Guy Deverell, v. 1 of 2

Containing a Variety of Things.

"Guy Deverell left no issue," said Dives.

"No; none in the world; neither chick nor child. I need not care a brass farthing about any that can't inherit, if there were any; but there isn't one; there's no real danger, you see. In fact, there can't be any—eh? I don't see it. Do you? You were a sharp fellow always, Dives. Can you see anything threatening in it?"

"It! What?" said the Rev. Dives Marlowe. "I see nothing—nothing whatever—absolutely nothing. Surely you can't fancy that a mere resemblance, however strong, where there can't possibly be identity, and the fact that the young man's name is Guy, will make a case for alarm!"

"Guy Strangways, you know," said Sir Jekyl.

"Well, what of Strangways? I don't see."

"Why, Strangways, you remember, or don't remember, was the name of the fellow that was always with—with—that cross-grained muff."

"With Guy Deverell, you mean?"

"Ay, with him that night, and constantly, and abroad I think at those German gaming-places where he played so much."

"I forgot the name. I remember hearing there was a person in your company that unlucky night; but you never heard more of him?"

"No, of course; for he owed me a precious lot of money;" and from habit he chuckled, but with something of a frown. "He could have given me a lot of trouble, but so could I him. My lawyers said he could not seriously affect me, but he might have annoyed me; and I did not care about the money, so I did not follow him; and, as the lawyers say, we turned our backs on one another."

"Strangways," murmured the Rector, musingly.

"Do you remember him now?" asked Sir Jekyl.

"No; that is, I'm not sure. I was in orders then though, and could hardly have met him. I am sure I should recollect him if I had. What was he like?"

"A nasty-looking Scotch dog, with freckles—starved and tall—a hungry hound—large hands and feet—as ugly a looking cur as you ever beheld."

"But Deverell, poor fellow, was a bit of a dandy—wasn't he? How did he come to choose such a companion?"

"Well, maybe he was not quite as bad as he describes, and his family was good, I believe; but there must have been something more, he hung about him so. Yes, he was a most objectionable-looking fellow—so awkward, and not particularly well dressed; but a canny rascal, and knew what he was about. I could not make out what use Deverell made of him, nor exactly what advantage he made of Deverell."

"I can't for the life of me, see, Jekyl, anything in it except a resemblance, and that is positively nothing, and a Christian name, that is all, and Guy is no such uncommon one. As for Strangways, he does not enter into it at all—a mere accidental association. Where is that Strangways—is he living?"

"I don't know now; ten years ago he was, and Pelter and Crowe thought he was going to do me some mischief, a prosecution or something, they thought, to extort money; but I knew they were wrong. I had a reason—at least it was unlikely, because I rather think he had repaid me that money about then. A year or so before a large sum of money was lodged to my account by Herbert Strangways, that was his name, at the International Bank in Lombard Street; in fact it was more than I thought he owed me—interest, I suppose, and that sort of thing. I put Pelter and Crowe in his track, but they could make out nothing. The bank people could not help us. Unluckily I was away at the time and the lodgment was two months old when I heard of it. There were several raw Scotch-looking rascals, they said, making lodgments about then, and they could not tell exactly what sort of fellow made this. I wanted to make out about him. What do you think of it?"

"I don't see anything suspicious in it. He owed you the money and chose to pay."

"He was protected by the Statute of Limitations, my lawyer said, and I could not have recovered it. Doesn't it look odd?"

"Those Scotch fellows."

"He's not Scotch, though."

"Well, whatever he is, if he has good blood he's proud, perhaps, and would rather pay what he owes than not."

"Well, of course, a fellow's glad of the money; but I did not like it; it looked as if he wanted to get rid of the only pull I had on him, and was going to take steps to annoy me, you see."

"That's ten years ago?"

"Yes."

"Well, considering how short life is, I think he'd have moved before now if he had ever thought of it. It is a quarter of a century since poor Deverell's time. It's a good while, you know, and the longer you wait in matters of that kind the less your chance;" and with a brisk decision the Rector added, "I'll stake, I think, all I'm worth, these people have no more connection with poor Deverell than Napoleon Bonaparte, and that Strangways has no more notion of moving any matter connected with that unhappy business than he has of leading an Irish rebellion."

"I'm glad you take that view—I know it's the sound one. I knew you would. I think it's just a little flicker of gout. If I had taken Vichy on my way back I'd never have thought of it. I've no one to talk to. It's a comfort to see you, Dives. I wish you'd come oftener." And he placed his hand very kindly on his brother's shoulder.

"So I will," said Dives, not without kindness in his eyes, though his mouth was forbidding still. "You must not let chimeras take hold of you. I'm very glad I was here."

"Did you remark that fat, mountainous French fellow, in that cursed suit of black, was very inquisitive about the green chamber?" asked Sir Jekyl, relapsing a little.

"No, I did not hear him mention it; what was it?" asked Dives.

"Well, not a great deal; only he seemed to want to know all about that particular room and its history, just as if there was already something in his head about it."

"Well, I told you, Jekyl," said Dives, in a subdued tone and looking away a little, "you ought to do something decisive about that room, all things considered. If it were mine, I can tell you, I should pull it down—not, of course, in such a way as to make people talk and ask questions, but as a sort of improvement. I'd make a conservatory, or something; you want a conservatory, and the building is positively injured by it. It is not the same architecture. You might put something there twice as good. At all events I'd get rid of it."

"So I will—I intend—I think you're right—I really do. But it was brought about by little Beatrix talking about haunted rooms, you know, and that sort of nonsense," said Sir Jekyl.

"Oh! then she mentioned it? He only asked questions about what she told him. Surely you're not going to vex yourself about that?"

Sir Jekyl looked at him and laughed, but not quite comfortably.

"Well, I told you, you know, I do believe it's great; and whatever it is, I know, Dives, you've done me a great deal of good. Come, now, I've a horse I think you'll like, and you shall have him; try him to-day, and I'll send him home for you if he suits you."

While the groom was putting up the horse, Sir Jekyl, who was quick and accurate of eye, recognised the dark-faced, intelligent little valet, whom he had seen for a moment, candle in hand, at the dressing-room door, last night, to receive his guests.

With a deferential smile, and shrug, and bow, all at once, this little gentleman lifted his cap with one hand, removing his German pipe with the other.

He had been a courier—clever, active, gay—a man who might be trusted with money, papers, diamonds. Beside his native French, he spoke English very well, and a little German. He could keep accounts, and write a neat little foreign hand with florid capitals. He could mend his own clothes, and even his shoes. He could play the flute a little, and very much the fiddle. He was curious, and liked to know what was taking place. He liked a joke and the dance, and was prone to the tender passion, and liked, in an honest way, a little bit of intrigue, or even espionage. Such a man he was as I could fancy in a light company of that marvellous army of Italy, of which Napoleon I. always spoke with respect and delight.

