved, or who had a real claim upon you; but to go on day after day, enduring loneliness and misunderstand- ing, and mental imprisonment, and knowing of no life in the real meaning of the word, as I have done—I who can so deeply, so passionately enjoy—why should I not endeavour to escape from so wretched a lot? And what a contrast was presented to it! How I longed to fly with Colonel Ashurst far, far from everything connected with my old existence, and revel in sunshine and enjoyment, were it but for a season, let what would of chaos come after! Even now I am astonished at myself for resisting, and it was such a dim undefined instinct which held me back. You have put it into words, and I see I was right, quite right.” “You are certainly made of stronger stuff than ordinary women,” said Lady Rawson, with involuntary admiration, her pulses beating a little quicker at the enthusiasm of Madeline’s words, and the passionate music of her voice, “and I heartily congratulate you on your decision. You are not one of the washy kind of girls to go and break your heart for a man, so I trust there is a bright future, and a happy home in store for you; and now, tell me what you are doing?” Madeline therefore recalled herself from the glow of her confessions, and gave a sketch of her proceedings since leaving Lady Templemore’s, to the establishment of her present partnership with Miss Foster.

Lady Rawson laughed good-naturedly at the idea of their starting on so slender a capital, for with a few well-put queries she elicited the state of their finances. “Take care you do not find this poor old maid not only a heavy encumbrance, but a shocking bore; yet you want some sort of protection, you are so young and so pretty—no, not pretty—worse—attractive!”

“Do not speak so,” said Madeline, shrinking from this offensive description of her friend. “The word old maid does not express my dear Miss Foster. She is a helpless, deserted child, only without the attraction and charm of childhood. She has been and is a treasure to me. I could not resist the temptation to throw in my lot with hers, and take care of her.” As she spoke, the muscles of her mouth relaxed, her eyes became suffused, and a smile of unutterable tenderness and sweetness played round her lips.

“Good God!” exclaimed Lady Rawson, starting. “How like you look at this moment to your father!”

“My father!” cried Madeline, almost breathless with surprise. “Did you know him?”

“This has indeed been a morning of confessions,” said Lady Rawson, with a short laugh, while she knit her brows. “I have seen him; and there, ask me no more, and let us not talk of him again.”

“Certainly not, if you desire it; but, dear Lady Rawson, it would be such a pleasure to speak of him.”

“Well, not now—not now,” returned her ladyship, looking down gloomily, and pressing the points of a silver dessert fork into the cloth. “I will perhaps open the subject, but you must not.”

There was a few moments pause, Madeline discreetly keeping silence, then Lady Rawson looked up and said in her ordinary manner, “I’ll tell you what I shall do for you; the week after next I have a musical party on a small scale, and you shall come and sing with that poor little creature Fitzharris.”

“What! Mr. Fitzharris!” said Madeline. “I thought you were not friends.”

“Friends! indeed,” returned her ladyship, with supreme contempt. “He hates me; but do you think I would spoil my parties for want of him, or he make a gap in his clientèle to spite me—no, no! besides, I don’t dislike him, and he will show you off. If you could make a connection to go out and sing at evening parties, good houses you know, it would be an easier and pleasanter mode of providing for the firm ’ than teaching. You might find pupils too, through an introduction here.”

“How kind and good you are!” cried Madeline. “I should always be delighted to sing at your house; but I think I should prefer the teaching.”

“Nonsense! don’t be mawkish. Now, how are you off for dress? What do you propose to wear ?”

“A clear white muslin demi-toilette, with a Roman sash, and a smaller one in my hair. Would that do?”

“Yes, I daresay it would; but you must come here, and-”

“The carriage is at the door, my lady.”

“Now, then, Miss Digby, I will drive you home; but while I am putting on my bonnet, take this address-book and write yours, that I may send you a note, when I have fixed with little Fitz about practising.”

CHAPTER X.

This interview with Lady Rawson proved a great source of comfort to Madeline. It gave her courage and confidence. Moreover, it seemed to have placed Dudley Ashurst and his designs in their proper point of view before her. As she became more occupied (for additional pupils soon offered to fill up the days already partially engaged) the poignant, bitter, ever-present grief, began to fade, both from heart and face. After all, her acquaintance with Ashurst had been but slight, and her fancy for him had not had time to root itself very deeply. In this had probably been the secret of her safely. Habit and association—these are the plummets which carry the links of love so far down into the depths of human affection, that when they are tom up again they bring with them broken shells and lifeless floweTs, which till then beautified the hidden sanctums lurking under the waves of life. Besides this inevitable operation of natural causes, Madeline was very happy in the first approach to home she had ever experienced, and even happier still in the happiness she conferred, for Miss Foster, after they had been about a fortnight established together, seemed to have grown young again in appearance, and was considerably relieved from the terrible faintness and loss of breath which used to attack her after any more than ordinary exertion or excitement.

The delicious sense of freedom on first waking—the feeling that a .friend was to meet her at breakfast, to think and arrange for her during the day; and have the simple meal, the delightful tea, with some substantial addition ready for her return in the evening, made a sort of Paradise of the sordid lodging; and after came a few sociable hours, spent in needlework and conversation, or reading, and always free from the espionage, the remarks, or the interference of any one entitled to interfere.

The want of a piano was so serious a hindrance that, after taking solemn counsel with her partner, Madeline resolved to hire one.

The prices, even of those at second-hand, ascertained from advertisements in the Times (this perusal of which each morning was an indulgence Madeline insisted Miss Foster should enjoy) being far beyond her slender resources.

“I am going on an expedition this morning, dear aunty,” she said at breakfast one morning. “I shall go to Broadwood’s and pay the ' hire of a piano for two months in advance. I shall probably get a better one at the original establishment, and then at the end of two months we shall see if I can venture to buy one, or continue to hire it—at any rate it will be paid for, and no bill to anticipate.”

To which Miss Foster made her usual response—

I am sure you are quite right, Madeline.” It was a few days after her visit to Lady Rawson, and Madeline was especially anxious to acquit herself well at that lady’s intended party. Accordingly she put on her French shawl and neat little straw bonnet with white ribbons, and bright blue flowers lying on her golden hair under the brim, and placing her two precious sovereigns in her purse, sallied forth.

In Edgeware Road she stopped an omnibus going eastward. It was nearly full. An elaborately dressed gentleman, with ringletty hair, thick mustaches and hair, made room for her, with ostentatious politeness, beside him. Of course they were pressed into close contact, and Madeline thought him unnecessarily attentive in arranging the folds of her dress. A few minutes after the omnibus again stopped to take up another gentleman who hailed it from the pavement, and who, without hastening his pace, came across the street to it He was a spare, bony-looking man, above middle size, though not very tall, the breadth of his shoulders probably detracting from his height. His prevailing colour was a deep sun-burnt brown; his hair was nearly black, and his eyes, deep-set and very dark, had a sombre, almost sad, expression. He wore long full whiskers a shade or two lighter than his hair, and thick eye-brows, but no beard or moustaches concealed the large strong jaw and somewhat wide mouth, with lips which just escaped being unpleasantly thin. Hollow temples gave a rugged look to his brow, and increased the general sternness of his aspect. He wore no gloves, and the hand that lay on his knee was long, sinewy, and thin, much embrowned, yet not without a certain refinement of shape.

Madeline observed him closely; there was an air, a bearing, about him that spoke of a life different from, and far rougher, than that of towns—and perhaps more elevating. There was little of attractive softness in his countenance, yet he looked no common man.

He took his place opposite to Madeline, who appeared to have attracted his attention, for he gazed long and steadily at her out of the gloomy depths of his dark eyes. But it was not a stare to distress her; there was in it no presumption, scarce admiration, more an expression of calm contemplative curiosity. Madeline did not find it in the least embarrassing, but felt inwardly amused that the species of observation he excited in her should be apparently reciprocal. After a few minutes he removed his hat and passed his hand through the masses of his almost black straight hair, displaying a wide, though not high brow. Madeline amused herself as they went along forming theories respecting him. His social standing puzzled her. There was nothing of the conventional gentleman about him, but no one could fancy him low-born or an upstart. He more gave the impression of being the raw material of a gentleman.

As they neared the Circus, Madeline’s next neighbour called to the conductor to stop, and got out. A few minutes after' she felt in her pocket for her purse, intending to have her fare ready when it came to her turn to leave; and lo! it was nowhere to be found. She had certainly placed it in her pocket. Could it have dropped on the floor of the omnibus? For a moment she made an ineffectual search until she remembered that she had not had it in her hand since she entered the conveyance so she ceased, suddenly exclaiming, “It is gone!—it is quite gone!” the colour fading from her face as she spoke. It was such a disappointment, and looked like such decided ill luck.

“Dear, dear,” cried a fat, sympathetic female in a much be-feathered bonnet and a mountain of shawl over shoulders and bosom; “are you sure, ma’am, you had it in your pocket?”

“I am, indeed; yet how could I have lost it?”

“That man who sat beside you took it,” said Madeline’s opposite neighbour, speaking for the first time, though he had searched diligently among the straw for the missing purse. His voice was deep and strong, and had a metallic ring in it, yet it was not unpleasant; it was an honest-sounding voice. He spoke as if thoroughly convinced of the truth of what he asserted.

“Gracious goodness, sir!” exclaimed the fat woman, “did you know him?” While a bland old gentleman in green glasses began to tell of how his pocket was picked once, and a hatchet-faced cynic with a blue bag sneered out some observation about ladies being always the sufferers. Poor Madeline did not heed them. She could have wept over the misadventure, it seemed so cruel; and now a new difficulty arose in her mind, and again she uttered her thoughts aloud.

“But what shall I do to pay the conductor? I have nothing left.”

“I will pay for you,” said the brown man, shortly, adding with a grave smile, that nevertheless lent a wonderful charm to his sombre face, “it is no great obligation.”

“Yes, it is indeed,” returned Madeline earnestly, “but I accept it most gratefully.” “Pray tell me,” she continued blushing, and with a sort of graceful awkwardness, “if such an expression is permissible, where I may enclose you stamps V

The brown man shook his head. “You need not take the trouble. I hope you have not lost much ?” he said, with an air of kindly interest.

“Only two pounds,” replied Madeline with a sigh.

“Well, you are fortunate to have had so little about you,” said the cynic with the blue bag.

Madeline made no reply, but looked down with a quivering lip and a full heart. Little, indeed! when her all was so little of a bulwark against the future with its possible wolf at the door, and no stay beyond her own bright intellect and brave heart! On raising her eyes she found those of her new friend bent upon her with a little more of warmth in their calm curiosity, and then remembering that she was but lengthening her homeward walk by remaining in the omnibus, she requested the conductor, who was philosophising over the event upon the door step, to set her down, and repeating her acknowledgments to the stranger, descended from the vehicle.

“What grief poor Miss Foster will be in,” was her first thought as she gradually collected herself. “And now I have no chance of a piano. I must get a pitch-pipe, and practice without one.”

Still, it was a comfort to have poor Miss Foster to return to, though her moaning over the misfortune was, perhaps, a trifle aggravating. The fact of a gentleman—a total stranger—paying Madeline’s fare was,. however, a source of the deepest astonishment and interest to the excellent spinster.

“And what sort of a person was he, dear?” was her oft-repeated question. “Who could he have been? How very kind of him! He must have taken a great fancy to you! I wonder if he will try and find you out?”

“I do not fancy he would take much trouble on that score,” said Madeline, laugh-ing, “you know he refused to let me enclose him stamps, so I fancy he did not want to have anything more to say to me.”

“Well! for all that, I cannot believe you have seen the last of him. It was just like a meeting in a novel. He must he very handsome.”

“No, indeed, he was not. He was rather remarkable-looking, and very stem.”

“I know!” exclaimed Miss Foster, with enthusiasm, “one of those proud stand-off men, who only like one or two people in the world, and are terribly zealous and devoted.”

“Why aunty, what an imagination you have! I am afraid he is nothing more than a shrewd and somewhat hard man of business. He certainly seemed to compassionate my loss.”

“Well! we will see. It was a very curious coincidence,” a favourite phrase with Miss Foster, and applied rather indiscriminately.

The next morning found the partners resigned to the loss. To advertise would have been useless, for the purse had evidently been taken with malice prepense, so, as Madeline observed, it was foolish to make themselves miserable over what was irretrievable.

“I shall probably have a note from Lady Bawson to-day or to-morrow, appointing some morning to practise with Mr. Fitzharris, and I will consult him about the pitch-pipe; if I must get a piano, I must—cute que coute. I feel that so much depends upon my acquitting myself well at Lady Bawson’s, that I am a little nervous, and very anxious about it.”

To which Miss Foster replied—“I am sure I do not wonder at it, dear. But you will he sure to do well,” she added, warmly, for her confidence in Madeline’s powers and success was unbounded, so unbounded as to offer no maimer of support to her friend’s courage, for Madeline plainly saw it was a matter of faith, not reason, “besides, you know, we have plenty to go on with.”

“Yes, for a few months,” returned the superior partner, “but remember, after the season comes the out of season time, against which we must store all we can; and clothes and things wear out. There! my own dear aunty, do not look so cast down, we shall do well if we constantly remember there is but a plank between us and starvation.”

“What a wonderful girl you are, Madeline! I am sure it seems but yesterday I met you at that terrible noisy station, and you seemed such a mere child, a plain little thing, with your eyes all swollen with crying, and look at you now!”

“Yes! when .yours was the only voice that brought me any comfort; you the only creature that seemed to think I had a want beyond bare food and shelter; the only one who showed me sympathy in my bitter desolation! Ah, aunty! when I forget what I owe you, may I myself be forgotten and deserted. Courage, then! I will take care of you, and stand by you; we will weather all sorts of storms, if they come.” And Madeline stamped her little foot defiantly, and her large dark eyes fit up with the fire of the brave spirit within, even while she smiled, half mockingly, at her own enthusiasm, then giving Miss Foster a hearty kiss, she departed on her morning’s work.

