aloud by turns, while Mrs Andrews knitted and Clare idled over a piece of embroidery, in which she had lost all pleasure since Mr Smith had condemned both its design and execution, but which she would not abandon.

One morning when they were so occupied, Mr Stanner, who did not often form a member of the party, came into the room, the county paper in his hand, evidently under some excitement.

"Old fools certainly are worse fools than young fools," he said. "There is that old fool, Lord -" mentioning a neighbouring nobleman, "has married a balletgirl-a pretty child of nineteenhe being eighty, if a day. Did you ever hear of anything more scandalous, more disgraceful?"

"Than her conduct? The little mercenary wretch! No, certainly!" answered Mr Smith, promptly, before any one else could speak. Mr Smith was peculiarly out of humour to-day; perhaps he had some secret cause for exasperation.

"Than his conduct, sir, I mean," Mr Stanner replied, almost fiercely. "Bringing disgrace, distress, contention into a noble family!

66

Rather selfish conduct certainly, at his age; he might have got through his few remaining years without the new toy: but others have done likewise, others will do likewise; no use to make a noise about it. The girl was what the world calls virtuous, of course, or he would not have needed to marry her. But it is, I hold, the girl whose conduct is really to be condemned-selling her youth and her beauty to an old

"Perhaps, poor thing, she had great temptations," said Mrs Andrews-" to lift her family out of poverty, ennoble herself, and

Clare had not dared to speak. “Ennoble herself!"" scoffed Mr Smith; then seeing that gentle little Mrs Andrews, to whom he was always comparatively gentle, looked frightened at his vehemence, and remembering that she was not his

"Perhaps then, sir, I am no gentleman.' Mr Smith's smile, as he added, " Indeed I often think that, with all my brain-culture, I remain as much a boor at heart as was my father before me," reassured Mr Stanner, who, at his first words, had a sudden and dreadful vision, in which figured seconds, and duelling-pistols, and his own corpse lying in a certain little glade of the near forest, where, if tradition spoke true, other such sights had been seen before.

"When Lady, the ci-devante ballet-girl, is a widow, it will be shown that many gentlemen are not of Mr Smith's way of thinking

she will have many suitors," Mr Stanner remarked.

"Mean curs, whom it would give me the greatest satisfaction to horsewhip. By the by, Allan, in an article in that magazine you have in your hand, I saw an astounding statement. Give it me a moment, that I may read the passage. Here it is: It might be rash to marry a woman for her beauty and accomplishments, if she and her intended husband were both entirely without means; but a man would indeed be a wretched cur who preferred an ugly and vulgar woman with £30,000, to an accomplished and beautiful woman who had but £5000' (so far so good, but observe this saving clause; evidently the writer felt alarmed at his own rash position, at his enthusiastic unworldliness), 'supposing his own

prospects to be reasonably good.' I do think this the very sublime of bathos."

It certainly seems so much so that I should charitably suppose some misprint or misconception of the writer's meaning," said Allan. "The thing implied, of course, being that a man whose prospects are not 'reasonably good' is not to be condemned as a 'wretched cur' if he takes the ugly and vulgar possessor of £30,000 instead of the beautiful and accomplished, but povertystricken, woman who has only £5000. Of course, if a man worships Mammon and worldly success, if the writer recognises these as the true gods who are to be served, there is nothing so monstrous in this "

by so doing?" Mr Stanner smiled blandly, thinking those questions very neatly put, and quite unanswerable.

"If the peeress loved the peasant, certainly, yes. Why not? What is a peeress but a woman, a peasant but a man? and is not any man in some way superior to any woman? So I say, that if the peeress could love the peasant purely and truly, she would be ennobled by so loving. Love is a woman's only power and only glory. An unloving woman is an incomplete, most poor, and quite unharmonised creature-miserable in all senses."

Mr Smith's eyes were on Clare's face as he finished-she felt them burning there hers had been cast down; she had shrunk from speaking, feeling most unsafe even when silent, and as if a word might draw down upon her some intolerable avalanche. When he ended, she felt compelled to raise her eyes to his; he was startled at their expression. A new somewhat-a want, a despair-had wakened within her. It was dumb and blind. She was unconscious of it as yet; but it lent a new meaning to her face-gave it something of pathos he had not seen in it before.

Nobody answered Mr Smith: Mr Stanner contented himself with a shrug and a look across at Mrs Andrews, meant to express his fear that the poor fellow was not quite

sane.

