Mr. l'Estrange returned them without comment; and a silence followed, which was unbroken until Colonel Trevelyan's loud and rather harsh voice reached them. "Geraldine, Mrs. Ferrars is come to say good-night-and the fire is out -and Vaux is asleep. Such a run of ill-luck too as I have had—but some day, Miss Alice, you'll give me my revenge." He was, as I have said, in unwonted good-humor, and he put his hand on Geraldine's head and smoothed her hair, as he added: 66 Tired, my little woman, I think. "There are some lines written about her, if you would care to see themthe housekeeper gave them to me, hav--Has she done cicerone well, L'Esing found them in an old cabinet in trange? She ought by this time to the oriel room; they are curious from know every picture by heart; for she being more than a hundred years old; spends all the days she can't go out in but I should not care to have them walking up and down here looking at written of any one I love, they are so them. I believe she likes them better full of malice, even when they praise, than I do, although I have lived with and I can't bear the allusion to the them all my life." curse; it seems so dreadful to wish ill to Geraldine shook hands warmly with a child ;" and Mrs. Trevelyan shuddered. | Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars and Alice, and The young artist took the paper from her hand, and read with some difficulty these lines-wretched as to rhythm and poetry, but with something weird and sorrowful exceedingly in their hidden meaning: "Scion of a haughty race, Well I know thy matchless face was following them to find the wraps, which had been brought into the drawing-room, for the night was a chilly one, when Colonel Trevelyan put his arm round her, and said : "Go to bed now, there's a good child; you look tired, and Mrs. Ferrars will excuse you.-She is still rather of an invalid, this little wife of mine." They looked well as they stood thus together, their beauty such a contrast, and in both so great. It had really a very artistic effect, but the artist had not waited to see it. Geraldine put out her hand to wish him NOT INVULNERABLE. good-night, after she had taken a second leave of the Ferrarses, but he was gone. And now my readers will have discovered that it would have been wiser for him to have taken his departure altogether. He had over-estimated his strength, and had believed himself invulnerable, when really he was very much the reverse. He could not bear to see the handsome colonel's hand resting upon those slight shoulders, or smoothing the waving tresses; the air of patronage and good-natured superiority in the husband to the wife galled him. He was a good man-a man very proud, very sensitive, very tender; and such men are always chivalrous to women. He had not outlived, or for himself destroyed-as so many, alas! do-the belief in a true pure woman. He believed Geraldine to be this; and had he won her for his wife, she would have been revered as well as beloved. He could not have made a plaything of her; and his affection, though it might have been read in eye and lip and voice, would have been deep as well as true-respectfully tender, as I think all men's love should be, when bestowed on a worthy object. The man of whom I write had such a large heart, such a capacity for loving, and for loving purely and nobly, that the more I saw of him the more I regretted that he and Geraldine should not have cast in their lot together, and fought life's battle side by side. But then, for one man who marries his ideal, "his queen -as some one has 43 so enchantingly written *-how many there are who go through life either unwedded, or married to those who suit them about as little as it would suit a thorough-bred horse to draw a wagon, or as Italian villas suit our cold and ungenial climate! My own opinion is, that if men like Arthur l'Estrange cannot marry the right person, they had better not marry at all. The chances are, that they don't; their extra-sensitiveness, and the depth and tenacity of purpose and feeling which belong to these characters, unfit them for roughing it in the world. They love often not wisely, but always too well; and the halo which surrounds the beloved object is too sacred a thing to be lightly displaced. They do not, either, often love unworthily or beneath them-their great insight into character and quick receptive powers prevent that. They have an instinct of goodness, which is almost heaven-born; and though mere physical beauty may allure them for a time, it will never wholly captivate, unless it be allied to that beauty of "I will not dream of her, tall and statelyShe that I love may be fairy light; I will not say she must walk sedatelyWhatever she does will be sure to be right. She may be humble or proud, my lady, Or that sweet calm that is just between; But whenever she comes, she will find me ready To do her homage-my queen, my queen! "But she must be courteous, she must be holy, Pure in her spirit, this maiden I love: Whether her birth be noble or lowly, I care no more than the spirits above. But I'll give my heart to my lady's keeping, character, that heart-goodness, which | be intuitive in the child. She early is so beautifully described in the Prov-planted practical religious lessons in erbs of Solomon: "Who can find a his heart; and as he grew up, she virtuous woman? for her price is far admitted him to some of the secrets of above rubies. The heart of her hus- her own chastened and lonely life, and band doth safely trust in her. She also to the only comfort which such will do him good, and not evil, all the | lives can know. days of her life." If sorrow has been well borne, it has taught deeper and holier lessons than any philosophy can teach, and to each soul it speaks a language that soul can best understand. Arthur felt that his mother had suffered, and he loved her the more for it; but the atmosphere of his home had always Yes, it would have been wiser and better for Arthur l'Estrange to have gone. "Discretion" is certainly "the better part of valor" in these cases. Nevertheless, reader, he lingered on, meaning no harm. So, many of us do not mean any harm; yet harm comes, alas, so easily-harm so irremediable been made sunny by her right-mindthat nothing can ever put it right-edness and affection. He began very nothing ever give back the peace so easily destroyed. Thoughts of evil were far from these two. He was a good man, a remarkably good man, when you take into account all the temptations which assail a man of the world. He had worked hard all his life, and in that lies great safety. He had a good mother, and a judicious one. She had idolized him, but had idolized him wisely, and developed, according to her fine feminine instincts and her sweet mother's love, the rare and gifted nature of her son. She had encouraged his enthusiasm, and respected his poetic nature, though it was foreign to her own. She did not