Miss Foster also went out, after her small household arrangements were made, but her errand was a mystery, for she said nothing of it to Madeline, who did not return till near tea-time, having walked over to see Mrs. John Redman, after her music lessons were over. She found that important personage in brilliant spirits, and her usual high condition of self-satisfaction. She was very glad to see Madeline, and hear all the news she could extract.

“There is no finding out anything from that poor creature, Miss Foster,” she said, “and I do want to know if it is true that Mrs. Redman never paid her anything?”

“Quite true,” said Madeline.

“There now! I was quite sure of it, though John never would allow he knew anything. Men are such fools about their families, my dear! But law!' what a goose she was to stay with the old lady for nothing. It is quite a nice arrangement for you, I suppose you club together?

“Just so,” returned Madeline.

“I must send for little Tommy. He is growing such a bright little fellow. He absolutely shows a preference for me in my blue moire! think of that! Your grandma’ called here the day before yesterday, she was shocking cross. Mrs. Comerford was with her; they had a brougham, and had been looking up the character of a companion, and it wouldn’t suit at all. The life she leads your aunt, now she has no one to go on at at home, is frightful. She wasn’t very civil to me. You know she is ready to die of curiosity, because I never will tell her how my money is placed, and is always thinking her son might have done better. Law, my dear! if it was only the society I have introduced him to, I am a treasure. What do you think of his being appointed director to one of the grandest companies that has ever appeared? All got up by my friends! General officers, and Royal Navy captains, and engineers, and that sort of thing!”

“Indeed!” said Madeline, with proper surprise.

“Yes, and he will make a fortune by it into the bargain. Do you ever see the Times? Just look at the advertisements, and you will see the—I can’t exactly remember the name, the International something or other—about ships. It’s quite a European concern, Mr. Blyth says. Mr. Blyth is my solicitor, and solicitor to the company; and there are Frenchmen and people in it, men in the Legion of Honour, something like our Knights of the Bath, you know. Well, if you look, you will see Mr. Bedman’s name between General Shuttlecock’s and the Hon. Captain Featherwig, B.N.”

And Mrs. John paused for breath after this rapidly-uttered harangue, and then Master Tommy was introduced, and duly admired; after which Madeline took her leave, Mrs. John promising that Mr. Bedman should go and see her some Sunday.

All this was most interesting intelligence to Miss Foster, who, in truth, was always hungering, in a very undignified manner, for tidings of her former gaol and gaoler. In the depths of her simple heart she longed for a reconciliation with her old tyrant, partly, it must be confessed, that she might boast her present glorious condition of freedom and happiness under Madeline’s maternal rule.

The two friends had but .half finished their five o’clock tea when a sharp tap was heard at the door, and, on permission being given,

Lady Rawson entered, magnificent in a rich violet brocade, with a complete cloak of costly sable, and a muff to match, the toilet crowned by a black velvet bonnet, with gold-tinted curled ostrich feather tips inside. Her eyes and colour alone seemed to flash light upon the tea-table, dimly lighted by two “composites,” and a small though bright clean fire.

Miss Foster was positively awed by such a brilliant apparition.

“How snug you look,” cried Lady Rawson, gaily; “I suppose you thought I had forgotten you, Miss Digby. I was hunting up that little wretch Fitz—Miss Foster, I presume? I know you quite well by report.”

“There is very little to know about me! Will your ladyship take a cup of tea?”

“With pleasure. This is just the hour to enjoy a cup, though I see you make a serious meal of it j” for there was a dish containing slices of cold beef, neatly garnished with sprigs of parsley, on the table, and a white cloth laid.

So Lady Rawson slipped off her cloak and enjoyed her cup of tea, her eye dwelling with much kindliness from time to time on Madeline, whose real delight at being able to show her any attention was evident, while Miss Foster inwardly triumphed in the consciousness that the new teapot graced the tray.

“Well, I have caught little Fitz at last, and he will meet you at my house to-morrow at one o’clock, if you can come.”

“I shall be with you; and what are we to sing?”

“That is to be decided to-morrow. Meantime you must practice well at home. I want you to make a sensation. Where is your piano?”

“I am sorry to say I have not one. I intended to hire one, but going yesterday to select it, my pocket was picked, so I must try and practise with a pitch-pipe. I suppose that will do?”

“No, it will not,” said Lady Rawson, bluntly; “besides, your hand will get out. I tell you what, Miss Digby, I will give you a piano.”

“My dear Lady Rawson! pray remember that I am a stranger, without the slightest claim upon you, and really you ought not to hurry into an act of such unusual generosity without due reflection.”

“Which means that you think me an impulsive goose—‘ a fool and his money soon parted’—eh! mademoiselle?” said Lady Rawson, laughing good-humouredly.

“No, no! no, indeed! simply that you are too good,” returned Madeline, colouring.

“And you too proud to accept obligation from a well-wisher. My dear girl! I am not going to give you a two hundred guinea Erard, so let me have my own way. I wanted to help you, so submit.”

“If you are so determined, let me at least assure you that I am conscious of the very great benefit you will bestow. I was, in truth, at my wit’s end with disappointment. How delightful to have a piano. And all my own! Will it not be delightful, aunty?”

“I am sure I never heard of anything like it!” exclaimed Miss Foster, in a confusion of pleasure and gratitude, and pride in Madeline’s power to attract friends. “But Madeline is a most fortunate girl! See how that gentleman paid your omnibus fare yesterday.”

“What gentleman?” asked Lady Rawson. Whereupon Miss Forster related the circumstances attending Madeline’s loss.

“A preux chevalier” said her ladyship, rising; “after all, though, it did not require a vast amount of chivalry to pay fourpence or sixpence for a pretty girl in distress! Goodbye, my dear Miss Digby, I shall not forget the piano. Good evening, Miss Foster, I am glad to make your acquaintance—at one then to-morrow.”

And Lady Rawson plunged rapidly downstairs, followed by Madeline, who saw her safe into her carriage. As she returned she encountered the landlady, who was waiting to speak to her at the foot of the stairs, in a condition of the utmost blandness.

“I’m sure,, mum, I am truly sorry as that unmannerly girl Hemma let the lady walk up to your room without hever shewing her the way, and she that dirty! in spite of all I say, and the help she gets—is aggravating! and I hope you will look over it.”

“Oh! certainly, Mrs. Rumble. I do not suppose Lady Rawson minded, and Emma is a good obliging girl.”

“Lady who, did you say, mum?” asked Mrs. Rumble, with a slight tinge of awe in her tone.

“Lady Rawson,” repeated Madeline, smiling at the change wrought in the landlady by the splendid apparition of a “ladyship ” in a carriage, and attended by a footman.

“Well, Madeline,” said Miss Foster, decidedly, when she re-entered the sitting-room, “you may say what you like, but I am quite sure you will marry, or make your fortune, or do something quite wonderful among these fine people. Why I never knew such a woman as this Lady Rawson! She must be as rich as a Jew. And no relation! It’s just what your grandmamma ought to have done, to give you a piano. But dear, dear! though it’s far from right to judge, she is over fond of money! But I am certain that silk her ladyship had on cost twelve shillings a yard if it cost a penny, and such a sable cloak! and what a nice affable, agreeable person,” added Miss Foster, who, like most of her class, possessed a mild amount of flunkeyism, though of a simple honest kind. “But don’t you think,” she continued, with some hesitation, “that she has a sort of a likeness to Mrs. John?”

“Mrs. John Redman? Oh no! yet after all there is a look—they have a sort of physical resemblance, only Lady Rawson is furnished with one or two items omitted in Mrs. John—brains and a heart, for instance.”

CHAPTER XI.

Little Fitz was really glad to see Madeline, and heartily desirous to serve her; she proved too a welcome antidote to the disturbing influence of Lady Rawson, so the practising progressed very favourably, and the amiable hostess was no mean judge of the “concord of sweet sounds.”

“I think you will both do me infinite credit on Tuesday,” she said, as they sat down to one of the exquisite luncheons for which her ladyship was famous. “I fancy I shall have more people than I expected. I meet fresh ones every day, and ask them without written invitations. In short society is a pleasant republican affair before Easter. We are all, morally speaking, in our robes de chambre, and don’t put on the grande tenue till the drawing-rooms begin; then there is so little going on, everyone is disengaged, and obliged to you for asking them; your friends the Templemores are coming, Miss Digby.”

“Indeed,” returned Madeline, her heart beating a little faster with the memories this name called up.

“And I met another of the Grange set yesterday,” said Mr. Fitzharris, “Lord Hex-haln.”

“Oh! indeed,” cried Lady Rawson, “have you heard about the will? How has the old lord left him?

“I believe sole heir to everything, except a few trifling legacies. He must be very wealthy, one of the best catches in London this season, and really a fine-looking fellow, a perfect gentleman. He was asking for you, Lady Rawson, and I assure you made honourable mention of Miss Digby’s singing with me, and remembered how well our voices suited,” added little Fitz, evidently thinking it was his performance that stamped Miss Digby on Lord Hexham’s mind.

Madeline by this time knew that Dudley Ashurst was the subject of conversation, and with some difficulty kept her face from speaking the emotion she felt. Had he then carelessly and incidentally named her to a casual acquaintance, while she could not without the strongest effort mention him even to a friend so kind and judicious as Lady Rawson—surely theirs were different stakes in the game of life. And now that the only obstacle (according to his own showing) to their marriage was removed by the death of his grandfather, would he seek her out and prove the truth of the affection he had so passionately professed. “Ah no! the real obstacle, the difference of station, of social value, remains the same,” she thought, and a smile of bitter scorn of herself—of him—of the laws which govern civilised life—wreathed her lips. Lady Raw-son glanced at her, and quickly changed the subject. “I wish you two could practice a little more together before Tuesday, and I am so engaged I really cannot play propriety for you again. Why shouldn’t Mr. Fitzharris go to your lodgings, Madeline? Miss Foster is an excellent chaperone, and you would work better, I daresay, than here.”

“I should be delighted to see Mr. Fitzharris,” said Madeline.

“And I to be at your service,” returned the little man, gallantly. “When may I call?” Madeline gave him her address and settled for the next morning but one. Then Lady Rawson discussed a few more details as to the music to be performed at ber bouse, and finally dismissed Mr. Fitzharris, and took Madeline home in tbe carriage.

She found Miss Foster in a state of radiant delight. During her absence the piano had arrived; it was a cottage piano, in a very plain case of polished mahogany, but of an excellent tone, and with all the modern improvements.

Madeline was pleased, yet not so joyously excited as she would have been had not the conversation at luncheon brought back to her something of that gnawing, aching, hunger of the heart, which of late the new interest of her life had relieved.

She slowly removed her bonnet and shawl, scarce hearing the very particular description given by Miss Foster of the difficulties attending the removal of the “instrument ” from the van to the second floor; the agonies of Mrs. Rumble respecting her banisters, and her wonderful civility through it all. To Miss Foster the “good time so long in coming,” had evidently dawned at last, and to her satisfied heart promised an eternal millennium.

Madeline, after folding and putting away her things with mechanical neatness, sat down, with her hands pressed to her brow, to think and to do battle with herself.

First to crush out the shadowy hope that Ashurst would find her and ask her to be his wife; this, while common sense showed its absurdity, shook her strength, and disturbed the conviction of his worldliness, which was her best armour.

“Madeline dear! have you a headache?”

“No aunty, just let me alone for a minute or two like a dear, I am making a calculation.”

Whereupon Miss Foster was silent, and crept noiselessly about the room as if Madeline’s life depended on her being still. In a few moments Madeline dropped her hands, determined that instant action was the best means of regaining self-control, and calling to her companion to come and help her, proceeded to unpack and arrange her music, and then practised till tea-time.

“I am sure it is quite cheerful to hear you, and will you not sing a little dear, I am not sure that I ever heard you sing.”

“To-morrow, aunty dear; and now give me a nice hot cup of tea, for my head does ache a little.”

When the culprit Emma came to remove the tray, she brought with her the Times.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you,” said Miss Foster in reply to an inquiring look from Madeline, “I told the boy to bring it in the evening, I have not time to read it in the morning, and now you can see it too; besides— it is still more unlike Abingdon Villas to have it in the evening, very foolish of me I dare say.”

“But perfectly natural,” said Madeline.

“And only half price at this hour,” added Miss Foster; “now I must look for that company with Mr. John’s name in it, you were telling me of. I did look yesterday but could not find it, to be sure I was rather hurried.”

Madeline went to fetch some necessary needlework, for she was her own milliner and dressmaker, and on returning was greeted triumphantly.

“Here it is, the very thing, and his name in full! There is a great deal about it, they are going to supply the whole of Europe with ships. It is too long to read, but here is the list of directors. ‘ Mr. Neilson, of Stapleford and Broad Street, City; Mr. Jobling (Jobling, Scratchet & Co.), Crabtree Court, City; General Shuttlecock; Mr. John Redman, Size Lane and Warwick Gardens; The Hon. Captain Featherwig, R.N. (Director of the South Australian Grand Trunk Line Railway Company); Mons. Maisonneuf, Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, G.C.S.G., F.R.G.S., &d.’ Tha t must be a remarkable man,” observed Miss Foster in parenthesis, “I wonder what all these letters mean?

‘‘Heaven knows!” said Madeline, laughing, “let me see—‘ G.C.S.G.,’ Grande Croix de la Society Galerienne, perhaps.”

“Perhaps so,” returned Miss Foster gravely. “Then comes Kinshella O’Keefe, Esq., Consul for the States of Fireandtow, South America, President of the Entomological Society of Buenos Ayres, and Director of the Cordilleras Railway.’ I must say it appears a very distinguished company altogether. And here is another acquaintance of yours I think,— Principal Engineer, Mr. Arthur Downing.— Solicitors, Messrs. Harridge and Blyth, Chancery Lane.’”