In the stable-yard, as I have said, the Baronet found this dark sprite smoking a German pipe; and salutations having been exchanged, he bid him try instead two of his famous cigars, which he presented, and then he questioned him on tobacco, and on his family, the theatres, the railways, the hotels; and finally Sir Jekyl said,

"I wish you could recollect a man like yourself—I want one confoundedly. I shall be going abroad in August next year, and I'd give him five thousand francs a year, or more even, with pleasure, and keep him probably as long as he liked to stay with me. Try if you can remember such a fellow. Turn it over in your mind—do you see? and I don't care how soon he comes into my service."

The man lifted his cap again, and bowed even lower, as he undertook to "turn it over in his mind;" and though he smiled a great deal, it was plain his thoughts were already seriously employed in turning the subject over, as requested by the Baronet.

Next morning M. Varbarriere took a quiet opportunity, in the hall, of handing to his host two letters of introduction, as they are called—one from the Baronet's old friend, Charteris, attached to the embassy at Paris—a shrewd fellow, a man of the world, amphibious, both French and English, and equally at home on either soil—speaking unmistakably in high terms of M. Varbarriere as of a gentleman very much respected in very high quarters. The other was equally handsome. But Charteris was exactly the man whose letter in such a case was to be relied upon.

The Baronet glanced over these, and said he was very glad to hear from his friend Charteris—the date was not a week since—but laughed at the formality, regretting that he had not a note from Charteris to present in return, and then gracefully quoted an old French distich, the sentiment of which is that "chivalry proclaims itself, and the gentleman is no more to be mistaken than the rose," and proceeded to ask his guest, "How is Charteris—he had hurt his wrist when I saw him last—and is there any truth in the report about his possible alliance with that rich widow?" and so forth.

When Sir Jekyl got into his sanctum I am afraid he read both letters with a very microscopic scrutiny, and he resolved inwardly to write a very sifting note to Charteris, and put it upon him, as an act of friendship, to make out every detail of the past life and adventures of M. Varbarriere, and particularly whether he had any young kinsman, nephew or otherwise, answering a certain description, all the items of which he had by rote.

But writing of letters is to some people a very decided bore. The Baronet detested it, and his anxieties upon these points being intermittent, the interrogatories were not so soon despatched to his friend Charteris.

Old General Lennox was away for London this morning; and his host took a seat beside him in the brougham that was to convey him to the station, and was dropped on the way at the keeper's lodge, when he bid a kind and courteous adieu to his guest, whom he charged to return safe and soon, and kissed his hand, and waved it after the florid smiling countenance and bushy white eyebrows that were protruded from the carriage-window as it glided away.

"You can manage it all in a day or two, can't you?" said the Baronet, cordially, as he held the General's wrinkled hand, with its knobby and pink joints, in his genial grasp. "We positively won't give you more than three days' leave. Capital shooting when you come back. I'm going to talk it over with the keeper here—that is, if you come back before we've shot them all."

"Oh! yes, hang it, you must leave a bird or two for me," laughed the General, and he bawled the conclusion of the joke as the vehicle drove away; but Sir Jekyl lost it.

Sir Jekyl was all the happier for his morning's talk with his brother. An anxiety, if only avowed and discussed, is so immensely lightened; but Dives had scouted the whole thing so peremptorily that the Baronet was positively grateful. Dives was a wise and clear-headed fellow. It was delightful his taking so decided a view. And was it not on reflection manifestly, even to him, the sound view?

The Magician Draws a Diagram.

The Baronet approached Marlowe Manor on the side at which the stables and out-offices lie, leaving which to his left, he took his way by the path through the wood which leads to the terrace-walk that runs parallel to the side of the old house on which the green chamber lies.

On this side the lofty timber approaches the walks closely, and the green enclosure is but a darkened strip and very solitary. Here, when Sir Jekyl emerged, he saw M. Varbarriere standing on the grass, and gazing upward in absorbed contemplation of the building, which on the previous evening seemed to have excited his curiosity so unaccountably.

He did not hear the Baronet's approaching step on the grass. Sir Jekyl felt both alarmed and angry; for although it was but natural that his guest should have visited the spot and examined the building, it yet seemed to him, for the moment, like the act of a spy.

"Disappointed, I'm afraid," said he. "I told you that addition was the least worth looking at of all the parts of this otherwise ancient house."

He spoke with a sort of sharpness that seemed quite uncalled for; but it was unnoticed.

M. Varbarriere bowed low and graciously.

"I am much interested—every front of this curious and handsome house interests me. This indeed, as you say, is a good deal spoiled by that Italian incongruity—still it is charming—the contrast is as beautiful frequently as the harmony—and I am perplexed."

"Some of my friends tell me it spoils the house so much I ought to pull it down, and I have a great mind to do so. Have you seen the lake? I should be happy to show it to you if you will permit me."

The Baronet, as he spoke, was, from time to time, slyly searching the solemn and profound face of the stranger; but could find there no clue to the spirit of his investigation. There was no shrinking—no embarrassment—no consciousness. He might as well have looked on the awful surface of the sea, in the expectation of discovering there the secrets of its depths.

M. Varbarriere, with a profusion of gratitude, regretted that he could not just then visit the lake, as he had several letters to write; and so he and his host parted smiling at the hall-door; and the Baronet, as he pursued his way, felt some stirrings of that mental dyspepsia which had troubled him of late.

"The old fellow had not been in the house two hours," such was his train of thought, "when he was on the subject of that green chamber, in the parlour and in the drawing-room—again and again recurring to it; and here he was just now, alone, absorbed, and gazing up at its windows, as if he could think of nothing else!"

Sir Jekyl felt provoked, and almost as if he would like a crisis; and half regretted that he had not asked him—"Pray can I give you any information; is there anything you particularly want to know about that room? question me as you please, you shall see the room—you shall sleep in it if you like, so soon as it is vacant. Pray declare yourself, and say what you want."

But second thoughts are said to be best, if not always wisest; and this brief rehearing of the case against his repose ended in a "dismiss," as before. It was so natural, and indeed inevitable, that he should himself inspect the original of those views which he had examined the night before with interest, considering that, being a man who cared not for the gun or the fishing-rod, and plainly without sympathies with either georgics or bucolics, he had not many other ways of amusing himself in these country quarters.

M. Varbarriere, in the meantime, had entered his chamber. I suppose he was amused, for so soon as he closed the door he smiled with a meditative sneer. It was not a fiendish one, not even moderately wicked; but a sneer is in the countenance what irony is in the voice, and never pleasant.

If the Baronet had seen the expression of M. Varbarriere's countenance as he sat down in his easy-chair, he would probably have been much disquieted—perhaps not without reason.

