--

and sent no one disconsolate away if it was possible to help it. After a moment's hesitation, he gave orders for the admission of this young man. 'If he does not do for that, he may be good for something else," was what John Brownlow said; for it was one of his crotchets, that to help men to work was better than almsgiving. The young man in question had nothing very remarkable in his appearance. He had a frank, straightforward, simple sort of air, which partly, perhaps, arose from the great defect in his face the projection of the upper jaw, which was well garnished with large white teeth. He had, however, merry eyes, of the kind that smile without knowing it whenever they accost another countenance; but his other features were all homely-expressive, but not remarkable. He came in modestly, but he was not afraid; and he stood respectfully and listened to Mr. Brownlow, but there was no servility in his attitude. He had come about the clerk's place, and he was quite ready to give an account of himself. His father had been a non-commissioned officer, but was dead; and his mother wanted his help badly enough.

here?"

actual trade; and it had occurred to him that
at one point there was a weakness in his armour.
One of his investments had not been so skilful
or so prudent as the rest, and it looked as if it
might call for further and further outlay before
it could be made profitable, if indeed it were
ever made profitable. When he got to the
office, Mr. Brownlow, like a prudent man,
looked into the papers connected with this
affair, and took pains to understand exactly
how he stood, and what further claims might be
made upon him. And while he was doing this,
certain questions of date arose which set clearly
before him, what he had for the moment forgot
ten, that the time of his responsibility to Phoebe
Thomson was very nearly over, and that in a
year no claim could be made against him for
Mrs. Thomson's fifty thousand, pounds. The
mere realization of this fact gave him a certain
thrill of uncertainty and agitation. He had not
troubled himself about it for years, and during
that time he had felt perfectly safe and comfort-
able in his possessions; but to look upon it in
actual black and white, and to see how near he
was to complete freedom, gave him a sudden
sense of his present risk, such as he had never "But you are strangers in Masterton," said
felt before. To repay the fifty thousand pounds Mr. Brownlow, attracted by his frank looks.
would have been no such difficult matter, for" Had you any special inducement to come
Mrs. Thomson's money had been lucky money,
and had, as we have said, doubled and trebled
itself; but there was interest for five-and-twenty
years to be reckoned; and there was no telling
what other claims the heir, if an heir should yet
turn up, might bring against the old woman's
executor. Mr. Brownlow felt for one sharp
moment as if Sara's splendour and her happi-
ness was at the power of some unknown vaga-
bond who might make a sudden claim any
moment when he was unprepared upon the in-
heritance which for all these years had appeared
to him as his own. It was a sort of danger
which could not be guarded against, but rather,
indeed, ought to be invited; though it would be
hard- no doubt it would be hard, after all this
interval- to give up the fortune which he had
accepted with reluctance, and which had cost
him, as he felt, a hundred times more trouble
than it had ever given him pleasure. Now that
he had begun to get a little good out of it, to
think of some stealthy vagrant coming in and
calling suddenly for his rights, and laying claim
perhaps to all the increase which Mr. Brown-
low's careful management had made of the
original, was an irritating idea. He tried to
put it away, and perhaps he might have been
successful in banishing it from his mind, but for
another circumstance that fixed it there, and
gave, as it seemed, consistency and force to the
thought.

The height of the day was over, and the sun was veering towards that point of the compass from which its rays shone in at John Brownlow's windows, when he was asked if he would see a young man who came about the junior clerk's place. Mr. Brownlow had very nearly made up his mind as to who should fill this junior clerk's place: but he was kind-hearted,

"Nothing of any importance," said the youth, and he coloured a little. "The fact is, sir, my mother came of richer people than we are now, and they cast her off; and some of them once lived in Masterton. She came to see if she could hear anything of her friends."

"And did she?" said John Brownlow, feeling his breath come a little quick.

They are all dead long ago," said the young man. "We have all been born in Canada, and we never heard what had happened. •Her moth — I mean her friends, are all dead, I suppose; and Masterton is just as good as any other place to make a beginning in. I should not be afraid if I could get anything to do."

"Clerk's salaries are very small," said Mr. Brownlow, without knowing what it was he said.

"Yes, but they improve," said his visitor, cheerfully; "and I don't mind what I do. I could make up books or do anything at night, or even have pupils I have done that before. But I beg your pardon for troubling you with all this. If the place is filled upNay, stop- sit down -you interest me," said Mr. Bronwlow. "I like a young fellow who is not easily cast down. Your mother-belongs -to Masterton, I suppose," he added, with a little hesitation; he, that gave way to no man in Dartfordshire for courage and coolness, he was afraid. He confessed it to himself, and felt all the shame of the new sensation, but it had possession of him all the same.

"She belongs to the Isle of Man," said the young man, with his frank straightforward look and the smile in his eyes. He answered quite simply and point-blank, having no thought that there was any second meaning in his words;

but it was otherwise with him who heard. It is not a dear place, and if your mother has John Brownlow sat silent, utterly confounded. friends". He stared at the young stranger in a blank way, not knowing how to answer or how to conceal or account for the tremendous impression which these simple words made on him. He sat and stared, and his lower lip fell a little, and his eyes grew fixed, so that the youth was terrified, and did not know what to make of it. Of course he seized upon the usual resource of the disconcerted- I beg your pardon," he said, "but I am afraid you are ill."