“Arthur Downing! I suppose it must be a very good appointment for him; well, I trust it may increase dear Jessie’s happiness. I must write and ask her all about it. And ‘ Blyth!’ I seem to remember that name. Mrs. John mentioned it, but besides that I think I know it; yes, that was the name of the man Mrs. Redman sent down to Gravesend to inquire about me, who spoke so rudely to Kit, and treated us all with such contempt! Ah! dear aunty, how I should like to see Kit again! Were I to meet him you would not mind having him to tea; would you, dear? He was so good to me!”

“Certainly not, any one who had been good to you would be welcome to me,” returned Miss Foster turning over the paper as she spoke, “though an actor, you know, Madeline.” Here something caught her eye, and she exclaimed, “Goodness gracious! listen to this, Madeline!”

“‘ If the lady, who lost her purse in a Paddington omnibus, on Wednesday last, between the Marble Arch and the Circus, will call on Mr. H. E., No. 5, Friar’s Lane, Second Floor, King William Street, she may hear of something to her advantage.’ ”

“Show it to me,” exclaimed Madeline, sharing, though in a less degree, her friend’s excitement.

“I told you,” said Miss Foster triumphantly, “you had not seen the last of him.”

“Who?”

“Why, the gentleman who paid your fare in the omnibus.”

“It might be one of the other gentlemen, aunty! But oh dear me! I do hope he has some tidings of my purse—suppose I found it,

VOL. II. R and had my piano besides! However, I think he would have put something about it, if he had any trace of the purse. Something to my advantage!’ what can that be?”

“Well, you must go to-morrow at all events.”

“Not to-morrow, you know that is my busy day, and I do not think it would do to call. Had I not better write? If it is a hoax it would be less mortifying to unveil it by letter.” “A hoax, indeed!” repeated Miss Foster, rather indignantly, “I declare Madeline, sometimes you are too suspicious! Depend upon it, it is a determined attempt of the Brown Man (as you call him) to find you out and propose for you.”

“My dear aunty, how you romance! My poor Brown Man looked perfectly sane! But I will write to him, certainly. There may be a chance of recovering my purse under the odd wording of that advertisement. But how shall I write—present my compliments, I suppose? I will do it at once.”

Laying aside her work, Madeline took out her writing materials, and in a few minutes read aloud the following to her friend :—

“Miss Digby presents her compliments to Mr. H. E. She has seen his advertisement in this day’s Times, and presumes she is the lady in question. She would be very grateful for any tidings that might lead to the recovery of her purse, as it has been a sad loss. Miss Digby regrets that her engagements will prevent her going to the City for a length of time, she will therefore he much obliged by a written communication on the subject.

“No. I4, Kent Terrace, New Road.”

“There, aunty! will that do? you see I have put the full address, and let him see what a loss the purse is; better he should think us utterly poor than not exert himself about it.”

“Certainly, Madeline, hut it might have been a large sum.”

“Oh no! he knows it was only two sovereigns.”

“Well, I am sure it is a very nice note, Madeline, but I wonder how he will get it with only his initials, the City offices are such crowded places.”

“That is his affair,” said Madeline, closing her note; “we can only act to the best of our judgment and wait the result.”

“Well, I am sure it is all most extraordinary,” concluded Miss Foster.

Mr. Fitzharris was very punctual to his appointment with Madeline, and produced a most favourable impression upon Miss Foster. He was (when in good humour) a polite, suave little man, and so accustomed to assert himself in the presence of those greatly above him in importance, that he felt quite a glow of benevolence in the society of those who weighed still lighter in the social scale than himself.

Miss Foster had arrayed herself in her second best dress, best apron and cap, and wore as spotless cuffs and collar as in the old days of martyrdom at Abingdon Villas; she looked a thoroughly lady-like, respectable old maid, the ideal chaperon for such a girl as Madeline. She had also furnished herself with a piece of most genteelly useless knitting, stockings, under-garments, and half-turned skirts being put out of sight. And Mrs. Rumble, in compliment to the unusual visits of a ladyship, and perhaps the brighter sun of advancing spring, had bestowed clean, though somewhat skimped, white muslin curtains, so that with the piano, and a few books, the second floor front did not look so bad.

Mr. Fitzharris brought a nosegay with him, violets and crocusses, much to the delight of the partners, so the practising went on most successfully, and Miss Foster listened enraptured.

Yet Madeline was fighting a battle with herself. She longed to start little Fitz on the topic of Dudley Ashurst, as she knew she could by a word. Yes, she pined to hear of him, though his name sent a thrill of pain through her heart, but she resisted bravely.

She looked round her little territory, she thought of the kind friends that had risen for her, and she lifted her heart in gratitude to the Giver of all good, resolved to look forward hopefully, nor let herself sink into that desponding disregard of the future which had for a while weighed her down.

Lady Rawson’s musical party was fixed for the following Tuesday, so Madeline and little Fitz could hut practice once more previous to it, hut now she had seen and talked with him, and heard his friendly praise, she felt more equal to the ordeal which was before her.

The City was “all alive ” with the foil tide of the mid-day throng, yet the nooks and corners where strong eddies of business whirl the straws of commerce round so often and so fast that they turn into gold at last, were quiet enough. In one of these bye-places, up two or three flights of dingy stairs, with a pathway of lead up the middle of them, were a couple of dingy rooms; one, a many-angled slice from the inner chamber, wherein was an iron safe, a large desk, and a small clerk, a dried-up, keen-eyed, elderly man. Within, a partially glazed door led into a larger and more lightsome apartment, better, though still poorly famished, with cocoa-nut matting, two or three chairs, and a desk, very substantial but very ancient. At the desk sat a brownlooking man, about thirty-five or forty years of age, with a rugged brow and deep-eet sombre eyes—Madeline’s deliverer from her difficulties in the omnibus, in short. His head was resting on his left hand, and the right held his pen suspended over a sheet half covered with even lines, written in a firm massive hand. He sat in deep thought, pondering some question, big with results of £ 8. d. It was a strong face, somewhat hard perhaps, yet not without a certain pathos in its expression, a look as if, after much toil and warfare, he wanted rest. But this was only when quite alone. When the clerk entered and laid two cards before him, jerking out the words, “Want to see you,” the countenance was suddenly locked up, as it were, into its ordinary business-like severity.

“Who is it?” he said, mechanically laying down his pen.

“Can’t say—strangers,” returned the laconic clerk.

His employer took up the cards and read: “‘ Mr. H. C. Blyth.’ Don’t know him. ‘ Mr. Arthur Downing, Engineer, International and Colonial Iron Shipbuilding Company.’ Oh! send them in.”

Enter accordingly our acquaintance Mr. Downing, as neat and wide-awake as ever, followed by a tall, well-dressed, almost rakish-looking man, with a large seal ring on his little finger and la close-reefed umbrella in an oilskin cover.

“Well, Mr. Elliott, it is a long time since we met; you scarcely remember Downing at Liverpool ? Osborne Iron Works, Birkenhead?”

“Oh!” returned Mr. Elliott, deliberately, “I do remember you, Mr. Downing. Glad to see you again,” and they shook hands.

“I have Called on you,” resumed Mr. Downing, “to renew the acquaintance, and introduce Mr. Blyth, who wishes to know you.”

The gentlemen bowed, and the two visitors sat down facing Mr. Elliot, who was intrenched in an arm-chair behind his knee-hole desk.

“Well, I have called,” began Mr. Blyth, jauntily, “to speak to you on a little matter that is worth your attention. You have probably seen our prospectus?”

“I have seen a good many,” returned Elliott, drily. “Which is yours?”

“There is our title,” said Mr. Blyth, pointing to Mr. Downing’s card, “and I have the honour to be solicitor to the company. Our object is to supply a crying want, necessitated by the enormous demands of the carrying trade, by supplying iron cargo vessels at prices hitherto unattainable. For this purpose,” continued the accomplished solicitor, somewhat oratorically, as if he was addressing a general meeting, “it is our intention to purchase, at a cheap rate, iron mines hitherto neglected or but partially worked on the Continent and in the Colonies, and by employing native labour under English direction (a complimentary wave of the hand towards Mr. Downing) accomplish our ends at half the usual cost.”

“Hum;” ejaculated Mr. Elliott.

“We have already arranged on the most advantageous terms for the purchase of the mines of—of—I can’t remember these names.” Drawing forth a large packet of papers, and selecting one, he rapidly skimmed it. “Hum! Ten per cent.—permission of the Emperor. Oh, ah! here it is. The mines of ‘Loup Garrou,’ near the village of ‘Croque Mittaine, on the coast of Brittany.’ They have already, with very insufficient machinery, proved most productive, and, properly worked, will yield enormous profits.”

“I understand,” said Mr. Elliott.

“We have already,” resumed the orator, “secured an admirable board—just look over the names (handing him a prospectus); but there is room for one more, and as you are well known in connection with our Australian colonies, and it is our intention to de-velope the mineral resources of that country, we should be glad of your co-operation and assistance.”

“Much obliged,” returned Mr. Elliott, looking down on the paper, and noting the names of the directors. “Neilson,” he continued, with an inquiring look at Downing, “he was junior with Jones Robinson at the Osborne works?”

“The same. He has now the great iron factories at Stapleford. I have been with him for a year and a half before I got this appointment. First-rate fellow; name a guarantee for any concern,” concluded Mr. Downing, with off-hand assurance.

“John Redman,” said Mr. Elliott, continuing his examination, unmoved by this eulogy. “He is a respectable, substantial man. Shuttlecock, I know that name,” with a sort of grim smile to Mr. Blyth—“one of your stock generals, in a good many companies, eh, sir?” Mr. Blyth laughed knowingly.

“Useful, Mr. Elliott, useful. Generals give an air of respectability—shareholders like generals and honourables.”

“Captain Featherwig, Director of the South Australian Grand Trunk Railway Company; never heard of a railway in South Australia before.”

“Works not completed,” threw in Mr. Blyth; “but that is no affair of ours.”

“These iron mines in Brittany—how do you know they are productive?”

“Oh, we have a French inspector—a remarkably intelligent fellow—who has given us a splendid report of them. He is in London just now. You could see him at any time. In short, it is a bond fide affair, nearly all the capital paid up. You see as you are already, I understand, possessed of some property in Australia, and we propose to work mines there, it would probably be more in your way than many others, to become a director—of course the qualification might be arranged. Some names are of sufficient value to the shareholders to render a slight deviation from formalities not only allowable, but advisable; besides, my friend Downing informs me your knowledge and experience in shipping is great, and might be turned to excellent account, both for yourself and us, to say nothing of the possibility of an iron mine turning up on your own land.”

“T no longer hold land in the colony,” said Elliott; “and though I am much obliged to you for your liberal (this word slightly accented) offers, I must decline. I by no means share the present rage for companies, though I admit the principle is a good one, so you must recruit elsewhere.”

Here the laconic clerk looked in—“Beg pardon, sir—this for you?

“Yes,” said Elliott, glancing at a small un-business-like note presented to him. He took it and laid it beside him on the desk. “Your company may turn out very successful—I have no doubt it will in some ways; but I have quite enough to do to mind my own business.”

“As you will then,” said Mr. Blyth, rising and putting up his papers, still with the same jaunty air; “but you will repent your decision, Mr. Elliott. Downing, I must leave you here. I have to go to Somerset House as quick as I can. Good morning, Mr. Elliott.”

“Good morning,” returned that gentleman, escorting him politely to the outer door.

“Well, Elliott,” said Mr. Downing, whom he found standing with his back to the fire, “you have got on first-rate since we met.”

“I do not complain,” returned Elliott; coldly, as if reluctant to encourage the familiarity of his former acquaintance.

“It was some time,” resumed Mr. Downing, “before I knew that the Australian Elliott I heard them talking of was yourself. Why, let me see, you were just going out as chief officer of the Queen of the South twelve years ago, when I last saw you, and I was then quite a youngster.”

“Just so,” said Elliott “I made the return voyage, and then left the sea; and you, Mr. Downing, what have you been doing? ” He spoke with a frigid politeness, well calculated to repress the audacious familiarity of the other.

“Oh, I have not been doing badly, though I have been guilty of one piece of folly, for I married about a year ago, and I have a small responsibility in the shape of a boy some three weeks old; but I think this appointment will be the making of me. I say, Mr. Elliott, I wish you would join us. It is a first-rate concern.”

“Don’t like it. It may be all right; but there’s a shaky look about it.”

“You’ll see we shall all make fortunes.”

“I hope so; meantime I shall be glad to see you whenever you look in; but at present—” a glance at the letters lying on his desk filled up the blank.

“Oh, I’m off! Time’s money, I know. I will look in again and see if you won’t think better of our company.”

So Mr. Downing departed. Then Elliott took up the little note. It bore a delicate blue seal, and was directed in a small but firm hand, every letter perfectly formed. It had a faint perfume, something like the scent of hyacinths on the air. Elliott examined the seal and the direction with a pleasant smile, as though laughing at himself, and then carefully and deliberately opened and read it. He thought a moment, and then returning Madeline’s note (of course it was Madeline’s note) to its envelope, he placed it in his pocket, took his other letters, locked up his face, and once more threw himself heart and soul into his business, working away with fixed attention and clear concentrated purpose, till his two tired clerks (his was a modest establishment) shut up, took his last directions, and left him in the half light fighting with the tail end of an unfinished calculation. An hour later, and he sat at dinner in his very comfortable lodgings in the Bayswater suburb. Elliott was a lover of realities. He did not care for finery, but he liked essentials; and the respectable female who “had seen better days,” and from whom he had rented the upper part of a tolerably large house, cooked and managed for him with anxious care, scarce warranted by the moderate remuneration punctually paid, for her accommodation and outlay.

A neat servant waited obsequiously—there was a latent power about this hard silent man that made women serve him well, and even influenced while it repressed his fellow men. Then, to be sure, he had the reputation of success—of possessing that contradictory combination of caution and boldness, so rare in men of business. So Mr. Elliott ate his dinner in silence, save when he sternly ordered away a cruet-stand not polished to a proper pitch of brilliancy; and then he lay back in one chair, and put his feet upon another, and having filled a glass with soft, silky, ruby port of great value, he took out Madeline’s little note and re-perused it.