M. Varbarriere was known in his own neighbourhood as a dark and inflexible man, but with these reservations kind; just in his dealings, bold in enterprise, and charitable, but not on impulse, with a due economy of resource, and a careful measurement of desert; on the whole, a man to be respected and a little feared, but a useful citizen.

Instead of writing letters as, of course, he had intended, M. Varbarriere amused himself by making a careful little sketch on a leaf of his pocket-book. It seemed hardly worth all the pains he bestowed upon it; for, after all, it was but a parallelogram with a projecting segment of a circle at one end, and a smaller one at the side, and he noted his diagram with figures, and pondered over it with a thoughtful countenance, and made, after a while, a little cross at one end of it, and then fell a-whistling thoughtfully, and nodded once or twice, as a thought struck him; and then he marked another cross at one of its sides, and reflected in like manner over this, and as he thought, fiddling with his pencil at the foot of the page, he scribbled the word "hypothesis." Then he put up his pocket-book, and stood listlessly with his hands in the pockets of his vast black trowsers, looking from the window, and whistled a little more, the air hurrying sometimes, and sometimes dragging a good deal, so as to come at times to an actual standstill.

On turning the corner of the mansion Sir Jekyl found himself on a sudden in the midst of the ladies of his party, just descending from the carriages which had driven them round the lake. He was of that gay and gallant temperament, as the reader is aware, which is fired with an instantaneous inspiration at sight of this sort of plumage and flutter.

"What a fortunate fellow am I!" exclaimed Sir Jekyl, forgetting in a moment everything but the sunshine, the gay voices, and the pretty sight before him. "I had laid myself out for a solitary walk, and lo! I'm in the midst of a paradise of graces, nymphs, and what not!"

"We have had such a charming drive round the lake," said gay little Mrs. Maberly.

"The lake never looked so well before, I'm sure. So stocked, at least, with fresh-water sirens and mermaids. Never did mirror reflect so much beauty. An instinct, you see, drew me this way. I assure you I was on my way to the lake; one of those enamoured sprites who sing us tidings in such tiny voices, we can't distinguish them from our own fancies, warbled a word in my ear, only a little too late, I suppose."

The Baronet was reciting his admiring nonsense to pretty Mrs. Maberly, but his eye from time to time wandered to Lady Jane, and rested for a moment on that haughty beauty, who, with downcast languid eyes, one would have thought neither heard nor saw him.

This gallant Baronet was so well understood that every lady expected to hear that kind of tender flattery whenever he addressed himself to the fair sex. It was quite inevitable, and simply organic and constitutional as blackbird's whistle and kitten's play, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I am sure, meant absolutely nothing.

"But those sprites always come with a particular message; don't they?" said old Miss Blunket, smiling archly from the corners of her fierce eyes. "Don't you think so, Mr. Linnett?"

"You are getting quite above me," answered that sprightly gentleman, who was growing just a little tired of Miss Blunket's attentions. "I suppose it's spiritualism. I know nothing about it. What do you say, Lady Jane?"

"I think it very heathen," said Lady Jane, tired, I suppose, of the subject.

"I like to be heathen, now and then," said Sir Jekyl, in a lower key; he was by this time beside Lady Jane. "I'd have been a most pious Pagan. As it is, I can't help worshipping in the Pantheon, and trying sometimes even to make a proselyte."

"Oh! you wicked creature!" cried little Mrs. Maberly. "I assure you, Lady Jane, his conversation is quite frightful."

Lady Jane glanced a sweet, rather languid, sidelong smile at the little lady.

"You'll not get Lady Jane to believe all that mischief of me, Mrs. Maberly. I appeal for my character to the General."

"But he's hundreds of miles away, and can't hear you," laughed little Mrs. Maberly, who really meant nothing satirical.

"I forgot; but he'll be back to-morrow or next day," replied Sir Jekyl, with rather a dry chuckle, "and in the meantime I must do without one, I suppose. Here we are, Mr. Strangways, all talking nonsense, the pleasantest occupation on earth. Do come and help us."

This was addressed to Guy Strangways, who with his brother angler, Captain Doocey, in the picturesque negligence and black wide-awakes of fishermen, with baskets and rods, approached.

"Only too glad to be permitted to contribute," said the young man, smiling, and raising his hat.

"And pray permit me, also," said courtly old Doocey. "I could talk it, I assure you, before he was born. I've graduated in the best schools, and was a doctor of nonsense before he could speak even a word of sense."

"Not a bad specimen to begin with. Leave your rods and baskets there; some one will bring them in. Now we are so large a party, you must come and look at my grapes. I am told my black Hamburgs are the finest in the world."

So, chatting and laughing, and some in other moods, toward those splendid graperies they moved, from which, as Sir Jekyl used to calculate, he had the privilege of eating black Hamburg and other grapes at about the rate of one shilling each.

"A grapery—how delightful!" cried little Mrs. Maberly.

"I quite agree with you," exclaimed Miss Blunket, who effervesced with a girlish enthusiasm upon even the most difficult subjects. "It is not the grapes, though they are so pretty, and a—bacchanalian—no, I don't mean that—why do you laugh at me so?—but the atmosphere. Don't you love it? it is so like Lisbon—at least what I fancy it, for I never was there; but at home, I bring my book there, and enjoy it so. I call it mock Portugal."

"It has helped to dry her," whispered Linnett so loud in Doocey's ear as to make that courteous old dandy very uneasy.

It was odd that Sir Jekyl showed no sort of discomfort at sight of Guy Strangways on his sudden appearance; a thrill he felt indeed whenever he unexpectedly beheld that handsome and rather singular-looking young man—a most unpleasant sensation—but although he moved about him like a resurrection of the past, and an omen of his fate, he yet grew in a sort of way accustomed to this haunting enigma, and could laugh and talk apparently quite carelessly in his presence. I have been told of men, the victims of a spectral illusion, who could move about a saloon, and smile, and talk, and listen, with their awful tormentor gliding always about them and spying out all their ways.

Just about this hour the clumsy old carriage of Lady Alice Redcliffe stood at her hall-door steps, in the small square courtyard of Wardlock Manor, and the florid iron gates stood wide open, resting on their piers. The coachman's purple visage looked loweringly round; the footman, with his staff of office in hand, leaning on the door-post, gazed with a peevish listlessness through the open gateway across the road; the near horse had begun to hang his head, and his off-companion had pawed a considerable hole in Lady Alice's nattily-kept gravel enclosure. From these signs one might have reasonably conjectured that these honest retainers, brute and human, had been kept waiting for their mistress somewhat longer than usual.

Another Guest Prepares to Come.

