curred about five years since; and Mountjoy, dying in the succeeding year, left to his wife, herself in delicate health, the sole charge of their only child, a youth then about sixteen, and an object of great solicitude.

It would appear that, previous to the accession of fortune just mentioned, the young gentleman had fallen passionately in love with the blue-eyed daughter of the postmaster of the quiet village in which, for economical reasons, the Fellowes had for the moment fixed their residence. Now the difference of station, already sufficiently marked, became hopelessly augmented by the freak of fortune that had transformed Captain Fellowes, with little more than his half-pay and a pension for wounds, into Mr. Grahame Mountjoy, with a landed estate worth twelve thousand a year. Fond almost to adoration, as both parents were, of their boy, nothing could reconcile them to such a connection. They quitted the village, and all intercourse with its inhabitants was thenceforth peremptorily suspended.

If the parents considered that the attachments of a boy, not yet sixteen, deserved no gentler treatment that this, they were very soon and painfully undeceived. The youth became very ill. Without, it was said, displaying any positive ailment, he wasted gradually away, until, seriously alarmed, his parents resolved to sacrifice every scruple, and restore to him those hopes on which his life seemed really to depend. It was too late. The poor girl, whose home was at all times unhappy under the rule of a savage stepmother, in despair or indifference had accepted the first suitor who sought her hand, and left her home for

ever.

From this period, which was further marked by the death of Captain Fellowes Mountjoy, the poor young man had never, it was believed, been seen by human eyes, save by his mother, his physician, and one or two domestics in immediate attendance on him. To these alone was confided the secret of his mysterious ailment, and they kept it well. It was known that he was under no restraint, nor debarred, by causes other than his own will, from any amount of locomotion; that he ate, drank, slept, and fiddled (he was a fine violinist already), to use Mrs. Martin's homely phrase, "like a good un." He was heard to laugh merrily, to chat, and sing. It was, in short, abundantly evident that the young gentleman was not dying of a broken heart, nor of utter weariness of life. What could be wrong with him? Something was. He had been attended by four physicians, including one, the most eminent of his day, who came at great cost from London; but these gentlemen shook their heads, were dismissed in turn, and Mr. Grahame Mountjoy remained unseen.

About three years since, their country residence was let. Mr. Mountjoy, recluse as he was, longed for the sound and movement of a town. The Hornet seemed to suit him exactly, and here they were.

Susan pondered on the romantic narrative.

What do you think was the matter?" she asked. Mrs. Martin shook her head, and declared, with evident truth, that she had no opinion to offer.

Some think," she went on to say, "that his disapp'intment, poor gentleman! settled in his legs, which grew tremenjious. That's not true, for I've seen his stockings. Others say that he'd turned bottle-green. But the doctor here (he's a merry man— Doctor Leech) laughed hearty, and said, Not half so green as them that believes so.' "If I had an idea," continued the good lady, "it is that he suddenly changed to that his stomach being affected by -that there came out a-hush! I think I hear missis's door." what, dear Mrs. Martin?" asked her eager

"A-a

listener.

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Something that spiled his good looks, poor gentleman!" said Mrs. Martin, hurriedly; "and very handsome 'tis said he was."

They rose as Mrs. Grahame Mountjoy, with a kind smile, entered the apartment.

She was a refined, gentle-mannered woman, hardly more than forty, with traces of much former beauty, and a wistful, careworn look in her large brown eyes, so noticeable

"No, no, Susan," said her mistress, stopping her peremptorily. "You see," she continued, addressing the new-comer, smilingly, "I have a Susan already, though she is much too grand a person to be called so by any but me. Your dear master has been so merry! I have not seen him in such spirits for years; no, not since” — she checked herself, suddenly. "And the remembrance of what he was, or might have been, came on me, for a moment, too strongly. I am tired," she owned, "but I would not sleep till I had seen my new Susan, and set at rest any apprehensions she might entertain as to what will be demanded of her.

"It has pleased Heaven," she continued, "to visit my poor son with an affliction so extraordinary, and yet, to the indifferent observer, so provocative of laughter, as to determine him, some time since, to seclude himself altogether from the world, save only myself and one or two chosen attendants, who can be relied upon to preserve his melancholy secret. Startling perhaps, but not revolting, his condition is one calculated to excite the strongest sympathy, without, however, reducing him to be especially dependent upon the good offices of any. He has many accomplishments, his intellect is bright and clear, and, indeed, the sole trace of any morbid influence shadowing his mind is noticeable in the advertisement which has brought you here. He insists that any one who, in the event of need, should divide with me the duties of reader and occasional companion, should be a woman with dark blue eyes. His ailment," concluded Mrs. Grahame Mountjoy, with a sad smile, "dates from an incident in his life in which such a feature had an active share, and we have not deemed it prudent to oppose his fancy. Such," she added, rising, "are all the particulars you need at present to learn, for my son would defer seeing you until your attendance becomes necessary. Meanwhile I can instruct you a little as to his tastes and ways, and our good Mrs. Martin will do her best to make you as comfortable as circumstances permit." And with a kind good-night, Mrs. Mountjoy left the room.