“X suppose she is right not to come herself; yet if she was in great distress I think she would,” he thought. “It is curious how the look of sorrow in those large dark eyes haunts me. It is a weakness, probably! Still if I can help her I will. Poor little thing! It must be hard work for women to get on alone. There must be many who have no. fathers, or brothers, or husbands, to help them. I am glad Mary married. What should I have done with her? Woman are such odd, fanciful concerns!—especially proper sort of women. I don’t think that girl is a humbug! But if she is I shall find out by going to see her.”

So musing, he drew out and lighted a large and fragrant cigar, then he replaced Madeline’s little note in his pocket, and reached down a tough book on political economy, in which he became absorbed.

Hugh Elliott came of a good Border family. His father, a clergyman of no common ability, educated him carefully till he was between twelve and thirteen, Snd then died, leaving him and his sister Mary friendless and penniless. Hugh, naturally bold, and accustomed to the hardy sports and exercises of a remote sea-side district, turned to the sea, and started on his own account in the not very distinguished berth of “boy” on board a merchant ship, whence, by steadiness and conduct, backed by an unusually good education, he soon worked himself clear of the tar bucket. His sister, through the kindly exertions of a substantial farmer, was admitted into a provincial school, and from it married the clerk of some neighbouring coal mines.

Life had been one battle with Elliott, and for the last two or three years the tide against which he had swum so long and so bravely, turned in his favour, and the small savings of former days had doubled and trebled. He was an ambitious man—ambitious after the deliberate and intense fashion of his granite nature. To have a first-rate reputation among men of his own class, to found a great house of business, perhaps to represent the little sea-port from whence he once< started as a sailor boy: these were his day dreams.

His had been a solitary existence, and its effect was to harden a nature strong indeed, but by no means originally denuded of sympathy or tenderness. Of female influence he had known nothing. He had not much fancied the specimens of the fair sex with which his roving life had brought him in contact. In short, though somewhat unpolished, under Hugh Elliott’s rough exterior lurked the indigenous delicacy of a gentleman, and, though a trifle selfish from loneliness and dormant feeling, there was no material in his composition capable of being worked down into coarseness. Fire, it is true, might be struck from the flint of his nature—but it would be a clear burning, bright flame.

He liked money. In his experience it had shown itself the world’s master. All things that he had ever known had recognised its power, and yet it had brought him little pleasure. But did he want pleasure? - Could he understand enjoyment? He thought not. But the great Creator who gave us the rocks, and the flowers that grow thereon, the rugged iron, and the beauteous gem, He knows that each soul needs full development, the flower and the gem, the rock and the iron, or the whole being is incomplete.

Miss Foster and Madeline were in their sitting-room £he next evening; Madeline had been practising, and was now striking long dreamy arpeggio chords, while Miss Foster was busily occupied setting forth the tea-tray. The bouquet presented by Mr. Fitzharris was prettily set out in a basket on the table, and a certain tone of feminine nicety pervaded the humble sitting-room. A knock, followed by the entrance of “Hemma,” attracted Miss Foster’s attention. The “slavey ” held a card, a fold of her apron being dexterously introduced between her fingers and the snowy pasteboard.

“Dear me! I suppose this is the gentleman himself come to call,” said Miss Foster, presenting the card to her partner.

It bore the name of “Mr. Hugh Elliott.” “No doubt,” returned Madeline. “How good of him,” and her cheek flushed with pleased gratitude. “Show him up, Emma.”

“He is just outside, miss,” and Hugh Elliott entered, or rather paused upon the threshold, for a few paces in front of the door stood Madeline, the exquisitely graceful outline of her little figure, in its close-fitting black silk dress, and her wavy golden hair, through which a violet ribbon was carelessly passed, tying back its rich abundance, thrown into strong relief by the vivid sunset light streaming through the window behind her.

It was one of those accidental pictures that stamp themselves indelibly on the memory. In all the changes of after years that first impression never left Hugh Elliott’s imagination —where Madeline was for ever associated with a blaze of sunset glory, just touched by the tender streak of harmonious violet' peeping through the meshes of her hair.

“And you have come yourself to find me,” she exclaimed, holding out her little hand with the innocent frankness natural to her. “How kind of you! Miss Foster, this is the gentleman who rescued me from my predicament when I lost my purse.”

Miss Foster, looking a very type of lady-like primness, smiled most benignly.

Elliott felt a little bewildered. The situation was a new one to him. He took the hand held out to him, vaguely seeing how ' small, and white, and round it was, contrasted with his, so brown, and long, and bony. Then he bowed to Miss Foster, and she asked him to sit down, which he did, whereupon a rather awkward pause ensued.

Elliott glanced round the room. It was rather shabby when more closely looked at, yet there were no symptoms of poverty, and he hesitated to declare his errand, the ostensible reason (in which he himself firmly and honestly believed) which brought him to Kent Terrace. However, he thought that he would just state the truth. To his rectangular nature the fine feelings and morbid niceties that resent a suspicion of poverty, or the intention to do a real service, if not clothed “in purple and fine linen,” were simply incomprehensible; and intrenching himself in his honesty of purpose, he grew more at ease.

“I scarcely dare to hope you have any tidings of my purse,” began Madeline, after waiting for him to take the initiative in vain, while Miss Foster, without any question, poured him out a cup of tea, and Madeline offered him some toast.

“I have not,” returned Elliott, unflinchingly. “Indeed, where it only contained sovereigns, coin, there is little or no chance of finding it.”

“Ah!” said Madeline, her face changing visibly, whereupon Elliott took up the thread of the argument, his dark face colouring slightly.

“I fear it was a serious loss, a great inconvenience; I saw it by your face that day; and thinking over the matter,” he continued, his hesitation vanishing before his sincere intention to do well and kindly, “I was very sorry I did not speak to you at the time, and as I always try to repair a mistake as soon as possible, when I make one, I put that advertisement in the Times”

“I am sure it was very thoughtful,” said Miss Foster, seeing Madeline, who guessed what was coming, pause; “but how-”

“Just hear me,” interrupted Elliott, “my idea was to ask if I could in any way assist you, if the loss caused any very serious annoyance.” “How?” asked Madeline colouring.

“In the only way assistance could be of any use,” returned Hugh in his usual dry manner, “by lending you the sum lost, which you could have repayed by instalments, or in any way you like.”

“And you have sought us out to offer us this great service,” said Madeline thoughtfully, her grandmother’s icy indifference rising up in strong contrast before her mind’s eye, “you, a stranger!”

“Well! it really is no great, service; at least nothing very particular for me, and it might be very useful to you,”

“And I thought you looked a cold, hard man,” continued Madeline, resting her elbow on the table, and her cheek on her hand, looking steadily with her clear truthful eyes at their guest, speaking out her thoughts, with a wondrous charming boldness, so soft, yet so daring; “and you are in reality so good.”

“No!” said Elliott smiling and colouring under her gaze, with a strange quickening of the pulse he could not understand, “your first estimate of me was the correct one. I am hard, at least what women would call hard, I suppose, but not therefore quite without feeling; “and now do you accept my offer?”

“No, certainly . not,” returned Madeline, with a smile almost caressing in its sweetness, “it is really not needed! I do not refuse from any silly pride, but I will tell you all about it. I am a teacher of music and languages, only a month or two set up in housekeeping with this dear old friend,” laying her hand on Miss Foster’s. “We have but a small capital, and out of it, after much deliberation, I took two sovereigns that day I met you, intending to hire a piano for a little time and pay in advance. When I lost my purse I was in despair, because I could not get a piano, and practice is essential to a professor, you know. But see,” pointing to the piano, “a kind friend hearing of my loss gave me that one; perhaps you know her, she is well known in London, Lady Rawson?”

“No,” returned Elliott bluntly, “I know no ladyships.”

“Well! I am rich now you see,” resumed Madeline, “for I have the piano as a possession, my loss is amply restored, therefore, your most generous, most friendly assistance is not needed.”

“I see,” said Elliott rather ungraciously. He felt unreasonably annoyed that another had forestalled him, yet he had left the City that afternoon mentally out of patience with himself for yielding to the strange attraction which drew him (against his natural, cautious bias) to seek out a possibly penniless stranger, who might prove a costly annoyance. There was an atmosphere about these two quiet women, different from anything he had hitherto breathed, which seemed suddenly to develop in him a capacity for new things; the home-like look of the room in which they sat, the refinement of their bearing, the beauty of form and colour which distinguished Madeline, steeped him in an undefined sense of pleasure he recognised but could not analyze.

“You seemed quite sure,” said Madeline after a few observations on the weather, and the last news from Miss Foster, “you seemed to have no doubt that the man who sat beside me took my purse ?”

“Not the least, he had the look of a thief. I have seen plenty of fine gentlemen of his stamp, working in gangs in Australia.”

“You have probably been a great traveller?” said Madeline, stretching out her hand for his tea-cup.

“I have been a good deal at sea, but that hardly constitutes travelling, you are shut up with Englishmen, and only have glimpses of seaports now and then.”

“Pray may I ask, Mr. Elliott, are you from the North?” asked Miss Foster, with extreme politeness, “your accent sounds familiar to my ear.”

“Yes, I am a borderer. I come from a district known to the country people by the name of Elliott’s Dale.”

“Indeed,” cried Miss Foster, with some excitement, “I come from that part of the coun- try myself. Do you know a place called Bardsleigh Hall, near Allingham?”

“I do know it well,” returned Elliott, with more animation than he had yet shown. “It leads away from the village to the upland moors.”

“I never was there,” said Miss Foster, “but I have heard of it often, it belonged to my grandfather.”

“Indeed, that’s curious! My father was vicar of Allingham, and my grandmother a Foster of Bardsleigh.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Miss Foster, quite tremulous with surprise and excitement. “Why, I remember often hearing my poor father speak of a sister who married one of the Holme Elliotts. I suppose then we must be cousins? what an extraordinary coincidence.”

“It is indeed curious, dear aunty,” said Madeline sympathetically.

“Cousins! yes, of course we are,” cried Elliott with unusual cordiality. “And though I left that part of the country a mere lad, I fancy I have never seen its like since. I am very glad to have found a kinswoman; and this young lady, is she a cousin too?”

“Alas! no!” returned Madeline with a bright smile. “I can boast no north country blood.” Miss Foster and her newly discovered relative found many people to inquire about. But as Elliott had left so young, and Miss Foster only knew the place and its inhabitants by report, their questions and replies were rather vague, the principal information being supplied by Miss Foster, who told Elliott that her nephew was now vicar of Ailing-ham, being the third who had held it since his father’s decease.

Madeline listened with much interest, observing the deep feeling for his early home which ran through all Elliott said, though at intervals harder strata of thought cropped up and drove back her sympathies chilled and shivering. As to Miss Foster, she was in a state of unbounded satisfaction.

“Dear, dear!” she exclaimed at intervals, “I am sure it’s quite like a novel, the most extraordinary coincidence.”

At length Mr. Elliott rose to take his leave.

“Good-bye,” said Madeline, again laying her little hand into his long thin brown one, “I shall never, never forget your generous thought for one you imagined was poor and friendless; you little fancied you were going to help a relative, for you know Miss Foster and I have taken each other for richer for poorer,’ we are real partners, only she has something and I nothing.”

“No, no, dear!” cried Miss Foster, “that is not fair, you can earn something, and I nothing.”

“N’importe,” returned Madeline with innocent coquetry, “you’ll come and see the firm, again, Mr. Elliott?”

“I will,” he returned, knitting his brow grimly in the strong resolution to visit them often, and producing thereby rather an appalling effect, which elicited a little nervous twittering “I am sure we shall be delighted to see you” from Miss Foster, and then he again shook hands with Madeline in a confused manner, and departed.

“Dearest aunty,” cried Madeline rubbing her little hand, “your cousin is a very Samson, he has nearly crushed my poor fingers, and didn’t seem the least aware of it. He is really a formidable relative, but what a good fellow! He was so in earnest with his generous offer, though he rather threw it at one’s head.”

“Well I am sure Madeline he is quite the gentleman, and I should say handsome; altogether, I feel as if my breath was taken away. Such an extraordinary coincidence first about the purse and the advertisement, and then turning out a relation! Mark my words, Madeline, he has fallen in love with you, and I only hope you will not treat him like poor Mr. Samuel Moorcroft.”

“That stony borderer in love! Oh, aunty! what fever of the imagination has seized upon you? No, no! he is not made of inflammable materials, kind as he has shown himself. I imagine that business is the god of his idolatry. Nevertheless he has shown us a soft side.”

CHAPTER XII.

Madeline felt some trepidation as she put the last touches to her simple toilette, the evening of Lady Rawson’s party. Yet she felt conscious that the effect of the trial through which she had passed had strengthened her morally. She was now anxious for success in a purely business point of view; but from the half-joyous, half-fearful anticipation of a young girl who feels she is on the very threshold of her history, she was free. One page of her life had been turned, and at present she felt as if a similar one could never again be unrolled. .

Enough, however, of emotion was left to tinge her cheek with colour, and lend animation to her looks. By arrangement with Lady Rawson, she arrived early, and already occupied a quiet nook near the piano, when the company began to arrive. To her it was all very new; she had never been at a party-before. The shouting out of the names, the variety of costumes, the eccentric head-dresses of some—supremely fashionable individuals— the freemasonry and shibboleth with which all seemed familiar, outward and visible signs of enrolment in the world of distinction and notoriety, all struck her keen bright fancy, as partly imposing, partly ludicrous. The men, in her eyes, seemed like weak washed-out copies of Dudley Ashurst; yet they were gentlemen, inoffensive, if not very original, and widely different from the odious Downing type.

Little Fitz soon made out Madeline, and with a kindly feeling established himself at her side, pointing out the notorieties, and otherwise doing the agreeable.