Lady Alice was at that moment in her bonnet and ample black velvet cloak and ermines, and the rest of her travelling costume, seated in her stately parlour, which, like most parlours of tolerably old mansions in that part of the country, is wainscoted in very black oak. In her own way Lady Alice evinced at least as much impatience as her dependants out of doors; she tapped with her foot monotonously upon her carpet; she opened and shut her black shining leather bag, and plucked at and rearranged its contents; she tattooed with her pale prolix fingers on the table; sometimes she sniffed a little; sometimes she muttered. As often as she fancied a sound, she raised her chin imperiously, and with a supercilious fixity, stared at the door until expectation had again expired in disappointment, when she would pluck out her watch, and glancing disdainfully upon it, exclaim—

"Upon my life!" or, "Very pretty behaviour!"

At last, however, the sound of a vehicle—a "fly" it was—unmistakably made itself heard at the hall-door, and her ladyship, with a preparatory shake of her head, as a pugnacious animal shakes its ears, and a "hem," and a severe and pallid countenance, sat up, very high and stiffly, in her chair.

The door opened, and the splendid footman inquired whether her ladyship would please to see Mrs. Gwynn.

"Show her in," said Lady Alice with a high look and an awful quietude.

And our old friend, Donica, just as thin, pallid, and, in her own way, self-possessed, entered the room.

"Well, Donica Gwynn, you've come at last! you have kept my horses standing at the door—a thing I never do myself—for three-quarters of an hour and four minutes!"

Donica Gwynn was sorry; but she could not help it. She explained how the delay had occurred, and, though respectful, her explanation was curt and dry in proportion to the sharpness and dryness of her reception.

"Sit down, Donica," said the lady, relenting loftily. "How do you do?"

"Pretty well, I thank your ladyship; and I hope I see you well, my lady."

"As well as I can ever be, Donica, and that is but poorly. I'm going, you know, to Marlowe."

"I'm rayther glad on it, my lady."

"And I wish to know why?" said Lady Alice.

"I wrote the why and the wherefore, my lady, in my letter," answered the ex-house-keeper, looking askance on the table, and closing her thin lips tightly when she had spoken.

"Your letter, my good Donica, it is next to impossible to read, and quite impossible to understand. What I want to know distinctly is, why you have urged me so vehemently to go to Marlowe."

"Well, my lady, I thought I said pretty plain it was about my Lady Jane, the pretty creature you had on visits here, and liked so well, poor thing; an' it seemed to me she's like to be in danger where she is. I can't explain how exactly; but General Lennox is gone up to London, and I think, my lady, you ought to get her out of that unlucky room, where he has put her; and, at all events, to keep as near to her as you can yourself, at all times."

"I've listened to you, Donica, and I can't comprehend you. I see you are hinting at something; but unless you are explicit, I don't see that I can be of any earthly use."

"You can, my lady—that is, you may, if you only do as I say—I can't explain it more, nor I won't," said Donica, peremptorily, perhaps bitterly.

"There can be no good reason, Donica, for reserve upon a point of so much moment as you describe this to be. Wherever reserve exists there is mystery, and wherever mystery—guilt."

So said Lady Alice, who was gifted with a spirit of inquiry which was impatient of disappointment.

"Guilt, indeed!" repeated Gwynn, in an under-key, with a toss of her head and a very white face; "there's secrets enough in the world, and no guilt along of 'em."

"What room is it you speak of—the green chamber, is not it?"

"Yes, sure, my lady."

"I think you are all crazed about ghosts and devils over there," exclaimed Lady Alice.

"Not much of ghosts, but devils, maybe," muttered Gwynn, oddly, looking sidelong over the floor.

"It is that room, you say," repeated Lady Alice.

"Yes, my lady, the green chamber."

"Well, what about it—come, woman, did not you sleep for years in that room?"

"Ay, my lady, a good while."

"And what did you see there?"

"A deal."

"What, I say?"

"Well, supposin' I was to say devils," replied Donica.

Lady Alice sneered.

"What did poor Lady Marlowe see there?" demanded Donica, looking with her odd eyes askance at Lady Alice's carpet, and backing her question with a nod.

"Well, you know I never heard exactly; but my darling creature was, as you remember, dying of a consumption at the time, and miserably nervous, and fancied things, no doubt, as people do."

"Well, she did; I knew it," said Donica.

"You may have conjectured—every one can do that; but I rather think my poor dear Amy would have told me, had she cared to divulge it to any living being. I am persuaded she herself suspected it was an illusion—fancy; but I know she had a horror of the room, and I am sure my poor girl's dying request ought to have been respected."

"So it ought, my lady," said Donica, turning up her eyes, and raising her lean hands together, while she slowly shook her head. "So I said to him, and in like manner his own father's dying orders, for such they was, my lady; and they may say what they will of Sir Harry, poor gentleman! But he was a kind man, and good to many that had not a good word for him after, though there may a' been many a little thing that was foolish or the like; but there is mercy above for all, and the bishop that is now, then he was the master of the great school where our young gentlemen used to go to, was with him."

"When he was dying?" said Lady Alice.

"Ay, my lady, a beautiful summer it was, and the doctor, nor I, thought it would be nothing to speak of; but he was anxious in his mind from the first, and he wrote for Doctor Wyndale—it was the holidays then—asking him to come to him; and he did, but Sir Harry had took an unexpected turn for the worse, and not much did he ever say, the Lord a' mercy on us, after that good gentleman, he's the bishop now, came to Marlowe, and he prayed by his bed, and closed his eyes; and I, in and out, and wanted there every minute, could not but hear some of what he said, which it was not much."

"He said something about that green chamber, as you call it, I always understood?" said Lady Alice, interrogatively.

"Yes, my lady, he wished it shut up, or taken down, or summat that way; but 'man proposes and God disposes,' and there's small affection and less gratitude to be met with now-a-days."

"I think, Donica Gwynn, and I always thought, that you knew a good deal more than you chose to tell me. Some people are reserved and secret, and I suppose it is your way; but I don't think it could harm you to treat me more as your friend."

Donica rose, and courtesied as she said—

"You have always treated me friendly, I'm sure, my lady, and I hope I am thankful; and this I know, I'll be a faithful servant to your ladyship so long as I continue in your ladyship's service."

"I know that very well; but I wish you were franker with me, that's all—here are the keys."

So Donica, with very little ceremony, assumed the keys of office.

"And pray what do you mean exactly?" said Lady Alice, rising and drawing on her glove, and not looking quite straight at the housekeeper as she spoke; "do you mean to say that Lady Jane is giddy or imprudent? Come, be distinct."

"I can't say what she is, my lady, but she may be brought into folly some way. I only know this much, please my lady, it will be good for her you should be nigh, and your eye and thoughts about her, at least till the General returns."

"Well, Gwynn, I see you don't choose to trust me."

"I have, my lady, spoke that free to you as I would not to any other, I think, alive."

