would she not reap the whirlwind ?—perhaps very quickly.

I will not linger on this part of my story. I give no details which could only gratify a morbid curiosity, suffice it to say that she went—that Vivian Gower was her companion-that the fugitives were sought and pursued in vain-and that three weeks afterwards came a letter from London, signed Elizabeth Gower. They had been married that day, by banns, in one of the City churches, from the house of a certain Mrs. Cradoc, "a special friend of Vivian's!"

room.

For days Lady Ashburner's life was despaired of; and Agnes was so ill that for a week she never left her The wintering at Nice had now become a matter of necessity, and we only waited till our invalids had regained some measure of strength before we set off on our long-deferred journey to the South; and on a dreary November day, when the wind was whistling eerily among the leafless trees, and gloom was over all the sky, and the clouds were lying heavily on the high chalk downs, we bade farewell to Forest Range, and the last familiar face we saw on English shores was Sally's; and till the keen sea-wind drove us to the cabins below, we stood and watched the pennon-like movement of the brown ribbons of her bonnet, and the fluttering of her brown skirt. We never saw Sally Hawkes again.

AND all this while, from the day we parted in London till we steamed off from the busy southern pier in the cold grey November noon, we saw nothing and heard little more of Cyril Denham. But I must cease these chronicles of the Ashburner family, which, save so far as they influenced the fortunes of Cyril, have no place in this history. That luckless young man still remained an inmate of Mrs. Matthews' select boardinghouse, where alas! he was no longer popular; since, in his character as an engaged man, he had ceased to be interesting to Adeline and Angey; the latter, good little soul, still saw to his buttons, and had an eye to his advantage when the daily bill of fare was propounded; but pink flounces and hair crêpé were at a discount, and the drawing-room resounded no more at eventide with the familiar strains of "Deh Conte" and "Ever of thee!"

But Laura played her Lieds, and her slow movements, and continued to interpret Mendelssohn as divinely as ever; and she still dressed with extraordinary taste, in spite of all Miss Grundison said about her being an undertaker's daughter, which was certainly a scandal, not on the distinguished-looking Mr. Somerset himself, but on the respectable tradesman whom he was supposed to represent. Well, yes, she was right after all; Laura's papa was an undertaker, though not in the regular acceptation of the term, for he never undertook funerals, furnishing weepers and mourning-coaches; he was heard to say that he had a decided aversion to corpses, as so very unpleasant, and uncomfortably

suggestive objects. But he would undertake anything to his advantage, utterly regardless of the advantages of other people, and it was whispered about that sometimes he undertook very strange things indeed, and thereby hazarded his reputation, and plunged himself into the hottest of hot water. But he paid his way, and Mrs. Matthews' little bills were regularly settled, so that that excellent matron smiled upon him, and at the same time told her husband, in a moment of confidence, that "sharp was the word, and she should take good care my gentleman never, never ran behindhand; he had been punctual so far, but it was early days as yet, and she never knew who was who satisfactorily, till she had lodged and boarded them a twelvemonth and a day"-which remark no doubt evinced the prudent sagacity of Mrs. Matthews' character. But though Laura wore the richest of black silks, and the simplest of white tulle bonnets, and though her hands were, unlike poor Angey's, delicately sleek and white, and though she looked "beautiful exceedingly," after a while Cyril ceased to admire her statuesque loveliness and her queenly grace. It gave him no more pleasure to gaze on her classic features, than on Adeline's decided nez retroussé and high cheek-bones; and her rich glossy braids of raven hair sweeping her delicately tinted cheek ravished his soul no longer. She had given him a lock, it is true, but he would have cared quite as much for one of Angey's stiff flaming tresses, and infinitely more for the tiniest ringlet shorn from Agnes Craven's head; nay, he would have cherished more fondly a little bit of Sally Hawkes' soft brown, grey besprinkled curls. But Laura's lock was enshrined in a locket, and she had, in exchange for her own silken jet, a wavelet of Cyril's golden brown, which she wore in a similar receptacle, fastened to her watchchain; and she had a bad habit of falling in love with pretty and sometimes costly things, as she passed by the shop-windows in Oxford Street and Regent Street, and saying, coaxingly-"O Cyril, dear, you must buy me that. I shall treasure it for your sake." Of

course Cyril, thus appealed to, could do nothing less than draw forth his purse, and buy the article in question, whether it was one of De la Rue's cheap cardcases, or "a love of a gold bracelet exquisitely enamelled." And Cyril spent his money recklessly enough, never thinking of a rainy day, when sovereigns and even half-crowns might be no longer plentiful.

He was intensely miserable; the chain that he had forged for himself galled him heavily, and yet it seemed impossible that he could ever cast it from him; escape from the condemned cell in Newgate could scarcely be a more forlorn hope than any vision he might entertain of escape from his engagement, which had been ratified scores of times, in the presence of divers witnesses, which was always being ratified it seemed to the unhappy man, always being forced upon the attention of every one with whom the Somersets came in contact. And oh, the patronage of Mr. Somerset, his affectionate familiarity, his stories of high life, chiefly abroad, which Cyril knew were lies; his affectation of good family, and above all, his pathetic reminiscences of the home of his youth, of his bridal days, and of the departure of his sainted Isabel-" his dark-eyed, beauteous Isabel, the mother of his child."

But his words had a hollow chink; his emotion was admirably well acted, but still only acted, Cyril was sure; nay, he could see emotion "done" far more thrillingly any night at Drury Lane, or any of the best theatres; and while he listened to the rounded periods, and observed the nearly perfect gestures of his intended father-in-law, he rejoiced to think that no Act of Parliament could compel him after marriage to associate with that gentleman. No; Mr. Somerset was almost, but not quite perfect in his part, and there was the rub; no doubt he fully endorsed the wisdom and profundity of the maxim, "ars est celare artem," but unfortunately he could not reduce it to practice, so that he was not half so successful in making an impression as he flattered himself really was the case.

Twice already had "my dear boy" been requested to lend a couple of sovereigns till a visit to the bank could be effected, and once "dear Denham, my lad" -how "dear Denham" did wince to be sure, as he bent his haughty neck to the collar!-was invited to accommodate his papa-in-law elect with a five-pound note. "Just till Friday, you know, Papa," said Laura, folding her white arms round Papa's coatcollar and diamond studs; "you receive those dividends on Friday, do you not?"

And Papa answered, "Surely, my dear, I never forget business, and that mortgage money is due on the same day. A capital investment, mortgages; if you had had your money safe in mortgages now, Denham, you would be the master of Monkswood

now."

An allusion Cyril could have dispensed with, but Laura said gently, "Ah, Papa, if Cyril had remained lord of his ancestral home, he and I had never met. I cannot regret anything that has given him to me." And leaving Papa, she crossed to what might be called "metal more attractive;" and Cyril felt her slender fingers wandering caressingly through his bright rippling hair. Of course he ought to have taken the other hand captive, and carried it to his lips, but he did nothing of the sort, and felt almost inclined to resent the girl's familiarity; and yet "the girl" had a right-he was to be her husband; all the world knew that; surely there was nothing unmaidenly in her action. Elizabeth had done the same thing before now to his supreme satisfaction, and his relations to Laura were still closer than any which had existed between himself and Miss Ashburner; closer, as the world counts such relations, for this was a definite, loudly proclaimed engagement, whereas the other was only "an understanding," on which was set the seal of secrecy. No; he could not in his heart blame Laura; but he did wish she would let him alone: her bland sweetness wearied him, and then a feeling that she was always on her guard