“There, Miss Digby, you see that long, thin man, with ringletty hair, and no chin, that is Disbrow, the famous orator of the House. There, that small man with the big head, like a cod, that’s Tinkleson, the great poet; and that thick-looking man, with a sort of lion’s mane of hair and beard, that’s Hayward, the hope of the Turks and the liberals; he is so generous, he would give anyone liberty to have anything they like, even half- a-dozen wives, but Eastern life has made that ‘no objection;’ they say be has discovered the jaws of the original whale that swallowed Jonah! Now look at that tall, fair woman, with no corsage worth mentioning—that is the Hon. Mrs. Otterson, a poetess and woman of fashion; she is at everything, keeps a magazine of tracts and medicines for the poor, and makes .a book on the Derby. They say she is going to give a series of lectures on the condition of women, at the Polytechnic, this season.”

“What an active person,” said Madeline.

“Yes!” said little Fitz; “modern women of fashion work hard in their vocation.”

The larger part of the guests being assembled, the performances commenced by two dishevelled, gloomy-looking men, one fair and the other dark, coming to the front, the fair one clutched a violin, and the dark misanthrope, as he seemed, struck a vindictive blow on a deplorable minor chord on the piano, with the left hand, and galloped wildly up to the top keys with the right; then No. I timed a little, tucked his instrument tightly under his chin, and they started. Wondrous was the “concord of sweet sounds ” they discoursed; every shade of feeling found an exponent in the almost human utterances of the violin; the wail of hopeless regret, the rousing up of the broken spirit, the fire, the mellow harmony of one that had “suffered, yet was strong while the under-current of accompaniment filled up the breaks and pauses with an undulating tide of melody. Madeline listened enraptured; never had she enjoyed so rich a treat; for much as she prized the grand church music, to which she was educated in the convent, it wanted the changeful mood which this possessed. Her trepidation vanished; she was no longer a timid girl, trembling before her superiors, but a musician among musicians. In this improved frame of mind Mr. Fitzharris approached, full of importance, with a paper in his hand. He always conducted himself at a musical party as though it were an act of national importance, far too serious for a light word or look.

“We come next, Miss Digby. Now imagine we are in your own sitting-room, with no audience but Miss Foster.”

“I cannot, quite,” said Madeline, smiling; “but I do not feel nervous.”

The duet selected was the ever new “La ci damn la mono” and when she came for- ward, in her soft, crapy-looking white muslin, with the rich colours of the Roman scarfs round her waist and through the masses of her golden hair, on which the bright light shimmered in a dozen different degrees of sunshine and shadow, there was a sort of movement, especially among the men. She knew, in herself, she was original in style. The men murmured their approbation. The musical dowagers said, half enviously, that dear Lady Rawson had always such success in discovering novelties. Meantime, the dusky man at the piano, with a quick upward glance at Madeline, rattled off an unnecessarily brilliant symphony, and putting aside her music, for it was perfectly familiar to her, Madeline began.

The pure fresh voice, rich in its untried sweetness, rolled out clear and free, and as little Fitz had a good deal of dramatic ability, they sang with great animation and expression. Madeline, with a dash of piquant coquetry, was irresistibly attractive. In short, her appearance was a complete success, of which little Fitz was immensely proud, attributing it all, as he did, to his training, advice, and assistance.

“Bravo,' Miss Digby! Bravo, Mr. Fitzharris!” said Lady Rawson, advancing up the open space left between the company and the piano, clapping her hands as she came. “Dramatic, artistic, everything that could be desired. Madeline, I want to speak to you.”

Here an officious gentleman with a homoeopathic scrap of red ribbon in his button-hole, rushed frantically through the lines, and with a hasty “pardon,” took Lady Rawson aside, exclaiming, “Such a misfortune!” leaving Madeline in some curiosity as to her ladyship’s communication; but just then she distinguished Lady Templemore at a little distance, in a quiet, sensible cap, fastened on with a couple of diamond pins; and she saw her former mistress was eyeing her through her glass. Presently she came across the room, and addressed Madeline kindly enough, shaking hands with her before the face of the professors, an act which did Madeline good, for Lady Templemore had the reputation of being severely solid, and that nothing common or unclean could by any means be recognised by her.

“Glad to see you, Miss Digby. Agnes and Elizabeth are both in the next room. Agnes was quite wild about coming when she heard you were to sing. Here, Lord Frederic! I wish you would bring Lady Agnes here, she is sitting near the door in the next room.”

And they were quickly joined by both Lady Elizabeth and Lady Agnes, between whom and their former preceptress a cordial greeting ensued. Then a dumpy little German, with a seal-ring on his thumb, came forward and sang a long composition, with some echoing notes and other tricks in it, which astonished everyone. And then there was a movement to the refreshment rooms. Fitzharris was ordered by Lady Rawson to take down a stout signora, who, when she took his arm, produced the effect of tucking him under hers. So Madeline was left sitting near the piano almost alone, except for the presence of a small, - wild-looking, black-eyed man, who, after some furtive glances, addressed her in Italian. She answered but slowly, for the language was not familiar to her, and was about to ask him if he spoke French, when voice and breath were suspended for an instant. The portieres, already drawn closely back, were further pushed aside, a tall figure entered, and Dudley Ashurst stood before her. She was terribly unprepared; the blood mounted to her brow, and then receding, left her deadly pale. She felt angry that he should present himself before her; sore against him for the suffering he had caused her, the unnecessary trial to which he had exposed her. And yet how she rejoiced in his beauty—his look of refined strength—his noble bearing! “ There is no one like him—none,” was the involuntary murmur of her heart; and, “He loved me,” the next thought said; while a third voice, a moan from the depths of her soul, spoke sternly, “Between you and him there is a great gulf fixed, so be brave with the courage of despair.” Meantime he drew near, his eyes fixed upon her, as she felt, for she kept hers steadily turned on the small Italian. At last, after standing a moment silent, Ashurst bent his lofty head; and said, in a low, tender voice, “Madeline! ”

“Lord Hexham,” she said, rising and looking up slowly, but full in his face. There was a slight awkward pause; then Lord Hexham, turning with much politeness to the Italian, as if about to include him in the conversation, asked, in Italian, if he spoke English. The little man shook his head, and, after a few words courteously uttered, Lord Hexham turned to Madeline.

Where are you staying, and what are you doing? Ah, Madeline! How cold — how composed you are! Can you not feel for me?”

Madeline smiled—a smile of supreme mockery.

“I am obliged for the interest your inquiries show, my lord; and I am sure you will rejoice when I tell you that I have found a home!”

“Where?—how?” asked the earl, eagerly, jealously.

“I should be' obliged to tell too long a story,” returned Madeline, turning over the music which lay near her with a tremulous hand, partly from nervousness, partly from a desire to free her eyes from the fascinations of his.

“You cannot speak longer than I like to listen,” returned Lord Hexham, in his ten-derest tones—then suddenly changing. “I wish that infernal Italian would go away. Do you know the little brute?”

Madeline, amused at the venom of the question, answered, with a natural bright smile, in the negative.

“By heavens, Madeline, you are more lovely than ever!” said Lord Hexham, with

WHICH SHALL IT BE? suppressed breath. “You must see me again, and hear me. I have pined for you!—and the sight of that little creature, Fitz, was like a glimpse of heaven to me the other day, because he was associated with you. And then when I drew from him that you were to sing at this detestable house, I went to Lady Templemore, and asked her Irish husband to dine with me, and intrigued to no end to get here. And now, my brightest darling, you must not cast me adrift again.”

There was an indefinable change in the man that struck Madeline instantaneously. He was less tenderly deferential. He looked at her with greater boldness than of yore; and the magic effect of his sudden appearance was annihilated. The proud spirit would have scorned condescension on such terms from the loftiest potentate on earth, while it yearned and almost yielded to the lover at her feet.”

“You are very welcome to come and see me and my friend Miss Foster, who was for many years companion to my grandmother. But I am never alone. If you wish my ad-, dress, Lady Rawson will give it to you. I have no card or pencil.”

Lord Hexham was silenced by the daring of this reply.

“Madeline,” he said, recovering himself “I have lost you.”

“Nay, my lord! I have a home now to work for and to live for!”

The stragglers began to return, and Lord Hexham, his brow a good deal clouded, looked hastily round, said “Good-night, then,” and pressing Madeline’s hand suddenly and tightly, left the room.

The next moment Lady Rawson came up, with an inquiring, anxious expression on her countenance.

“My dear! I have been so worried and kept down-stairs. I wanted so much to speak to you.”

“Never mind, now, Lady Rawson,” said Madeline, quite understanding her.

“Oh—eh!” returned her ladyship. “Now I will tell you what you must do,” she resumed. “Signor Squalicetti is going to sing a buffo duet with little Fitz, and after that, as Madame Mocatta has disappointed, you shall sing us an Irish melody; it will be quite new; and then I will let you go home. It is not more than one now.”

“Then I must accompany myself?”

“Yes, to be sure! You can do it very well.”

At last it was all over. The Irish melody was immensely successful, and good-natured Lord Templemore himself took Madeline down to her cab.

“Gad! I think you are quite right, Miss Digby,” he said, “this is a considerably pleasanter life than rusticating at the Grange, shut up in that deucedly dull school-room.”

Madeline drove home in a kind of maze, at once regretting and rejoicing in her separation from Ashurst. “I am an humble item of the population, laboriously earning my bread; but at least no woman, however high —however irreproachable—has a right to shrink from me as a reckless breaker of social law,” she thought. “And he, too—he is different in some subtle way; he does not love me as he used. Ah! how grand and noble he looks!—the very type of an English peer. Why is there a great gulf between us, which I cannot, and he will not, pass!” Then, checking a few bitter, natural tears, which seemed to scald her eyes, she resolutely set herself to review the points of her position which offered consolation and encouragement. She had never been so happily placed before. Oh! if that man had not crossed her path, how joyous and hopeful she would be! “But

I will not fret—I will not think of him! Why should I let myself suffer more than he does?” And she fought with the splendid vision that would pose itself before her mind’s eye, and constantly dispelled it, only to see it gradually gather and uprear itself again.

Miss Foster was waiting up, and admitted her. How sweet it was to be welcomed back, with the admiring, motherly fondness the ex-companion always showed to her young ruler!

“I am sure no one looked nicer than yourself, Madeline dear! And how did you sing? Was everyone delighted?”

“I am not sure,” returned Madeline, who was busy undressing, and now let down a cloud of golden hair, brushing it diligently as she spoke. “Everyone clapped me, and I think—I hope that, professionally, I did very well; but you never saw such dresses, aunty —some so beautiful, and some so funny. Yet I do not think the people—the ladies, I mean —dressed so well, so harmoniously, as those that used to come to the poor countess’s soirees. Then there was a delightful man that played the violin divinely. You could imagine that his soul lay in his finger-tips, he made the dead strings speak so marvellously.

Oh! I should like to go on the stage, and thrill the hearts of masses of people, or melt them to tears!”

“Dear, dear! how can you talk so! I am sure it would be a most dreadful thing to go on the stage—quite unladylike. It would make me miserable!”

“Would it?” said Madeline, thoughtfully, pausing, her white, round arms raised in the act of twisting up her hair. “But I do make you happy! I am a good girl to you.”

“Ah, Madeline!” cried Miss Foster, the tears springing to her eyes, “you have been the first to show me happiness—God will bless you!”

There,” returned Madeline, giving her a hearty kiss; “I promise to think well before I make you miserable.”

“And what sort of gentleman was it who played so delightfully?”

“Oh! a little fair man—a Spaniard, I believe; very like a consumptive monkey.” u Oh!” said Miss Foster; “and the other gentlemen, what were they like?”

“Just like other men—nothing particular. Lord and Lady Templemore and the girls were there, and quite glad to see me. Lord Templemore took me down to the cab. I like him; I always did. It is very odd, but somehow he always reminds me of my father —my poor dear father. Now, come to bed, aunty, and put out the candle.”

“Yes, but you must not think I was alone all the evening. No, indeed. Mr. Elliott came in not five minutes after you had driven away, and sat for an hour I am sure. He would not take any tea; he said he knew it was past my usual time.”

“That was very nice for you,” observed Madeline. “I know you have given Mr. Elliott a large corner of your heart because he comes from the ‘ North Countrie.’ ”

“He is certainly a very nice young man.”

“Young! Why, aunty, he is forty, I am sure.”

“Well, middle-aged, if you like. But we had a great deal of talk, and I told him all your history and my own, and he seemed to take the greatest interest. Most polite, I am sure. He seemed more at home than the first evening. Then, to be sure, he knew he was talking to a relation, and that makes a difference, does it not, Madeline?”

But Madeline was fast asleep.

- “John,” said Mrs. Redman, junior, as she and her husband sat at breakfast a few mornings after Lady Rawson’s party. “I say, John”—for he was absorbed in the Times' City article—“we ought to give a dinner.”

“Eh!” he returned, laying down his paper, and re-commencing his breakfast. “A dinner! Yes, to be sure; but why?”

“Well, there are the Blyths; we have dined twice with them since they were last here; and Mrs. Blyth was saying only yesterday that there was nothing so useful in keeping people together, and in good humour with each other, as a little dinner. Now, we ought to ask some of your brother directors and the Blyths, and that Frenchman who has something to do with the ironworks: he is in town, I think. Mrs. Blyth says he is so nice —quite the gentleman. We might manage sixteen.”

“Sixteen!” repeated Mr. John, aghast, and remembering the dining-room dimensions— twenty by fourteen. “Why, we should be sitting in each other’s laps; and the weather is growing so mild.”

“Well, now, John, I hope you won’t be interfering and making difficulties. If you have to cook a dinner, as well cook for sixteen as twelve, nay, ten; and, after all, a little squeeze is no great matter. You know you have the foot all to yourself.”

“Yes, yes; but one does not like to see people taking it by turns to get at their plates.”

“Nonsense! Let us see who we can have. There’s Mr. and Mrs. Blyth; that is two: and Mr. and Mrs. Prothero; they asked us about a month ago. Don’t you remember? We could not go?”

“No, I don’t,” said Mr. John.