"No, Gwynn, you don't trust me; you have your reasons, I suppose; but I think you are a shrewd woman—shrewd and mean well. I don't suppose that you could talk as you do without a reason; and though I can't see any myself, not believing in apparitions or—or—"

She nearly lost the thread of her discourse at this point, for as she spoke the word apparition, the remembrance of the young gentleman whom she had seen in Wardlock Church rose in her memory—handsome, pale, with sealed lips, and great eyes—unreadable as night—the resurrection of another image. The old yearning and horror overpowered the train of her thoughts, and she floundered into silence, and coughed into her handkerchief, to hide her momentary confusion.

"What was I going to say?" she said, briskly, meaning to refer her break-down to that little fit of coughing, and throwing on Gwynn the onus of setting her speech in motion again.

"Oh! yes. I don't believe in those things not a bit. But Jennie, poor thing, though she has not treated me quite as she might, is a young wife, and very pretty; and the house is full of wicked young men from London; and her old fool of a husband chooses to go about his business and leave her to her devices—that's what you mean, Gwynn, and that's what I understand."

"I have said all I can, my lady; you can help her, and be near her night and day," said Donica.

"Sir Jekyl in his invitation bid me choose my own room—so I shall. I'll choose that oddly-shaped little room that opens into hers—if I remember rightly, the room that my poor dear Amy occupied in her last illness."

"And, my lady, do you take the key of the door, and keep it in your bag, please."

"Of the door of communication between the two rooms?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Why should I take it; you would not have me lock her up?"

"Well, no, to be sure, my lady."

"Then why?"

"Because there is no bolt to her door, inside or out. You will see what I mean, my lady, when you are there."

"Because she can't secure her door without it, I'm to take possession of her key!" said Lady Alice, with a dignified sneer.

"Well, my lady, it may seem queer, but you'll see what I mean."

Lady Alice tossed her stately head.

"Any commands in particular, please, my lady, before you leave?" inquired Donica, with one of her dry little courtesies.

"No; and I must go. Just hand this pillow and bag to the man; and I suppose you wish your respects to Miss Beatrix?"

To all which, in her own way, Donica Gwynn assented; and the old lady, assisted by her footman, got into the carriage, and nodded a pale and silent farewell to her housekeeper; and away drove the old carriage at a brisk pace toward Marlowe Manor.

Lady Alice takes Possession.

What to the young would seem an age; what, even in the arithmetic of the old, counts for something, about seventeen years had glided into the eternal past since last Lady Alice had beheld the antique front and noble timber of Marlowe Manor; and memory was busy with her heart, and sweet and bitter fancies revisiting her old brain, as her saddened eyes gazed on that fair picture of the past. Old faces gone, old times changed, and she, too, but the shadow of her former self, soon, like those whom she remembered there, to vanish quite, and be missed by no one.

"Where is Miss Beatrix?" inquired the old lady, as she set her long slim foot upon the oak flooring of the hall. "I'll rest a moment here." And she sat down upon a carved bench, and looked with sad and dreaming eyes through the open door upon the autumnal landscape flushed with the setting sun, the season and the hour harmonising regretfully with her thoughts.

Her maid came at the summons of the footman. "Tell her that granny has come," said the old woman gently. "You are quite well, Jones?"

Jones made her smirk and courtesy, and was quite well; and so tripped up the great stair to apprise her young mistress.

"Tell the new housekeeper, please, that Lady Alice Redcliffe wishes very much to see her for a moment in the hexagon dressing-room at the end of the hatchment-gallery," said the old lady, names and localities coming back to her memory quite naturally in the familiar old hall.

And as she spoke, being an active-minded old lady, she rose, and before her first message had reached Beatrix, was ascending the well-known stairs, with its broad shining steps of oak, and her hand on its ponderous banister, feeling strangely, all in a moment, how much more she now needed that support, and that the sum of the seventeen years was something to her as to others.

On the lobby, just outside this dressing-room door, which stood open, letting the dusky sunset radiance, so pleasant and so sad, fall upon the floor and touch the edges of the distant banisters, she was met by smiling Beatrix.

"Darling!" cried the girl, softly, as she threw her young arms round the neck of the stately and thin old lady. "Darling, darling, I'm so glad!"

She had been living among strangers, and the sight and touch of her true old friend was reassuring.

Granny's thin hands held her fondly. It was pretty to see this embrace, in the glow of the evening sun, and the rich brown tresses of the girl close to the ashen locks of old Lady Alice, who, with unwonted tears in her eyes, was smiling on her very tenderly. She was softened that evening. Perhaps it was her real nature, disclosed for a few genial moments, generally hidden under films of reserve or pride—the veil of the flesh.

"I think she does like her old granny," said Lady Alice, with a gentle little laugh; one thin hand on her shoulder, the other smoothing back her thick girlish tresses.

"I do love you, granny; you were always so good to me, and you are so—so fond of me. Now, you are tired, darling; you must take a little wine—here is Mrs. Sinnott coming—Mrs. Sinnott."

"No, dear, no wine; I'm very well. I wish to see Mrs. Sinnott, though. She's your new housekeeper, is not she?"

"Yes; and I'm so glad poor, good old Donnie Gwynn is with you. You know she would not stay; but our new housekeeper is, I'm told, a very good creature too. Grandmamma wants to speak to you, Mrs. Sinnott."

Lady Alice by this time had entered the dressing-room, three sides of which, projecting like a truncated bastion, formed a great window, which made it, for its size, the best lighted in the house. In the wall at the right, close to this entrance, is the door which admits to the green chamber; in the opposite wall, but nearer the window, a door leading across the end of the hatchment-gallery, with its large high window, by a little passage, screened off by a low oak partition, and admitting to a bed-room on the opposite side of the gallery.

In the middle of the Window dressing-room stood Lady Alice, and looked round regretfully, and said to herself, with a little shake of the head—

"Yes, yes, poor thing!"

She was thinking of poor Lady Marlowe, whom, with her usual perversity, although a step-daughter, she had loved very tenderly, and who in her last illness had tenanted these rooms, in which, seventeen years ago, this old lady had sat beside her and soothed her sickness, and by her tenderness, no doubt, softened those untold troubles which gathered about her bed as death drew near.

"How do you do, Mrs. Sinnott?" said stately Lady Alice, recovering her dry and lofty manner.

"Lady Alice Redcliffe, my grandmamma," said Beatrix, in an undertoned introduction, in the housekeeper's ear.

Mrs. Sinnott made a fussy little courtesy.

"Your ladyship's apartments, which is at the other end of the gallery, please, is quite ready, my lady."

"I don't mean to have those rooms, though—that's the reason I sent for you—please read this note, it is from Sir Jekyl Marlowe. By-the-bye, is your master at home?"

"No, he was out."

"Well, be so good as to read this."