T

reflection and the fresh evening air, and Sara's headache and company, ended by almost curing Mr. Brownlow before he reached home.

CHAPTER IV.A LITTLE DINNER.

rooms were agreeable and full of pleasant asso-disturbed in the present, and eager with the
ciations; but Sara- Then John Brownlow eagerness of a boy for the future. It did not
gave another wide glance over his social firm- even occur to him that ghosts would arise in
ament, asking himself if there was any one that future even more difficult to exorcise. All
whom, between this time and that, Sara's heart his desire in the mean time was — if only this
might perhaps incline to, whom she might year were over!-if only anyhow a leap could
marry, and solve the difficulty. A few days be made through this one interval of danger.
before he used to dread and avoid the idea of And the sharp and sudden pain he had come
her marriage. Now all this rushed upon him through gave him at the same time a sense of
in a moment, with the violent impulse of his lassitude and exhaustion. Thus Sara's head-
awakened fears. By-and-by, however, he came ache and her fatigue and fanciful little indispo-
to himself. A woman might be a soldier's sitions were very lucky accidents for her father.
wife, and might come from the Isle of Man, They gave him an excuse for the deeper com-
and might have had friends in Masterton who punctious tenderness with which he longed to
were dead, without being Phoebe Thomson. make up to her for a possible loss, and occupied
Perhaps if he had been bold, and listened to the both of them. and hid his disturbed air, and
name which was on his young visitor's lips, it gave him a little stimulus of pleasure when she
might have reassured him, and settled the ques-mended and resumed her natural chatter. Thus
tion; but he had been afraid to do it. At this
early stage of his deliberations he had not a
moment's doubt as to what he would do-
what he must do - at once and without delay,
if Phoebe Thomson really presented herself
before him. But it was not his business to seek
her out. And who could say that this was she?
The Isle of Man, after all, was not so small a THERE was a very pleasant party that even-
place, and any one who had come to Mastertoning at Brownlows-the sort of thing of which
to ask after old Mrs. Thomson would have people say, that it is not a party at all, you
been referred at once to her executor. This know, only ourselves and the Hardcastles, or
conviction came slowly upon Mr. Brownlow's whoever else it may happen to be. There was
mind as he got over the first wild thrill of fear. the clergyman of the parish, of course-who
He put his terror away from him gradually and is always, if he happens to be at all agreeable,
slowly. When a thought has burst upon the the very man for such little friendly dinners;
mind at once, and taken possession of it at a and there was his daughter; for he was a wid-
stroke, it is seldom dislodged in the same com- ower, like Mr. Brownlow and his Fanny was
plete way. It may cease to be a conviction, half as much to him, to say the least, as Sara
but it never ceases to be an impression. To was to her admiring father. And there was
this state, by degrees, his panic subsided. He just one guest besides - young Keppel to wit,
no longer thought it certain that young Powys the son of old Keppel of Ridley, and brother
was Phoebe Thomson's representative; but of the present Mr. Keppel a young fellow
only that such a thing was possible that he who was not just precisely what is called eligible
had something tangible to guard against and so far as the young ladies were concerned, but
watch over. In place of his quiet every-day who did very well for all secondary purposes,
life, with all its comforts, an exciting future, and was a barrister with hopes of briefs, and a
a sudden whirl of possibilities opened before flying connection with literature, which helped
him. But in one year all this would be him to keep bis affairs in order, and was rather
over. One year would see him, would see of service to him than otherwise in society, as
his children, safe in the fortune they had it sometimes is to a perfectly well-connected
grown used to, and come to feel their own. young man. Thus there were two girls and
Only one year! There are moments when two young men, and two seniors to keep each
men are fain to clog the wheels of time and other company; and there was a great deal of
retard its progress; but there are also moments talk and very pleasant intercouse, enough to
when, to set the great clock forward arbitrarily justify the Rector in his enthusiastic utterance
and to hasten the measured beating of that of his favourite sentiment, that this was true
ceaseless leisurely pendulum, is the desire that society, and that he did not know what people
goes nearest the heart. Thus it came to appear meant by giving dinners at which there were
to Mr. Brownlow as if it was now a kind of race more than six. Mr. Hardcastle occasionally, it
between time and fate; for as yet it had not is true, expressed under other circumstances
occurred to him to think of abstract justice nor opinions which might be supposed a little at
of natural rights higher than those of any legal variance with this one; but then a man cannot
testament. He was thinking only of the letter, always be in the same mind, and no doubt he
of the stipulated year. He was thinking if that was quite sincere in what he said. He was a
time were past that he would feel himself his sort of man that exists, but is not produced
own master. And this sentiment grew and nowadays. He was neither High Church nor
settled in his mind as he sat alone, and waited Low Church, so to speak. If you had offered
for Sara's carriage for his child, whom in all to confess your sins to him he would have re-
this matter he thought of the most. He was garded you with as much terror and alarm as