“And then you might get old Shuttlecock, or Feather wig. I would rather have Feather-wig. He is quite a man of the world, and so aristocratic. But that old general does eat and sleep so; he is just live lumber.” “Humph!” groaned Mr. John.

“Then the Frenchman,” resumed the wife, “would be quite a variety. I’ll engage the Protheros never were at so distinguished a party before.”

“He is a-nuisance!” growled Mr. John;

“for though he can speak English, it’s precious little he understands. He’s a sharp fellow, though. I tell you what, Jemima, I wish you would qsk Susan and her husband.” “Mr. and Mrs. Comerford! No, indeed! What is the use of swamping the table with one’s relations? Mrs. C. is so heavy in hand; never can talk of anything but her children and servants.”

Mr. Redman made no reply.

“Let me see,” continued his wife, “that Mr. O’Keefe is far and away the most agreeable man I ever met. He speaks French, too. There is such a dash about him. You know he is descended from the kings of Kerry?”

“I don’t think his name is worth much in the City, though,” grumbled Mr. John.

“The City is not the world,” said the lady, tartly. “He says he ought to be called ‘ The O’Keefe,’ as if there was no other.”

“Just as well there wasn’t,” growled Mr. John confidentially to his egg.

“That makes us nine,” resumed his wife, disregarding his narrow-minded observations. “Now, I think it would be an excellent opportunity to ask Mr. and Mrs. Macallan and their daughter; they are very elegant people. And, I tell you what, John, if you vciU have your own relations, ask Madeline Digby.”

“What! to dinner?” asked Mr. John, a good deal surprised. “Madeline Digby!”

“Yes. She really does,look uncommon nice; and sings and speaks French, and is of some use. No one need know she goes out teaching. Mark my words, that girl will get on. I went to see her and poor Foster the other day, and Madeline had been to a grand party at Lady Rawson’s, where there was half the nobility in London. Then there will be room for one more.”

“Well, I have no objection,” said Mr. John. “I should be glad to see little Madeline again; though she did act like a fool refusing such a good marriage.”

“Did she? How?” asked his wife, eagerly.

Mr. John gave a short abstract of the Moor-croft refusal case; and Mrs. Redman exclaimed, “ Law! well, I did think she had a little more common sense. Now then, I will go and write the invitations. Nothing less than a fortnight’s notice is good style.”

“Well, as you have a place to spare, I wish you would write an invitation for Mr. Arthur Downing.”

“Who is he?” asked Mrs. John, suspiciously.

“Oh! he is our engineer; a very rising man indeed—Neilson’s right hand.”

“Well, I don’t mind. I suppose he is well-known to the directors.”

Madeline and Miss Foster had settled to their evening occupations, the former a little tired, after a busy day which yet had kept rebellious thoughts from disturbing her, she was pale and slightly languid, and the dark shade of fatigue under her eyes made her look softer, if less brilliant; it was a little more than a week since Lady Rawson’s party, and though both partners had already learned to look on Mr. Elliott as an established, almost an intimate acquaintance, they did not expect to see him so soon again.

It was therefore a surprise, and not an unpleasant one, when “Hemma ” announced—

“The gentleman’m,” and Hugh Elliott walked in. He was slightly embarrassed, and at a loss to account for himself.

“G-ot away rather early from the office,” he said, shaking hands with Miss Foster, and making a sort of a bow, scarce more than a nod to Madeline, “and thought I would look in and ask you how you did on my way home,” he did not say, however, that he had taken an early chop in the City in order to secure a long uninterrupted visit.

“I am sure we are very glad to see you,” said Miss Foster, quite brightened up, “and you must have some tea this time, we have not begun yet.”

Madeline smiled, and said with the gracious condescension of a princess, “I was unfortunate enough not to be at home when you called last, Mr. Elliott.”

“Yes, you had gone to some grand party.”

“Where I half expected to meet you” said Madeline, partly in jest.

“I never go to parties,” said Hugh Elliott, gloomily.

“What a pity,” returned Madeline, rising to assist Miss Foster in getting the tea, while Elliott sat dreamily watching them, and unconsciously enjoying the sweet homeliness of seeing the two gentlewomen get out the tea things, and set the tray, and look that the kettle boiled, without embarrassment or apology; and then a cake was produced with much pride by Miss Foster who proceeded to cut quite a pile of delicious brown bread and butter; there was a nameless influence in it, which set him thinking, a gracious charm springing from some source he could not fathom.

“Now, Mr. Elliott,” said Madeline, rousing him from his reverie, “please hand aunty the kettle, the division of labour demands that you should not sit idle.”

“Certainly not,” exclaimed Elliott, feeling guilty of the most terrible defalcation of good manners, and rushing at the kettle, would have plunged his hand into the steam, hut Madeline cried to him,

“Stop, stop,' we do not wish you to be wounded in our cause! Here is the kettle-holder,” and she presented a tasteful contrivance of scarlet cloth and white beads. Elliott looked at it admiringly after performing his task.

“This is too nice for the work.”

“Oh no! It took a very short time to make, and we may as' well have what prettiness we can. But what do you do in the evening if you do not go out?”

“Oh! I dine out sometimes, but I am not much more than two years settled in London, and have not many acquaintances.”

“Do you never go out to dancing parties? or musical parties?”

“Never, it is just so much waste of time I do not know how to dance, and I do not care for music!”

“That is terrible,” said Madeline with grave compassion. “Then how do you live?”

“I go away early to my office,” returned Elliott, answering in the same spirit of simple candour with which she questioned, “and work away all day, get home about seven, dine, have a smoke, read a bit, and go to bed. Latterly, I have dined occasionally with some men in the same trade as myself.”

“You must make a great deal of money,” observed Madeline meditatively, whereupon Miss Foster ejaculated—

“My dear Madeline,” in a tone of remonstrance, while Elliott looked at her with a sharp glance.

“I beg your pardon,” said Madeline colouring and laughing. “I do not mean to inquire into the amount of your capital. I only meant to say that it would take a great deal of money to pay for a life so divested of amusement and variety. Do you not feel sometimes a'longing to hear exquisite music, and move in time to it, to see beautiful scenes, to ramble away over hill and dale, or to have a number of charming people about you to exchange bright thoughts with, and double them by barter?”

“No!” returned Elliott, rousing up at her voice, so rich, so full of her own craving for pleasure, “but I do some times think of former times, the bleak bracing moors of the north, and the wild sort of pleasure of a stormy night at sea, when you have pitted your skill and forethought and nerve against the force of the gale, and know that though you would have a tussle for it, you will pull through; stock fanning too is exciting, riding at headlong speed after the cattle, hunting up strays, the loneliness and freedom!”

“Have you experienced all this?” asked Madeline, looking at him with greater interest than she had yet felt. “What a punishment London life must be to you! I wonder you can endure it!”

“I can, because it is the only life that will further my purpose, Miss Digby,” he returned with some dignity, as though he thought she undervalued him. “I wish to make a name, which means a fortune.”

“Well, you have my best wishes. But oh! do try and mix a little amusement with your money-making, before you become a millionaire, yet poverty-stricken, because unable to enjoy!”

“Mr. Elliot will think you a sad wild girl,” put in Miss Foster, apologetically, “you do not know what a hard worker she is, never weary. I declare,” interrupting herself as the servant laid a letter, as if for the general benefit, upon the table, “that’s Mrs. John Redman’s writing, it is for you, Madeline.”

“An invitation to dinner, I protest,” cried Madeline in great surprise, as she glanced at it, “I must, in some mysterious way, have risen in public estimation. Here is a regular formal ‘ requests the honour of Miss Digby’s company at dinner, on Thursday the 23th instant, at seven o’clock.’ ”

“Gracious me! How extraordinary!” cried Miss Foster, in great astonishment.

“Immense sensation on receipt of an invitation from an aunt and uncle,” said Madeline, suddenly struck with the absurdity of the case, and sparkling all over with a bright laugh. “A high testimony to the value of money, eh, Mr. Elliott?”

“I hardly understand,” replied the gentleman. “But is Mr. Redman of Corbet Court your uncle ?”

“He is.”

“One of the directors in the International Iron Shipbuilding Company?”

“The same.”

“The only sound man they have got among them,” he returned; “except, perhaps, Neilson.”

“Well, I trust uncle Redman will not lose his money, for he was always friendly to me.”

“Oh, it may succeed; less promising concerns have turned out very well”—and a pause ensued.

Hugh Elliott wanted to ask Madeline to sing, and jet held back, he had an idea that she under-rated him. He felt he was deficient in the exterior polish and attraction so prominent in her. Moreover, she did not show that deference to his money and new-made position which he was beginning to expect. He had been wonderfully and rapidly successful, and as his character stood high with all those to whom he was known, he commanded an unusual amount of respect and consideration. The commercial community of the City is narrower than outsiders know; at least, a man’s character, achievements, and capacity, is quickly known amongst his brothers of the ledger. And it is amazing, the value placed, upon a bold, quick-sighted, successful fellow; who, withal, has the reputation of being a man of his word. The effect of this is always more or less intoxicating in proportion to the strength of the nature on which it is brought to bear. With Hugh Elliott it was scarce perceptible, and he would have indignantly denied that the flattering notice of men older and richer than himself, produced on him any effect at all. He was therefore conscious of a semi-sore feeling towards Madeline, even while her every look, tone, and gesture, possessed for

WHICH SHALL IT BB? him a subtle charm. Of the finer tactics of that world-old game, “love,” he knew absolutely nothing. Sentiment, as yet, had for him no existence, and from things sensual he had been preserved by a certain innate wholesome strength, the essence of which is cleanliness.

Now Miss Foster who, in her own lady-like way, bowed down and worshipped him (quite as much because he was a real live relative and a hero, as because he was a rich City man), his riches, no doubt, indefinitely multiplied in her simple arithmetic. She was a model woman in his estimation, so gentle and respectful! But as for her audacious partner, with the small rounded form, and rich, rippling, golden hair, and large dark eyes, that melted and fired as she spoke; with her striking contrast of spirit, force, and physical slightness, if he could at all impress that daring sprite with a sense of his importance, of the weight of his opinions, he felt there was nothing he could not do for her—nothing that he would not dare! Even in this, their third interview, he longed to clasp the little soft white hand, contrasting so strongly with his, so brown and hard; to pour a thousand kisses on it, and breaking through the outward adamantine shell of seeming, cry to her,—“I may be rugged, unpleasant to the eye, but I am resolute and forceful, trust me, submit yourself to me, and then come, rest under the shadow of my strength—my care—for I can guard you.”

And Madeline, little dreaming of this dumb inner crying of nature’s truth, looking on him as an awkward, worthy, respectable man, said, with a kindly wish to amuse him, “Shall I sing, Mr. Elliott? I know no Border ballads, but /have a few Scotch ones.”

“Yes, do,” said Elliott, eagerly; then remembering himself, “I shall be greatly obliged,” he added.

Then Madeline went to the piano, and sang “Bonnie Mary Hay,” and that rather hackneyed, yet inexhaustible “Auld Lang Syne,” till Elliott’s Northumbrian heart melted within him; he said very little, however, and the songstress fancied she had exerted herself in vain. The conversation flagging, Elliott rose soon after to take leave.

“I am sure it is exceedingly kind of you to come and see us in this way,” said Miss Foster. “But I hope (whenever you have nothing better to do), you will continue to call?”

“Certainly; I intend it,” returned Hugh, with an air of determination.

“We are always glad to see you,” added Madeline, en princesse.

And so he took his leave, and scarce was he out of ear-shot when Miss Foster exclaimed “Well, Madeline! I do not know what you think, hut really, Mr. Elliott appears to me a very gentleman-like, fine-looking man; something so kind and sincere about him.”

“Yes, aunty; I daresay he is a true, loyal man; indeed, I feel sure there is a gentleman like foundation somewhere, hut it is so overlaid with—what shall I say—detritus, carried down by the stream of circumstances—even though the stones be nuggets and the sand gold—that it is hard to find. Yet he is a man I would trust, though I would much rather not be obliged to ask a favour of him.”

“If you did I am certain he would not refuse, for if not already in love with you, he is fast losing his heart.”

“Aunty! for the love of heaven do not talk of love or lovers! That man despises me as a self-opinionated idiot—I know he does —though on some subjects I can think more justly than himself, I am quite sure. How is it, aunty, dear, that you, who have counted more years than me, you who have always lived under the rule of common sense and common views, should have these romantic ideas? Why is it that you do not feel and see as I do,, that whatever dower of grace or beauty, or genius, or tenderness, or truth, or purity, nature has bestowed upon a woman, it is absolutely nothing, if Mammon has not endorsed the cheque, and backed it with ‘certain moneys’? No, no! I never expect to be loved for my better self! There may be men found who would ask nothing from a woman but that she should, with her heart’s love, her grace of mind and form, fill up and complete his existence, but I have never met one, and never hopeto do so. I only ask to be an independent, self-helpful, old maid—secune from parish aid, and ever thankful to God for sending me so kind, so indispensable a friend, as yourself! ” Here followed a slight display of waterworks, and a hearty hug.

CHAPTER XIII.

Thursday, the 26th instant, was a day of infinite importance and exertion at Warwick' Crescent. At an early hour a steady flow of parcels and trays of confectioner’s wares set in. The cook, deposed ad interim, looked on with a critical and disparaging eye at the entries, entremets, seufflets, the copper moulds' of creams, and jellies, and ices, which divers' and sundry the employes of Messrs. Savoury, Sauce & Co., continually brought in and cumbered the kitchen table withal, disregarding the remonstrances of the rightful head, and treating her as if she was “no more than a kitchen-maid,” a fact indisputable, as on this trying occasion the boiling of the vegetables was alone entrusted to her. Above stairs “missis” herself assisted in the uncovering of the drawing-room furniture, and laying out the books more symetrically than any other hand could accomplish, and then throwing herself heart and soul into the intricacies of the dessert, in a little hack parlour, called by courtesy the “ library.”