And Lady Alice placed Beatrix's note of invitation in Mrs. Sinnott's hand, and pointed to a passage in the autograph of Sir Jekyl, which spoke thus:—

"P.S.—Do come, dearest little mamma, and you shall command everything. Choose your own apartments and hours, and, in short, rule us all. With all my worldly goods I thee endow, and place Mrs. Sinnott at your orders."

"Well, Mrs. Sinnott, I choose these apartments, if you please," said Lady Alice, sitting down stiffly, and thereby taking possession.

"Very well, my lady," said Mrs. Sinnott, dropping another courtesy; but her sharp red nose and little black eyes looked sceptical and uneasy; "and I suppose, Miss," here she paused, looking at Beatrix.

"You are to do whatever Lady Alice directs," said the young lady.

"This here room, you know, Miss, is the dressing-room properly of the green chamber."

"Lady Jane does not use it, though?" replied the new visitor.

"But the General, when he comes back," insinuated Mrs. Sinnott.

"Of course, he shall have it. I'll remove then; but in the meantime, liking these rooms, from old remembrances, best of any, I will occupy them, Beatrix; this as a dressing-room, and the apartment there as bed-room. I hope I don't give you a great deal of trouble," added Lady Alice, addressing the housekeeper, with an air that plainly said that she did not care a pin whether she did or not.

So this point was settled, and Lady Alice sent for her maid and her boxes; and rising, she approached the door of the green chamber, and pointing to it, said to Beatrix—

"And so Lady Jane has this room. Do you like her, Beatrix?"

"I can't say I know her, grandmamma."

"No, I dare say not. It is a large room—too large for my notion of a cheerful bed-room."

The old lady drew near, and knocked.

"She's not there?"

"No, she's in the terrace-garden."

Lady Alice pushed the door open, and looked in.

"A very long room. That room is longer than my drawing-room at Wardlock, and that is five and thirty feet long. Dismal, I say—though so much light, and that portrait—Sir Harry smirking there. What a look of duplicity in that face! He was an old man when I can remember him; an old beau; a wicked old man, rouged and whitened; he used to paint under his eyelashes, and had, they said, nine or ten sets of false teeth, and always wore a black curled wig that made his contracted countenance more narrow. There were such lines of cunning and meanness about his eyes, actually crossing one another. Jekyl hated him, I think. I don't think anybody but a fool could have really liked him; he was so curiously selfish, and so contemptible; he was attempting the life of a wicked young man at seventy!"

Lady Alice had been speaking as it were in soliloquy, staring drearily on the clever portrait in gold lace and ruffles, stricken by the spell of that painted canvas into a dream.

"Your grandpapa, my dear, was not a good man; and I believe he injured my poor son irreparably, and your father. Well—these things, though never forgotten, are best not spoken of when people happen to be connected. For the sake of others we bear our pain in silence; but the heart knoweth its own bitterness."

And so saying, the old lady drew back from the threshold of Lady Jane's apartment, and closed the door with a stern countenance.

An Altercation.

Almost at the same moment Sir Jekyl entered the hexagon, or, as it was more pleasantly called, the Window dressing-room, from the lobby. He was quite radiant, and, in that warm evening light, struck Lady Alice as looking quite marvellously youthful.

"Well, Jekyl Marlowe, you see you have brought me here at last," said the old lady, extending her hand stiffly, like a wooden marionette, her thin elbow making a right angle.

"So I have; and I shall always think the better of my eloquence for having prevailed. You're a thousand times welcome, and not tired, I hope; the journey is not much after all."

"Thanks; no, the distance is not much, the fatigue nothing," said Lady Alice, drawing her fingers horizontally back from his hospitable pressure. "But it is not always distance that separates people, or fatigue that depresses one."

"No, of course; fifty things; rheumatism, temper, hatred, affliction: and I am so delighted to see you! Trixie, dear, would not grandmamma like to see her room? Send for—"

"Thank you, I mean to stay here," said Lady Alice.

"Here!" echoed Sir Jekyl, with a rather bewildered smile.

"I avail myself of the privilege you give me; your postscript to Beatrix's note, you know. You tell me there to choose what rooms I like best," said the old lady, drily, at the same time drawing her bag toward her, that she might be ready to put the documents in evidence, in case he should dispute it.

"Oh! did I?" said the Baronet, with the same faint smile.

Lady Alice nodded, and then threw back her head, challenging contradiction by a supercilious stare, her hand firmly upon the bag as before.

"But this room, you know; it's anything but a comfortable one—don't you think?" said Sir Jekyl.

"I like it," said the inflexible old lady, sitting down.

"And I'm afraid there's a little difficulty," he continued, not minding. "For this is General Lennox's dressing-room. Don't you think it might be awkward?" and he chuckled agreeably.

"General Lennox is absent in London, on business," said Lady Alice, grim as an old Diana; "and Jane does not use it, and there can be no intelligible objection to my having it in his absence."

There was a little smile, that yet was not a smile, and a slight play about Sir Jekyl's nostrils, as he listened to this speech. They came when he was vicious; but with a flush, he commanded himself, and only laughed slightly, and said—

"It is really hardly a concern of mine, provided my guests are happy. You don't mean to have your bed into this room, do you?"

"I mean to sleep there," she replied drily, stabbing with her long forefinger toward the door on the opposite side of the room.

"Well, I can only say I'd have fancied, for other reasons, these the very last rooms in the house you would have chosen—particularly as this really belongs to the green chamber. However, you and Lady Jane can arrange that between you. You'd have been very comfortable where we would have put you, and you'll be very uncomfortable here, I'm afraid; but perhaps I'm not making allowance for the affection you have for Lady Jane, the length of time that has passed since you've seen her, and the pleasure of being so near her."

There was an agreeable irony in this; for the Baronet knew that they had never agreed very well together, and that neither spoke very handsomely of the other behind her back. At the same time, this was no conclusive proof of unkindness on Lady Alice's part, for her goodwill sometimes showed itself under strange and uncomfortable disguises.

"Beatrix, dear, I hope they are seeing to your grandmamma's room; and you'll want candles, it is growing dark. Altogether I'm afraid you're very uncomfortable, little mother; but if you prefer it, you know, of course I'm silent."

With these words he kissed the old lady's chilly cheek, and vanished.

As he ran down the darkening stairs the Baronet was smiling mischievously; and when, having made his long straight journey to the foot of the back stairs, he re-ascended, and passing through the two little ante-rooms, entered his own homely bedchamber, and looked at his handsome and wonderfully preserved face in the glass, he laughed outright two or three comfortable explosions at intervals, and was evidently enjoying some fun in anticipation.