if you had presented a pistol at his head; and if you had attempted to confess your virtues under the form of spiritual experience, he would have turned from you with disgust. Neither was he in the least freethinking, but a most correct orthodox clergyman, a kind of man, as I have said, not much produced in these times. Besides this indefinite clerical character he had a character of his own, which was not at all indefinite. He was a little red-faced, and sometimes almost jovial in his gaiety, and at the same time he was in possession of a large stock of personal griefs and losses, which had cost him many true tears and heartaches, poor man, but which were very useful to him in the way of his profession. And he had an easy way of turning from the one phase of life to the other, which had a curious effect sometimes upon impartial spectators. But all the same it was perfectly true and genuine. He made himself very agreeable that night at Brownlows, and was full of jest and frolic; but if he had been called to see somebody in trouble as he went home, he would have gone in and drawn forth from his own private stores of past pain, and manifested plainly to the present sufferer that he himself had suffered more bitterly still. He had come through" all the pangs that a man can suffer in this world. He had lost his wife and his children, till nothing was left to him but this one little Fanny and he loved to open his closed-up chambers to your eyes, and to meet your pitiful looks and faltering attempt at consolation; and yet at the same time you would find him very jolly in the evening at Mr. Brownlow's, which hurt the feelings of some sensitive people. His daughter, little Fanny, was pretty and nice, and nothing particular, which suited her position and prospects perfectly well. These were the two principal guests, young Keppel being only a man, as ladies who are in the habit of giving dinners are wont to describe such floating members of the community. And they all talked and made themselves pleasant, and it was as pretty and as lively a little party as you could well have seen. Quantities of flowers and lights, two very pretty girls, and two good-looking young men, were enough, to guarantee its being a very pretty scene; and nobody was afraid of anybody, and everybody could talk, and did so, which answered for the latter part of the description. Such little parties were very frequent at Brownlows.

After dinner the two girls had a little talk by themselves. They came floating into the drawing-room with those heaps of white drapery about them which make up for anything that may be intrinsically unamiable in crinoline. Before they went up-stairs, making it ready for them, a noble fire, all red, clear, and glowing,

If there is anything; most of us think there is not. If the unthinking male creatures who abuse it only knew the comfort of it! and what a weariness. It saves us! and as for the people who are burnt, it is not because of their crinolines, but because of losing their heads-a calamity to which in all kinds of dresses we are constantly liable.

was in the room, and made it glorious; and the pretty things which glittered and reddened and softened in the bright warm atmosphere were countless.

There was a bouquet of violets on the table, which was Mr. Pitt the gardener's daily quitrent to Sara for all the honours and emoluments of his situation, so that every kind of ethereal sense was satisfied. Fanny Hardcastle dropped into a very low chair at one side of the fire, where she sat like a swan with her head and throat rising out of the white billowy waves which covered yards of space round about her. Sara, who was at home, drew a stool in front of the fire, and sat down there, heaping up in her turn snow-wreaths upon the rosy hearth. A sudden spark might have swallowed them both in fiery destruction. But the spark happily did not come; and they had their talk in great comfort and content. They touched upon a great many topics, skimming over them, and paying very little heed to logical sequences. And at last they stumbled into metaphysics, and had a curious little dive into the subject of love and love-making, as was not unnatural. It is to be regretted, however, that neither of these young women had very exalted ideas on this point. They were both girls of their period, who recognised the necessity of marriage, and that it was something likely to befall both of them, but had no exaggerated notions of its importance; and, indeed, so far from being utterly absorbed in the anticipation of it, were both far from clear whether they believed in such a thing as love.

"I don't think one could ever be so silly as they say in books," said Fanny Hardcastle, "unless one was a great fool-feeling as if everything was changed, you know, as soon as he was out of the room, and feeling one's heart beat when he was coming, and all that stuff; I don't believe it, Sara; do you?"

"I don't know," said Sara, making a screen of her pretty laced handkerchief to protect her one has never seen the right sort of man. face from the fire-light; "perhaps it is because only man I have ever seen whom one could really love is papa.'

"

The

Papa!" echoed Fanny, faintly, and with surprise. Perhaps, after all, she had a lingering faith in ordinary delusions; at all events, there was nothing heroic connected in her mind

with papas in general; and she could but sit still and gaze and wonder what next the spoiled child would say.

"I wonder if mamma was very fond of him," said Sara, meditatively. "She ought to have been, but I daresay she never knew him half as well as I do. That is the dreadful thing. You have to marry them before you know."

"Oh, Sara, don't you believe in love at first sight? said Fanny, forgetting her previously expressed sentiments. "I do."

with a little impatient motion. "I don't think Sara threw up her drooping head into the air I believe anything about it," she said.

"And yet there was once somebody that was

fond of you," said little Fanny, breathlessly. I thrown off his balance by the semi-intimacy and
"Poor Harry Mansfield, who was so nice
everybody knows about that—and, I do think,
Mr. Keppel, if you would not be so saucy to
him-