The longer the warfare lasted, the weaker grew one of the combatants; till at last it was little but silence and meekness with which Clare met the attacks of her adversary, while towards others she became more and more irritable, daily capable of less self-control.

One morning she grieved Allan by a rebuff more than usually harsh, for which her heart reproached her as soon as she had given it; his crime having been that he had

asked her to ride alone with him, Mr Smith professing that business would keep him in the house. Allan was gone-Clare sat alone in the library, occupied by bitter thoughts, when Mr Smith came into the room. Clare's heart sank when she saw him seat himself at the table by which she sat.

"You have letters to write, I heard you say. You would like to write here; I will not disturb you."

She pushed the inkstand and blotting-book towards him and rose. Pushing them from him, he said, "I did not come here to write letters; I came here because I wished to speak to you."

my

Clare was forced to remain; as she sat down again, she sighed involuntarily, as with a premonition of weariness to come.

"You already think me savagebrutal," Mr Smith began. "I am going to be even more so than usual, if plain speaking implies those amiable qualities. I warn you, therefore, to gather together all your forces, Miss Watermeyr."

"Indeed, I have none this morning. I am tired from our long ride yesterday-not well; I have a headache."

"You are dropping the Amazon's and taking to the woman's weapons, I see. If you will be as plain in your answer as I in my question, I shall not trouble you many moments. How long do you mean to play with Allan as a cat plays with a mouse? When will you make an end of your sport and his misery?"

"What right--" poor Clare began, but words failed her. Lashing himself into fiercer indignation with each word, Mr Smith delivered a tirade, mostly of abuse of womankind, and of praise, that knew no measure or stint, of Allan. It was better, he ended by saying, that a thousand women should weep their souls out-if, indeed, women had souls, which he was inclined to doubt than that one tear should be wrung from such a heart as Allan's.

When he had finished, and looked at the beautiful woman before him-saw how she was moved and shaken-even Mr Smith felt that perhaps he had said too much.

When Clare spoke, the words were the involuntary expression of thought.

"What is it in Allan that makes you love him so well?" Again that pathos of want and of despair looking out from Clare's face.

"I love him because--" The look he had met had somewhat disturbed Mr Smith-he spoke less vehemently, at first almost with hesitation. "I love him because he is worthy of love-generous, just, gentle, firm-because I have tried him and found him true: I love him because I have served him, and because, by being what he is, he has rendered me incalculable service."

"I wish I were dead and forgotten," said Clare. "If I were dead and forgotten, then this idol of yours might be happy. It is all bitterness and weariness-I wish I were dead and forgotten. For once you can wish as I wish. I could rest if I were dead and forgottenif you had ceased to hate me and Allan to love me, I could rest. But," she added, after a pause, “if Allan is all you say, why cannot I love him?"

"Because you are not worthy of him-not worthy to love him. Allan's wife will not resemble you!"

She felt humbled to the dust by his contempt.

"What, then, am I?" she asked, with a sort of horror of the being who excited such scorn.

"The most pitiable thing in creation, perhaps, if it were not for the mischief of which your kind are capable-a selfish, proud, heartless woman."

"You are cruel and unjust," Clare began, trembling like an aspen as she spoke, so that her words seemed rather shaken out than uttered. "You know nothing of me, for from the first your eyes have been darkened by hateful prejudice. I am not heartless-I feel that I could love; and if I loved, I would rejoice to lose myself in what I loved-to have my pride trampled out of me. But how can I love Allan in this way— Allan, who is always at my feet, and has no will but mine? If I am a tyrant, he makes me one if he were more manly, I could be more womanly."

"You could perhaps more easily (for instance) love me for hating you than Allan for loving you."

"Sir! this is too much! you go too far in injury and insult! Clare spoke those few words after a wild struggle; then, hiding her face in her hands, burst into an irrepressible passion of tears.

Who was vanquished now?

Mr Smith found himself in an embarrassing position-perhaps he had never caused a woman to cry before he made a hasty movement towards Clare, then he turned away to the window. He was ready to apologise, to humble himself, to do anything to stop that passionate weeping; but while he looked out on the terrace, and pondered what he could say or do, he heard the room door close: he looked round -Clare was gone.