When, a few minutes later, that proud sad beauty, Lady Jane, followed by her maid, sailed rustling into the Window dressing-room—I call it so in preference—and there saw, by the light of a pair of wax candles, a stately figure seated on the sofa at the further end in grey silk draperies, with its feet on a boss, she paused in an attitude of sublime surprise, with just a gleam of defiance in it.

"How d' y' do, Jenny, my dear?" said a voice, on which, as on the tones of an old piano, a few years had told a good deal, but which she recognised with some little surprise, for notwithstanding Lady Alice's note accepting the Baronet's invitation, he had talked and thought of her actually coming to Marlowe as a very unlikely occurrence indeed.

"Oh! oh! Lady Alice Redcliffe!" exclaimed the young wife, setting down her bed-room candle, and advancing with a transitory smile to her old kinswoman, who half rose from her throne and kissed her on the cheek as she stooped to meet her salutation. "You have only arrived a few minutes; I saw your carriage going round from the door."

"About forty minutes—hardly an hour. How you have filled up, Jane; you're quite an imposing figure since I saw you. I don't think it unbecoming; your embonpoint does very well; and you're quite well?"

"Very well—and you?"

"I'm pretty well, dear, a good deal fatigued; and so you're a wife, Jennie, and very happy, I hope."

"I can't say I have anything to trouble me. I am quite happy, that is, as happy as other people, I suppose."

"I hear nothing but praises of your husband. I shall be so happy to make his acquaintance," continued Lady Alice.

"He has had to go up to town about business this morning, but he's to return very soon."

"How soon, dear?"

"In a day or two," answered the young wife.

"To-morrow?" inquired Lady Alice, drily.

"Or next day," rejoined Lady Jane, with a little stare.

"Do you really, my dear Jane, expect him here the day after to-morrow?"

"He said he should be detained only a day or two in town."

Old Lady Alice shook her incredulous head, looking straight before her.

"I don't think he can have said that, Jane, for he wrote to a friend of mine, the day before yesterday, mentioning that he should be detained by business at least a week."

"Oh! did he?"

"Yes, and Jekyl Marlowe, I dare say, thinks he will be kept there longer."

"I should fancy I am a better opinion, rather, upon that point, than Sir Jekyl Marlowe," said Lady Jane, loftily, and perhaps a little angrily.

The old lady, with closed lips, at this made a little nod, which might mean anything.

"And I can't conceive how it can concern Sir Jekyl, or even you, Lady Alice, what business my husband may have in town."

It was odd how sharp they were growing upon this point.

"Well, Sir Jekyl's another thing; but me, of course, it does concern, because I shall have to give him up his room again when he returns."

"What room?" inquired Lady Jane, honestly puzzled.

"This room," answered the old lady, like one conscious that she drops, with the word, a gage of battle.

"But this is my room."

"You don't use it, Lady Jane. I wish to occupy it. I shall, of course, give it up on your husband's return; in the meantime I deprive you of nothing by taking it. Do I?"

"That's not the question, Lady Alice. It is my room—it is my dressing-room—and I don't mean to give it up to any one. You are the last person on earth who would allow me to take such a liberty with you. I don't understand it."

"Don't be excited, my dear Jenny," said Lady Alice—an exhortation sometimes a little inconsistently administered by members of her admirable sex when they are themselves most exciting.

"I'm not in the least excited, Lady Alice; but I've had a note from you," said Lady Jane, in rather a choking key.

"You have," acquiesced her senior.

"And I connect your extraordinary intrusion here, with it."

Lady Alice nodded.

"I do, and—and I'm right. You mean to insult me. It is a shame—an outrage. What do you mean, madam?"

"I'd have you to remember, Jane Chetwynd (the altercation obliterated her newly-acquired name of Lennox), that I am your relation and your senior."

"Yes, you're my cousin, and my senior by fifty years; but an old woman may be very impertinent to a young one."

"Compose yourself, if you please, compose yourself," said Lady Alice, in the same philosophic vein, but with colour a little heightened.

"I don't know what you mean—you're a disgraceful old woman. I'll complain to my husband, and I'll tell Sir Jekyl Marlowe. Either you or I must leave this house to-night," declaimed Lady Jane, with a most beautiful blush, and eyes flashing lurid lightnings.

"You forget yourself, my dear," said the old lady, rising grimly and confronting her.

"No, I don't, but you do. It's perfectly disgusting and intolerable," cried Lady Jane, with a stamp.

"One moment, if you please—you can afford to listen for one moment, I suppose," said the old lady, in a very low, dry tone, laying two of her lean fingers upon the snowy arm of the beautiful young lady, who, with a haughty contraction and an uplifted head, withdrew it fiercely from her touch. "You forget your maid, I think. You had better tell her to withdraw, hadn't you?"

"I don't care; why should I?" said Lady Jane, in a high key.

"Beatrix, dear, run into my bed-room for a moment," said "Granny" to that distressed and perplexed young lady, who, accustomed to obey, instantly withdrew.

Lady Alice in Bed.

"We may be alone together, if you choose it; if not, I can't help it," said Lady Alice, in a very low and impressive key.

"Well, it's nothing to me," said Lady Jane, more calmly and sullenly—"nothing at all—but as you insist—Cecile, you may go for a few minutes."

This permission was communicated sulkily, in French.

"Now, Jane, you shall hear me," said the old lady, so soon as the maid had disappeared and the doors were shut; "you must hear me with patience, if not with respect—that I don't expect—but remember you have no mother, and I am an old woman and your kinswoman, and it is my duty to speak—"

"I'm rather tired standing," interrupted Lady Jane, in a suppressed passion. "Besides, you say you don't want to be overheard, and you can't know who may be on the lobby there," and she pointed with her jewelled fingers at the door. "I'll go into my bed-room, if you please; and I have not the slightest objection to hear everything you can possibly say. Don't fancy I'm the least afraid of you."

Saying which Lady Jane, taking up her bed-room candle, rustled out of the room, without so much as looking over her shoulder to see whether the prophetess was following.

She did follow, and I dare say her lecture was not mitigated by Lady Jane's rudeness. That young lady was lighting her candles on her dressing-table when her kinswoman entered and shut the door, without an invitation. She then seated herself serenely, and cleared her voice.

"I live very much out of the world—in fact, quite to myself; but I learn occasionally what my relations are doing; and I was grieved, Jane, to hear a great deal that was very unpleasant, to say the least, about you."

Something between a smile and a laugh was her only answer.

"Yes, extremely foolish. I don't, of course, say there was anything wicked, but very foolish and reckless. I know perfectly how you were talked of; and I know also why you married that excellent but old man, General Lennox."

"I don't think anyone talked about me. Everybody is talked about. There has been enough of this rubbish. I burnt your odious letter," broke in Lady Jane, incoherently.

"And would, no doubt, burn the writer, if you could."

As there was no disclaimer, Lady Alice resumed.