understand it, but she had done what only a woman can-she had believed in it. Her own life had been one long trust in and love to God. Disciplined when still young by a great sorrow, she had acquired much self-control; but she did not expect or wish that what only time and experience can teach should early to reverence and appreciate a good woman. He ran the gantlet of his school-life and his foreign travels, protected still by the happy influences of his pure home. Then came long and hard study. He grew absorbed in art, and, much as I like him, I cannot say that he avoided all the malpractices of artists. He did not respect Sunday as he had done when a boy; often he did not even go to church once on that holy day. If he was in the country, he would do so ; but in London he too often invited friends, who spent the day in his studio, smoking, and discussing pictures. Thus the mornings slipped rapidly away; the afternoons and evenings were generally devoted to long walks, which those who lead sedentary lives so much require. I am not going to tell you that he was immaculate; but the grosser sins which mar so many men's lives had few, if any, attractions for him. It is the third day of Arthur l'Es- | help her, and to long to do so; to feel that the least demonstrative sympathy is better than none at all, and that to have one person in the world who can understand and appreciate her saves a woman from herself and from the isolated life which a loveless marriage must more or less entail upon her—he treads on dangerous ground. trange's visit, and, as I said before, it is quite time he went. He and his hostess meet seldom, and converse less; but he certainly does not find his host improve on a nearer acquaintance, and he is learning to listen, all too eagerly, to the soft tones of the voice which should have been so young, and yet has lost its ring-to watch, all too narrowly, the changing color and fleeting smiles of the sweet, no longer unclouded face; and her bright flashes of wit and wisdom are too dear to him. The other men listen, and are amused; for Geraldine's great charm is in her originality; and though she is so shy, her fun breaks bounds at times, and makes her expansive and bewitching. To Arthur l'Estrange her society is becoming dangerously dear. Her every word interests him only too much, and he feels now that she is one of those women whose beauty is her least attraction, and that under happier auspices she might ripen into a character full of steadfast purpose, high resolve, and holy endeavor. I do not say she was by any means faultless. Though apparently so gentle, she resented unkindness or injustice very keenly, and her timidity, if encouraged, might lead her to the verge of cowardice, and if vanquished, except from the highest motives, into great errors. He knows she will have struggles and difficulties with herself; he sees that her surroundings are all against her; and that she has no one to guide her, no one she can turn to. When a man begins to take this interest in a woman-to think that he can CHAPTER XII. "A creature not too bright or good IT all came about in this wise: Arthur l'Estrange had made up his mind, while he was dressing, that this third day of his stay should also be his last at Trevelyan. He promised to shoot in the afternoon, but would leave before dinner. He was late in coming down, and the whole party were assembled at breakfast when he entered. His host looked moody, the guests rather constrained, and Geraldine had tears in her eyes when she shook hands with him. Probably no one else saw them; but he was getting too much accustomed to study that April face not to perceive immediately that something had disturbed its serenity. He inquired after the baby, and Geraldine gently answered that he was quite well; then she rallied, and resumed a gay and laughing discussion with Lord Devereux, who, always kind and courteous with women, was particularly so to his girlish hostess. "You have no right to call me a radical because I should like to see the poor better off. I fear all cannot would be just the thing, would she share alike; but still I see that we not, Mr. l'Estrange?" Geraldine anhave too much, and they have too lit-swered, eagerly. tle." "I entirely agree with you there, and it is a great pity that more ladies in your position do not see things in the same light. You can help your poorer neighbors much better than we clumsy men can. You give them sympathy, as well as more substantial comfort; and, depend upon it, the poor care for that, whatever morose people may say to the contrary." "And yet several of my friends tell me that private charity in London is doing a great deal of harm-that it destroys self-reliance and the proper feeling of independence and self-respect which every Englishman is supposed to have, or should have." "It must be done upon a system, and not be only spasmodic; also, it should not expect too much; and, above all, let it begin in the right direction. To help beggars in the streets is positively immoral; but the hard-working, respectable poor have often a fearful struggle for bare existence, especially in towns; and I look upon it as the duty of those who are more fortunate than themselves to befriend them. I would not recommend any one so young as you are to go about among them; it would not answer, and you would run the risk of perpetual imposition; but if you happen to know of any respectable person who would visit for you, I think you would be doing a wise and a kind action to employ her." It seemed so natural to appeal to him, and yet she blushed painfully when she recollected those sittings in the studio. Sir Charles Vaux, who had appeared quite engrossed by some páté de foie gras in which he was indulging, and had hardly spoken since he began an elaborate breakfast, here broke in : "I think the poor are a great bore, and we hear far too much of them nowadays." Geraldine's happy, ringing laugh interrupted him, and he stopped with his mouth full to stare at her; for he had meant what he said in sober earnest, and had no idea how ridiculous he looked, with an array of plates before him which had held almost every comestible you can eat in the morning, from mutton-chops to devilled kidneys; and, as he gravely began upon his last course of hot buttered rolls and marmalade, Lord Devereux said: "Now, what would you have done, Vaux, had it pleased Providence that you should be poor, as it has that pious William should be successful?" "I am sure I don't know," the baronet languidly answered, glancing meanwhile at his faultless get-up and at the lily of the valley which adorned his button-hole, and put the finishing touch to the perfection of his huntingattire. "Not that I am rich. It's all very well for you and Mrs. Trevelyan, with your rent-rolls and your landed estates, to talk of charity and of re"O, Miss Osborn, my old governess, dressing the wrongs of the poor; but |