Mr Smith appeared to have a great deal to think about; as he thought, the expression of his face changed continually; once or twice

a deep red flush crossed his brow. He certainly wrote no letters that morning, though he sat pen in hand and paper before him for some hours.

Clare was not visible again that day. The headache of the morning was much worse by dinnertime; she was suffering very acutely, Mrs Andrews said, and seemed feverish. "If she is not better before night, I shall send for the doctor. It is a great drawback to living so far from a town that one is so far from good medical aid. Clare cannot endure our village practitioner."

"Is Miss Watermeyr subject to attacks similar to this?" Mr Smith asked.

"She used to be; but they were generally brought on by agitation and excitement of a painful kindsuch as, poor child," Mrs Andrews added, turning to Allan, "she used to have far too much of in her father's lifetime."

Clare was ill for a few days--not dangerously or seriously; but when she came down-stairs again, everybody thought her wonderfully altered in so short a time-pale and thin, and altogether subdued in look and manner. During her illness, Allan did not find much consolation in Mr Smith's society. Mr Smith was moody and bitter beyond his wont-tormented by a perpetual restlessness, which drove him out night and day.

"Allan!" he broke forth one morning, "when are you going to end this?-to have your fate decided?"

"Under all the circumstances, it would be most ungenerous to press matters, though, of course, the suspense is hard to bear. I believe that a struggle is going on in poor Clare's mind, between her old affection for me and her natural rebellion against the cruel and injurious way in which her father tried to

for long is intolerable and impossible to me. I must go back to work soon."

"Let it be an indefinite and receding soon, then." Had Mr Smith satisfied his conscience by this light skirmish on the borders of confession? If so, it was easily satisfied. It was on the afternoon of this same day that Mr Smith came upon Clare unexpectedly, where she sat with a book on her knee, on one of the curiously-contrived garden-seats, in the profound shade of the yew tree walk her face, as he saw it in profile against the dark background, looked very white and meek.

"Perhaps if I free my conscience by making an honourable apology, I shall be more at ease," thought Mr Smith, as he approached Clare. Concluding that she was weak and nervous still, he begged her pardon for having startled her when he saw that she trembled.

"I am not on hostile but on penitential thoughts intent," he said. "Last time we spoke together I"

Say nothing about that, if you please. Do not let us refer to the past."

"You cannot forgive me then?" "Oh yes, if I have anything to forgive❞—and she held out her hand.

"If you have anything to forgive!-you have not only forgiven, but forgotten, then," he said, with a grave smile that was almost sweet, as he clasped the offered hand.

"Forgotten!" she repeated, with a vivid blush. "I have had so much to think of-I am perplexed, driven about I want counsel-I want help to do what is right. You could give it me if you would will you? No one else can; they are all blinded by their preconceived ideas of what is for my good. May I ask your advice?"

She looked up at him; let her hand for a moment-white and light as a snow-flake-touch his sleeve.

"Do not try my endurance too far," he said, in a hoarse, hurried

way.

"Oh, no. I am trying, like you, to think only of Allan's good and happiness."

He looked at her sharply; but in her face, agitated and intent, he could see no sign of irony; and, indeed, why should he have sought for any?

"People always think seriously when they are ill, I suppose, according to the old proverb," she smiled a twilight sort of smile. "I have been thinking seriously about my life-what the good of it is-how I can make it of any good to anybody. I feel now that I can never be happy, but I should like to make some one else happy. If I try with all my heart-give all my life to it-do you think I could make Allan happy?"

66

'Why does she feel she can never be happy?" mused Mr Smith.

66

By marrying and not loving him?" he asked, aloud.

"By marrying and re-learning to love him. I did love him, dearly. Why should I not again? Will it be safe for him that I should try? Can I make him happy? You seemed to think I could not; but then you were angry with me, and not quite just. Do you say the same now?"

It is as hard to some men to speak the truth, when truth and self-interest have but one voice, as to others to speak truth when truth speaks with one voice, self-interest with another.

"Miss Watermeyr, some demonyour evil genius or mine-has led you to me for counsel. There is only one way in which I can answer you,-by showing you how fit an adviser you have chosen. I warned you not to try my endurance too far. I am not a man of iron or stone"-he possessed himself of her hand, and looked right into her eyes his hand and his glance seemed to scorch her; she shrank from them inwardly, the more that he seemed to be in passionate earnest; not taunting and mocking her, as she could almost have believed sooner than believe that he loved