"Now, Jane, you have married a most respectable old gentleman; I dare say you have nothing on earth to conceal from him—remember I've said all along I don't suppose there is—but as the young wife of an old man, you ought to remember how very delicate your position is."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, generally," answered the old lady, oracularly.

"I do declare this is perfectly insufferable! What's the meaning of this lecture? I'm as little likely, madam, as you are to disgrace myself. You'll please to walk out of my room."

"And how dare you talk to me in that way, young lady; how dare you attempt to hector me like your maid there?" broke out old Lady Alice, suddenly losing her self-command. "You know what I mean, and what's more, I do, too. We both know it—you a young bride—what does Jekyl Marlowe invite you down here for? Do you think I imagine he cares twopence about your stupid old husband, and that I don't know he was once making love to you? Of course I do; and I'll have nothing of the sort here—and that's the reason I've come, and that's why I'm in that dressing-room, and that's why I'll write to your husband, so sure as you give me the slightest uneasiness; and you had better think well what you do."

The old lady, in a towering passion, with a fierce lustre in her cheeks, and eyes flashing lightning over the face of her opponent, vanished from the room.

Lady Alice had crossed the disputed territory of the Window dressing-room, and found herself in her elected bed-room before she had come to herself. She saw Lady Jane's face still before her, with the lurid astonishment and fear, white and sharp, on it, as when she had threatened a letter to General Lennox.

She sat down a little stunned and confused about the whole thing, incensed and disgusted with Lady Jane, and confirmed in her suspicion by a look she did not like in that young lady's face, and which her peroration had called up. She did not hear the shrilly rejoinder that pursued her through the shut door. She had given way to a burst of passion, and felt a little hot and deaf and giddy.

When the party assembled at dinner Lady Jane exerted herself more than usual. She was agreeable, and even talkative, and her colour had not been so brilliant since her arrival. She sat next to Guy Strangways, and old Lady Alice at the other side of the table did not look triumphant, but sick and sad; and to look at the two ladies you would have set her down as the defeated and broken-spirited, and Lady Jane as the victrix in the late encounter.

The conversation at this end of the table resembled a dance, in which sometimes each man sets to his partner and turns her round, so that the whole company is frisking and spinning together; sometimes two perform; sometimes a cavalier seul. Thus was it with the talk of this section of the dinner-table, above the salt, at which the chief people were seated.

"I've just been asked by Lady Blunket how many miles it is to Wardlock, and I'm ashamed to say I can't answer her," cried Sir Jekyl diagonally to Lady Alice, so as to cut off four people at his left hand, whose conversation being at the moment in a precarious way, forthwith expired, and the Baronet and his mother-in-law were left in possession of this part of the stage.

The old lady, as I have said, looked ill and very tired, and as if she had grown all at once very old; and instead of answering, she only nodded once or twice, and signed across the table to Lady Jane.

"Oh! I forgot," said Sir Jekyl; "you know Wardlock and all our distances, don't you, Lady Jane—can you tell me?"

"I don't remember," said Lady Jane, hardly turning toward him; "ten or twelve miles—is not it? it may be a good deal more. I don't really recollect;" and this was uttered with an air which plainly said, "I don't really care."

"I generally ride my visits, and a mile or two more or less does not signify; but one ought to know all the distances for thirty miles round; you don't know otherwise who's your neighbour."

"Do you think it an advantage to know that any particular person is your neighbour?" inquired impertinent Drayton, with his light moustache, leaning back and looking drowsily into his glasses after his wont.

"Oh! Mr. Drayton, the country without neighbours—how dreadful!" exclaimed Miss Blunket. "Existence without friends."

"Friends—bosh!" said Drayton, confidentially, to his wine.

"There's Drayton scouting friendship, the young cynic!" cried Sir Jekyl. "Do call him to order, Lady Jane."

"I rather incline to agree with Mr. Drayton," said Lady Jane, coldly.

"Do you mean to say you have no friends?" said Sir Jekyl, in well-bred amazement.

"Quite the contrary—I have too many."

"Come—that's a new complaint. Perhaps they are very new friends?" inquired the Baronet.

"Some of them very old, indeed; but I've found that an old friend means only an old person privileged to be impertinent."

Lady Jane uttered a musical little laugh that was very icy as she spoke, and her eye flashed a single insolent glance at old Lady Alice.

At another time perhaps a retort would not have been wanting, but now the old woman's eye returned but a wandering look, and her face expressed nothing but apathy and sadness.

"Grandmamma, dear, I'm afraid you are very much tired," whispered Beatrix when they reached the drawing-room, sitting beside her after she had made her comfortable on a sofa, with cushions to her back; "you would be better lying down, I think."

"No, dear—no, darling. I think in a few minutes I'll go to my room. I'm not very well. I'm tired—very tired."

And poor old granny, who was speaking very gently, and looking very pale and sunken, sighed deeply—it was almost a moan.

Beatrix was growing very much alarmed, and accompanied, or rather assisted, the old lady up to the room, where, aided by her and her maid, she got to her bed in silence, sighing deeply now and then.

She had not been long there when she burst into tears; and after a violent paroxysm she beckoned to Beatrix, and threw her lean old arms about her neck, saying—

"I'm sorry I came, child; I don't know what to think. I'm too old to bear this agitation—it will kill me."

Then she wept more quietly, and kissed Beatrix, and whispered—"Send her out of the room—let her wait in the dressing-room."

The maid was sitting at the further end of the apartment, and the old lady was too feeble to raise her voice so as to be heard there. So soon as her maid had withdrawn Lady Alice said—

"Sit by me, Beatrix, darling. I am very nervous, and tell me who is that young man who sat beside Jane Lennox at dinner."

As she ended her little speech Lady Alice, who, though I dare say actually ill enough, yet did not want to lose credit for all the exhaustion she fancied beside, closed her eyelids, and leaned a little back on her pillow motionless. This prevented her seeing that if she were nervous Beatrix was so also, though in another way, for her colour was heightened very prettily as she answered.

"You mean the tall, slight young man at Lady Jane's right?" inquired Beatrix.

"That beautiful but melancholy-looking young man whom we saw at Wardlock Church," said Lady Alice, forgetting for the moment that she had never divulged the result of her observations from the gallery to any mortal but Sir Jekyl. Beatrix, who forgot nothing, and knew that her brief walk at Wardlock with that young gentleman had not been confessed to anyone, was confounded on hearing herself thus, as she imagined, taxed with her secret.

She was not more secret than young ladies generally are; but whom could she have told at Wardlock? which of the old women of that time-honoured sisterhood was she to have invited to talk romance with her? and now she felt very guilty, and was blushing in silent confusion at the pearl ring on her pretty, slender finger, not knowing what to answer, or how to begin the confession which she fancied her grandmamma was about to extort.