Quickly the hours flew by, till it was time to perform an elaborate toilette, during which Mr. John returned, and was greeted on the threshold with, “Please sir, missis says will you see to the wine at once.”

Mrs. John’s programme was faithfully carried out, with one exception—the elegant Macallans were engaged, and the inelegant Comerfords were asked in their place.

Madeline, wishing to avoid the awkwardness of entering alone when the room was full, arrived first. She knew by instinct that a demi-toilette would he simply considered dowdy, or “poverty-stricken” by her aunt and her “set,” so she arrayed herself in her best silvery grey silk and black lace, which, if somewhat old in style for so young a woman, was exquisitely becoming.

Mrs. John was superb in black velvet, a good deal of gold and scarlet showered on her head and trimmings, for even velvet could not escape her rage for “garniture,” without mentioning the fan, and bouquet, and scent-bottle, with which she was encumbered.

“Well, Madeline, you are first in the field,” exclaimed her hostess, radiant with the sense of fine dress and coming triumph. “I shall give you the Frenchman to take you in to dinner! I declare you look very nice, though your dress is rather in the style of my grandmother. But gracious goodness child! what splendid lace! I am afraid you are an extravagant puss.”

“No, indeed, Mrs. Bedman! This belonged to my poor aunt de Fontarce.”

“Oh, ah, yes!—the Frenchwoman,” returned Mrs. John. “Well, it is a perfect treasure. What do you think!—was it not provoking of your uncle?—you know I was disappointed of the Macallans—such nice people! He is in the East India trade—beer and things—a most elegant man. Well, they disappointed, and your uncle was all along wanting to ask those stupid Comerfords. So he met Mr. C. in the City, and asked him, his wife, and daughter, in their place, and then came home and told me! I do not think he will ever do such a thing again!” concluded Mrs. Bedman, with a short, sharp, and decisive nod of the head, painfully suggestive as to the amount of punishment endured by the rebel. “Now mind,” she resumed, “you talk and laugh, and make yourself as pleasant as yon can, and cut out that prim, stuck-up daughter of Mrs. Comerford’s—she looks down upon every one, and is just your grandmother all over.”

Madeline laughed, and was saved the trouble of a reply by the announcement of “Mr. and Mrs. Blyth, and the Honourable Captain Featberwig.”

Mrs. John received them with great cordiality, though in truth a little chafed by their coming together, as it gave Mrs. Blyth the effect of having an honourable as a follower, and, albeit chums, neither lady would have yielded an inch of social standing to the other. The Honourable Featherwig was a wonderful specimen of restoration and preservation. His coat hung loosely upon him, but was from the hand of a first-rate artist. His thin, shaky legs, terminated in boots of .exquisite cut and polish. By gaslight the purple tone could not be perceived stealing through the splendid black of his whiskers and moustaches, and an eye-glass of youthful simplicity hid the wateriness of at least one eye, where the sparkle had long since died out. The only acknowledgment of antiquity about him was a crush hat, held with the ease of old custom under his left arm. Nevertheless, Mrs. John bestowed much attention upon him. He brought with him an aroma of the clubs, p, flavour of the opera, with a dash of the upper ten thousand in it—irresistible to her aristocratic tendencies. She felt a little piqued .it is true, at the easy familiarity with which he was treated by Mrs, Blyth, not knowing, as that lady did, that the directorial sprig of nobility was always quite ready to save an eighteen penny fare by accepting a seat in her snug brougham.

The Hon. Captain bowed and smiled, and said : “Gad! it was very obliging of Mrs. Redman to ask him to her house—and deuced pretty house it was; had no idea such nice places grew so far out of town.” Then he re-screwed his glass into his eye and fixed it on Madeline, who felt dreadfully inclined to laugh.

“I must apologise for Mr. Redman,” said the charming hostess in her most sprightly manner. “He was detained rather late in the City.”

“Man of great energy,” said Captain Featherwig with languid admiration. “Enormous energy, ’pon my soul! "Won’t you sit down, Mrs.—ahem—Mrs. Redman?” He was getting very tired himself. And then Mr. John entered, and the greetings were renewed. Mrs. Blyth, who was a small, keen, black-eyed woman, and who evidently went in for the cool, quiet style of “fastness,” as contra-distinguished from her friend’s jovial rapidity, devoted her attention to Mr. John; and Mr. Blyth stood silent upon the hearth-rug, looking very earnestly at Madeline, who had placed herself in a quiet comer between the piano and a window. She had a vague sense of having seen him before. He was a tall, well-dressed, gentleman-like looking man, with a pale face, projecting brow, and a very thin lipped mouth—opening wide to receive things, and shutting tight, almost hermetically, to retain them.

He looked so long and so firmly that she began to feel a little uncomfortable, when the entrance of other guests, Mr. and Mrs. Prothero and the Comerfords—Miss C., the picture of refined simplicity, in white and pink, with «a wreath of blush roses accurately fixed on her head, and a good deal of complication in the arrangement of her hair. She was very colourless, and thin, and proper. Seven o’clock was now a few minutes past, and Mr. John, in anticipation, was desperately struggling to decipher a mysterious paper given him by his wife, and certain he should make a mess of it. Mrs. Comerford had discovered Madeline, and saluted her with the candid exclamation: “I had not the least idea that you were to he here. And how are you V Madeline replied suitably, and inquired for Mrs. Redman.

“Oh, she is pretty well,” returned Mrs. Comerford with a sigh. “Indeed, she was asking about you the other day. Poor dear| she has always an idea that you will be coming to her for money. I think if you were to call, and say you were getting on pretty well, it would be a relief to her mind. How do you think Susan Jane is looking? Wonderful! for I assure you she scarcely eats meat in Lent. And it is so had for the skin.”

“Mrs. Blyth—Mr. Comerford,” said Mr. John, in a sudden and staccato way, as if bolting down his difficulties, and was pierced immediately hy a glance of anger and contempt from his wife.

Fortunately for him, at this critical moment the door opened, and the effective “greengrocer,” evidently impressed as by something unusual, bawled out, “The O’Keefe!” immediately retreating behind the door. Whereupon enter a big, stout man, with vast shoulders, and a profusion of red hair. His large, red, jovial face, with light grey eyes, and wide mouth, full-lipped and slightly depressed at the comers, but furnished with a superb row of large white teeth, beamed out of a frill of dark-red whiskers meeting below his chin.

This description but faintly conveys an idea of the great O’Keefe. Largeness was his leading characteristic. He was well set up; always holding himself back, so as to throw out his chest, and a very visible protuberance below it. Then he strode, rather than walked, with a semi-circular motion, and took up twice the room he required. He also had a habit of running his fingers through his profuse hair, and, besides doubling the apparent size of his -head, imparting to it the effect of that curious process known as having been dragged through a bush backwards. He had a big, sonorous, but not unpleasant voice, and his brogue, though somewhat subdued by sojourning in many lands, was, nevertheless, perceptible as a sort of constant undercurrent of tone,

Beneath the shadow of this magnificent person, who brought a kind glow and movement along with him, two much smaller individuals entered, both of whom Madeline recognised, to her infinite surprise. The first was Mr. Arthur Downing—as neat and spruce as ever—looking as if newly “set ” by some patent particular process for putting a sharp edge on humanity. The other was a thickset muscular Frenchman, with a head like a globular scrubbing-brush, very black, with quick flashing, hungry eyes, big blue jaws, waxed moustache, and a short, thick chin tuft. Madeline had seen him but once before, and that nearly two years ago, in his mother’s box at the theatre in Paris. Momentary as that glance had been, it—with the events that followed—sufficed to picture him in her recollection for ever.

What a wide page of memory unrolled itself before her as her eyes fell upon him. Her pleasant, smooth, intriguante of an aunt— the wild, bright hopes, with which she started on that lonely journey to Paris—the tranquillity of the convent, of which she wearied too soon; the great change of thought and belief that came upon her there—the mingled terror and excitement of her aunt’s proposition that she should marry Monsieur Delille; and the bitter lesson she then and after learnt, that undowered, scarce any man would care to have her as a wife, which conviction nearly drove her into Dudley Ashurst’s arms. All this swept over her brain, a mist of thought. Meantime the great O’Keefe had shouldered his way to the lady of the house.

“Mrs. Redman; your most obedient! You’re as blooming as a rose tree in full bearing. Let me present my two excellent friends, Mr. Downing, our future Brunei, and Monsieur Delille, a most distinguished member of the French army, who, to the infinite disappointment of his imperial master, has left his service for ours, the I. C. S. Company. Eh, mon cher and a capital exchange he has made of it. Ah! Featherwig, me boy! you look as hearty as a buck, though maybe you couldn’t le’p so high and he nearly crushed that fragile specimen of preservation by a terrific shake of the hand. Then Mr. Redman was cordially greeted, but both Mr. and Mrs. Blyth were more guarded in their salutations, which little affected the boisterous joyousness of the great O’Keefe.

“Will you sit near the fire, Mr. O’Keefe?” said Mrs. Redman.

“No, I’m obliged to you; I’ll just take advantage of the vacant place by your charming young friend here. Faith it’s a shame to

WHICH SHiLL IT BE? leave your fair side all unguyarded, lady,” he continued to the severely refined, high-church, Miss Comerford, who absolutely shrank from him in horror.

“Just as you like,” returned Mrs. Redman, with a jolly laugh, for the great “O’ ” was an immense favourite of hers; “And, moreover, you shall take the young lady down to dinner.”

“By Jove, I am in luck to-day!” exclaimed O’Keefe, rubbing his hands with such rampant self-gratulation, that poor Miss Comerford was covered with blushes, and everyone else laughed.

Dinner was now announced, and a hasty pairing-off ensued.

“Here, Mr. Delille,” said Mrs. Redman, who was rather afraid of him, “will you take down Miss Digby?”

The Frenchman set his heels together, and dropping his arms, made a bow—indicating the pliancy of his backbone; raising himself and his eyes, they encountered Madeline’s, whose lips were parted with a slight smile, for she was almost glad to see him. He started, and a sudden flash of delight and astonishment blazed out in his eyes. “Mais, mon Dieu J” he muttered; then checking himself, and assuming an aspect of profound gravity and respect, he rounded his right elhow, and with a murmured “permettez,” ceremoniously presented it.

“Come, Captain Featherwig,” said Mrs. John, “we will lead the way.” And they filed off: the hostess first, the host, with Mrs. Prothero last.

After the usual struggles the company were seated, and Madeline found herself next Mr. Downing, and opposite the O’Keefe. At first M. Delille contented himself with the most profound attention to the arrangement of Madeline’s dress, hut hardly spoke; while Mrs. Bedman—talking gaily all the while to the Hon. Captain, who started by helping himself to a glass of sherry—distributed the soup. (At the period of which we treat, “the dinner a la Basse ” had not permeated to the strata of Warwick Crescent.)

“So, Miss Digby,” exclaimed Mr. Downing, perceiving her for the first time, “I did not know I was to have the pleasure of meeting you to-day.”

“Nor I,” returned Madeline, giving him her hand; for she was glad to see him on his wife’s account. But I am very pleased. How is dear Jessie? She has not written to me for such an age! and I am longing to see the baby.”

“Jessie’s all right again. But I did not suppose so philosophic a lady as yourself would care about babies.”

“Didn’t you!” said Madeline, good-humouredly.

“Jessie came to town yesterday,” said Mr. Downing. “She is at her mother’s; but we have taken a house in this neighbourhood.”

“Indeed! I am very glad. Then you have left Stapleford?”

“Yes. I have joined this new concern. Your uncle is a director in it.”

“I believe I knew some of mademoiselle’s (mademoiselle or madame?),” began M. De-lille, with a look of eager curiosity.

“Mademoiselle,” replied Madeline, turning to him with a smile.

He bowed and brightened.

“I believe that I knew some of mademoiselle’s relations in Paris.”

He threw this out as a feeler, not knowing how far the matrimonial negotiations of his mother and Madame de Fontarce had been made known to the belle ange, whom cruel destiny had tom from him.

“I believe you did,” returned Madeline, much amused at the situation.

“Ah! then figure to yourself the pleasure it, will be to my good mother to hear your news!”

“Sherry or hock?” said a waiter.

“Merci,” said the temperate Frenchman; whereupon the waiter, thinking the choice left to himself, filled his glass with fiery sherry.

“Monsieur is very good,” returned Madeline, pleased to speak French once more.

“And small thanks to him,” shouted O’Keefe from the other side of the table, where the monosyllabic answers of Miss Comerford had terribly damped his efforts to be agreeable— “Small thanks to him, and he sittin’ where he is. Ah, ah! mon beau! you’re in as great luck as myself,” he continued, in French, which he spoke well, and with a droll look, which contradicted his words. In fact the great “O’ ” began to wish heartily he had pitched upon Madeline instead of his present companion.

She gave him a bright smile, and then Captain Featherwig asked him if he thought Madame Mocatta, the new soprano, and Lightly, of the Royal Opera, were likely to come to terms.

“Small chance at present,” cried O’Keefe.

“I was speakin’ to Lightly myself only yesterday morning, and he begged and implored me to go to madame, and bring her to reason. Why, says I, do you want me to sell myself to the devil? for you’ve just given me one of his tasks—like makin’ a rope out of sand, or emptying the ocean into a dust-hole. No, no! says I, I had a trial of her at Cigaretta la Mar.” This was the capital of the states of Fireandtow, S.A., where the O’Keefe had been a mysteriously political personage.

“What is it?” (this to a waiter who presented a dish.) “Stewed pigeons! No! they are all bones and gravy. What’s that coming round? Cutlets! I’ll wait, thank you.”

“Ah, mon cher! you know how to live in France. Your splendid talent for organization is seldom more usefully shown than in the little carte! It saves one from a miserable misapplication of storage room. But ”— returning to English, and addressing the Hon. Captain—“though she was no great shakes then, I never had such a mission! Ah! she is a woman of spirit. The President says to me: ‘ O’Keefe,’ says he--”

Here the captain broke in: “No chance of, an accommodation yet, then? I tell yon what, there’s an uncommon nice girl sings at the Canterbury. If old Lightly would take her up, Gad I she would take the town. She’s a soprano.”

“Cuppleston, you know, is one of the boldest fellows at the bar,” said Mr. Blyth, his loud and rather dictatorial tones drowning those of Featherwig. “He was stating a case before old Parleby, one of the most dignified of our judges. It was some matter in dispute about a brougham and an omnibus. In the course of his speech Cuppleston was mentioning the brougham. ‘Broom, Mr. Cuppleston,’ says his lordship; ‘that is the present received pronunciation.’ ‘ Very well, my lud,’ replied Cuppleston, ‘ I stand corrected.’ A few minutes after Parleby mentioned the omnibus. Up jumped Cuppleston. ‘ Beg pardon, my lud; ’bus—’bus is the generally received pronunciation at present.’ You may fancy the titter that ran through the court. Ha! ha! ha!”

“Dear me,” replied Mrs. Comerford, the immediate recipient of this anecdote. “I wonder he was not afraid to apeak so.”

“Eh, Urn l mademoiselle. You find this great city triste after our beautiful Paris?”

“Yes; yet I like the freedom of London. In Paris I never had the smallest liberty.”

“Ah! we know too well the value of our charming young ladies to trust them out of our sight!”

“A bad compliment after all,” said Madeline, laughing, and then half shrinking from the eager look of admiration that gleamed from the Frenchman’s eyes.

“Hock or champagne?”

“Hock,” returned Madeline.

“By Jove!” cried O’Keefe, “you are the first lady ever I heard refuse champagne! Eh, Blyth! though you don’t know as much about them as I do, I am thinking.”

“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Blyth, drily. “Nevertheless I admire Miss Digby’s taste.” Madeline felt a little surprised at his knowing her name.

“Digby,” repeated the O’Keefe; “sure, I know that name? May I be so bold as to ask if Wexford’s your county? or the county Kilkinny? There’s Digbys in both, and there isn’t a hoigher or older family in the country. There was Everard Digby, of Killycoolan; his mother and my grandmother were first cousins. Ah! it was he had the horses and hounds. He and mee fawther they went by the name of the Cocks of Killycoolan! There was no end to the divilment they were up to. And the fortunes they got through! The O’Keefes, of course, were the rale old Milesian stock; but the Diglpys were not far behind them. Well, ‘ God be with long ago! ’ Here’s your health, Miss Digby. I’m pretty sure you’re the granddaughter or great-granddaughter of old Everard Digby. Faith! you’ve an improved edition of the Digby nose!”

“Thank you,” said Madeline, laughing and colouring, as almost all eyes were attracted to her by this speech. “I have never been in Ireland, and I know nothing of my relations; but am very happy to claim you as a countryman.”

“Ah! there’s a touch of native music in your voice for all that,” cried the delighted O’Keefe. “I find mademoiselle is one of my near kindred,” he continued in French to M. Delille. “Never knew it till thisminit!” M. Delille was “aware of the fact that mademoiselle’s was a most distinguished family.” Mrs. Blyth, who had a great contempt for The O’Keefe, now put in : “But all Irish families are very distinguished, are they not, Mr. O’Keefe?”

“Yes, they are,” he returned, taking up the gauntlet boldly. “But there are degrees of distinction anyhow. We are distinguished for better things than mere filthy lucre.”

“And extinguished sometimes for want of it,” remarked Mr. Downing, who had hitherto been eating diligently and in silence.

“That was nate, sir,” returned O’Keefe, with grave approbation. “Faith, very nate. Wil take another glass of champagne after that, and so will this young lady. She has been looking at me imploringly this half hour.”

The indignant scorn depicted on Miss Comerford’s face is beyond my feeble pen to describe. Mrs. John laughed good humouredly, and said “Champagne to Mr. O’Keefe,” who, with a sort of confidential semi-wink to Madeline, quaffed a bumper with great satisfaction. She was infinitely amused by him; and though she had never before encountered an Irishman except Lord Templemore, she seemed instinctively to understand and appreciate him.

All this time Mr. Blyth had remained silent, but deeply attentive, his brows slightly knit, and his eyes fixed on Madeline.

M. Delille now devoted himself to do the amiable, and discoursed of the drama and Lamartine’s poetry, and sundry topics allow- able, as far as bis ideas went, for a demoiselle, all the time looking almost fiercely at her. She liked him, and yet shrunk from him. It was so pleasant to speak French again—to converse with a man so well-bred after the foreign fashion. He told her that he had accepted the position of engineer to the International and Colonial Ship-building Company, and would be often in London; that his mother was charmed, as she had so great an esteem for that British nation with whom France now entertained so warm a sympathy, &c. &c. This company was the great feature of the age; they intended to annihilate the “impossible.” “As for himself, he had a little plan to run an iron road, on an entirely new principle, across the great Sahara, and open commercial communications between Algeria and Timbuctoo.”

“But,” said Madeline, “I thought it was only a ship-building company? ”

“But why limit the application of iron?”

It was his idea and that of his excellent friend O’Keefe, that railways ought to be included in the objects of the company, &c. &c.

This conversation carried them through the course of ducklings, sweets, and cheese. Dessert was on the table, when the hum of general conversation was broken by loud vociferations addressed by the great O’Keefe to Mr. Prothero, who had mildly uttered disparagements of the I. 0. 8. Company, after the fashion of City men, who, in common with their fellow-creatures, love to contemn the projects of their neighbours.

“Shaky! my good sir; it’s adamantine in its firmness—adamantine, faith! The finest investment going if”—and he paused portentously — “narrow-minded and over-cautious individuals don’t spoil it by too limited a field of action.”

“Thank you, O’Keefe,” returned Mr. John, laughing. “I know who you mean.”

“You are a good fellow, Redman. No better. But to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you are wanting in that boldness of action which— Well! pass up the port! There’s no use in talking. What’s bred in the bone—eh, Miss Comerford? I know you’re of my way of thinking. But as I was saying, there’s no finer investment going. Sure, it was only yesterday, Palmerston said to me—(I got very intimate with him the time I had to settle that little affair, when the Fireandtowans robbed and murdered an English bark and her crew that went ashore near Cigaretta la Mar)—I met him at the comer of Piccadilly— says he, ‘ That’s a capital thing l see your name down in,’ says he. They knew what they were about when they put you in the direction. I wouldn’t mind having a few shares myself,’ says he, ‘ if it was not infra dig' ‘Don’t mind that, mee lord,’ says I; ‘ twenty per cent.’s a good salve.’ ‘ Don’t you tempt your elders,’ he says, laughing, and with that he hailed a cab. ‘I’m afraid I’D be late at the House,’ says he.”

“What a pity you did not ask your distinguished friend to accompany you here this evening?” sneered Mrs. Blyth. “I’m sure Mrs. Redman would have been happy to see him.” “So I did,” returned O’Keefe, gravely. “For I know our char-ming hostess is the soul of hospitality! But he said he knew the party, and he had enough fencing and cross-examination in the House, and didn’t want a second edition in society.”

After which counter-thrust the great O’Keefe favoured Madeline with another semi-wink, indicating the sympathy between them; and then Mrs. Redman, to prevent further sparring, gave the mysterious signal for the ladies’ departure.

The usual somnolent interval ensued. Mrs. Redman had a short, whispered conference on the hearth-rug with Mrs. Blyth, which ended in somewhat suppressed laughter, and then the latter betook herself to solitary reflection in a low, deep chair, and Mrs. Redman to do the attentive hostess to Mrs. Prothero and her sister-in-law, scraps of whose conversation occasionally met Madeline’s ear:—“Twelve pounds a year, with everything found. Pink roses in her bonnet, and a parasol on Sunday. Just pop him into a warm bath, and rub the spine with a piece of house-flannel.”

These disjointed morsels of wisdom and .experience, however, failing to interest her, Madeline drew near her cousin, and endeavoured to keep up a conversation—a more difficult undertaking than she anticipated. At last Miss Comerford vouchsafed to inquire if Madeline had been at a convent school, and on receiving an affirmative reply, further unlocked her bps to ask if the altar cloths in Paris were more used with single emblems, or embroidered all over. Madeline, a little amused, answered to the best of her ability, and a little languid talk ensued. The first tray of tea, however, had hardly gone round when Monsieur Delille made his appearance,

VOL. II. T somewhat to the surprise of the ladies. The hostess, however, confronted him—fan waving, bracelets jingling, with “nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles.” The Frenchman bowed low, and was most deferential; but Mrs. Redman found the difficulties of language too great to permit of her exercising her usual amount of fascination. M. Delille, therefore, was soon set at liberty, and stood for a while a little uncertain what to do, scarcely daring to join les demoiselles, until Madeline, pitying his forlorn position, looked at him with a smile, and he was instantly at her side, with an air of rapture which lit up, but did not soften, his harsh features.

“This young lady,” said Madeline, courteously, attempting to bring Miss Comerford into the conversation, “is anxious to know the prevailing taste in church ornaments in France. Perhaps you can inform her?”

“Eh! ma fois ” returned the Frenchman, laughing and shrugging his shoulders, “I am soldier; not priest. I cannot. I deeply regret it, but I can give no information. Mademoiselle is devout.”

Miss Comerford made no reply, except to bridle up: not that she was altogether indisposed towards the only available bachelor of the party, but it was more than her cold shyness would permit, to reply in downright French.

Mrs. Comerford observed the scene, and arose from the sofa, where Mrs. John had appointed her. “Why, Susan Jane, don’t you answer the gentleman? I’m sure you ought to be able. I thought you never spoke anything but French at school.”

“M. Delille speaks English. Do you not, monsieur?” asked Madeline, thinking to please all parties.

“But—yes, certainly,” returned the Frenchman.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Comerford, with cold dignity. “I imagine my daughter can make herself understood though she has not had the advantage of being brought up by a French countess.”

Here the elegant Featherwig slipped into the room. “Obliged to steal off; Mr. Redman so doosedly hospitable; expected to be floored, be gad! Yery sorry, Mrs. Redman, must run away early: promised my sister, Lady Malden, to look in at her little reception this evening. Who’s the girl in grey, Mrs. Redman? Uncommon well got up. A look of Templemore’s youngest daughter (the best-looking of them, not out yet) about her, eh?”

With much humiliation of spirit, Mrs. Redman confessed she did not know Lord Templemore’s daughters; but added, “I think my niece does.” Under these circumstances Madeline was her niece. “So sorry you are going, Captain Featherwig.”

“Going!” shouted The O’Keefe, who now entered with the rest of the gentlemen. “You’re a pretty kind of a sailor to run away from the ladies as well as the bottle.”

“Run! No, no! Not run, tear myself away, and that sort of thing.” So the Hon. Captain slipped out, with a whispered word to Mrs. Blyth, which appearance of intimacy rather “riled” her hostess.

Mr. Blyth now approached Madeline, coffee-cup in hand, and as he looked down upon her it suddenly flashed into her memory where and how she had seen him before—even in poor Kit’s Gravesend lodging, where he had lorded it over their penury, and treated Madeline as the ruler of some casual ward might the perishing applicant for temporary relief. She was not sure that he recognised her, so she kept silent and quiet till he addressed her; and after a few remarks, complimented her on her command of the French language. “I thought you had been at school at Clapham?

“I was originally, but afterwards at Paris?” “Indeed. How long is it since you were at Clapham?”

“Ob! quite four years.”

“And you used often to come over to your grandmamma’s?”

“No, not very often,” said Madeline, wondering at the drift of this conversation.

“But you had holidays sometimes, when grandma’ used to come for you, and drive you back in the carriage?”

“No, indeed,” said Madeline, laughing, “I generally travelled in a much more plebeian fashion by the omnibus.”

“Still you were glad of the journey, I daresay,” he continued, with paternal benevolence.

“I was indeed. And well remember my first holiday and the joy of every incident; though an omnibus in July is not the most agreeable mode of conveyance.”

“Hum! ah! July was it?” said Mr. Blyth, and fell into deep thought—so deep that the approach of O’Keefe did not disturb him.

“Don’t be wasting your time on that case-hardened old lawyer,” he said, “but delight the company with a song. I’ll engage ye sing like an angel, or a thrush, which is much the same—havn’t they both wings—and here is your old friend M. Delille just dyin’ to regale his ears.”

“My old friend!” said Madeline, laughing; “I never had the pleasure of speaking to M. Delille before.”

“Well, I’d take long odds it’s not the last time you’ll have that pleasure,” returned O’Keefe, with a look so significant that it called the indignant colour to Madeline’s cheek and brow; then, remembering the uselessness of anger against so elastic a personage, she smiled.

“Come, now, I am sure you’ll give us ‘ The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls.’ ”

“Yes, Madeline,” said Mrs. Redman, sailing up at that moment, “do give us a song.”

ButMrs.Redman’s dinner party has stretched into undue proportions. Suffice it to say, that Madeline’s was a complete triumph. The O’Keefe declared her patriotic fire would raise all Ireland from the sleep of ages; while M. Delille protested that of all foreigners hers was the only “timbre de wise” he had ever heard that would do justice to the charming “romans” of his country. Miss Comerford played a piece by Thalberg, and a march by something “ski;” but no one listened, and Mr. Comerford began to suspect the cost of his daughter’s education was money irretrievably lost. The most remarkable incident of the evening, however, was the introduction of Mrs. Blyth by her husband to Madeline, and the offer of a set-down in their carriage, which was gratifyingly accepted, while The O’Keefe and M. Delille attended her, bare-headed, to the carriage.

“Well!” cried Mrs. John, when the last guest had departed, as she threw herself into an easy chair. “Well, I never! Now, you mind what I say, John; there’s something I can’t make out about that niece of yours; but if she does not do well yet, I have no more faith in beginnings. That Frenchman is gone. O’Keefe just made an idiot of himself—that’s nothing new; but Mr. and Mrs. Blyth, to take her home in their own carriage, I declare to goodness I never!”

END OF VOL. II.