"Well?" said Mrs. Martin, interrogatively.

"Oh, my dears- my dear girls!'

"Mamma, what has happened?" cried Jane, the elder. who was five-and-thirty; while Laura, of a more practical turn and two years younger than her sister, took the open letter from her mother's hand and began to read it.

"I don't understand it. It is from John," she began. "Yes, my dears, that is it; it is from John, and my cousin, Dr. Deane, is dead," said the old lady, wiping her eyes.

Well, what of that, mamma? We haven't seen him for years," said Laura.

"No, but go on, and you will see. Oh, my dears, your brother John is engaged to be married!"

And then there fell upon the little family a silence as of death. While Mary, the parlor-maid, who had stolen in unperceived, ejaculated an audible "Laws!" and fled to impart the intelligence to the cook and the housemaid. The letter from John Foster ran as follows: :

"MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTERS, I little thought, when I was writing my last letter from here to tell you how much I was enjoying my holiday, that in my next I should have to write to you of the sudden death of my kind, good old cousin. He was taken ill only yesterday morning, and died in a few hours. The doctor, who came too late to do any good, says it was heart disease, and that the poor fellow knew he might any day be carried off in this way. And now, my dear mother, I must tell you that I have taken a very important step, one which, I confess, that but for this sad death I should not have taken without more reflection. I have asked Nelly Deane to be my wife. She, poor child, is so utterly alone in the world, having no one to go to and no one to love her, that I could not help offering her a home with you, my dear mother, until a sufficient time shall have elapsed for our marriage to take place. I hope you will not think I have acted rashly. I have only known Nelly a fortnight, but I have had for some days no doubt whatever about my own feelings; only that as she is so very young, just seventeen, I ought, perhaps, to have reflected more as to whether a marriage with me will be for her own happiness. If, as I fully believe, you will not refuse a temporary home to the poor child, write to me at once, and I will send her to you this day week, the day after the funeral. I can only take her as far as Birmingham, as I must get back to town as quickly as possible. But I will put her into the train there if you will send to the station to meet her. I have only to add, my dear mother, that you will be sure to love the poor child, as she is as good as she is beautiful.

"Your affectionate son,

JOHN FOSTER."

This may perhaps be considered a very commonplace letter for a successful lover; but John Foster was fiveand-forty, and the most commonplace and matter-of-fact of

men.

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John must be mad!" said Laura.

"A child of seventeen!" said Jane.

"Poor little thing!" sighed the mother, gently. "What are we to do? asked Jane.

"Oh, why of course we must have her here. John has a right to expect that of us," said Laura; "but it will be a horrid nuisance!"

"She is a lucky girl, I must say, to get such a man as our John!" said the mother, proudly. "We must do our best during the time she is with us to train her for the position she is to occupy hereafter as his wife; and we must try to love her for his sake."

"You have never seen her, mamma, have you?" asked Jane, after a pause.

"Not since she was a baby. I saw her when her poor mother died; a little sickly, unhealthy-looking child of two

years old. Dr. Deane then went away to live in Cornwall, and I have never seen either of them since. And to think John should want to marry her. Oh, dear, Oh dear!"

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John says she is beautiful," said Laura, referring to the letter, with a not over-pleased face.

"I don't think she can be very beautiful; her mother was plain, and her father was not good-looking; she had dark eyes, I remember."

"It is very unlucky that John should have gone there for his holiday," said Jane.

"I have no doubt she did her best to catch him," said Laura, who always felt spiteful when she heard of any woman being engaged to be married, she herself having been wretchedly unsuccessful in all her little matrimonial attempts.

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My dear Laura, we must not be uncharitable,” said her mother, gently. "I cannot think John has done a wise thing in engaging himself in such a hasty way to a mere child. It is scarcely possible that she can be worthy of him; but if, as I have no doubt, she is a modest, docile girl, we can, I dare say, do much to mould and improve her during the time she is under our care."

Poor Mrs. Foster! it was a blow for her that, after all these years, John should have chosen a wife whom she had never seen, and without her counsel and advice. A woman is always jealous of that other woman who, younger and fairer than herself, comes between her and the son she has been wont to consider all her own.

Mrs. Foster was very proud of her son John, who, out of the income derived from his profession as a barrister, made a liberal allowance to his mother and sisters. John was the head of the family, their counsellor, their protector. Nothing was ever done without consulting him.

It did seem strange now that this pattern son, in spite of his prudence, should have allowed himself to be caught by a pretty face, just like any one else.

That he should wish to marry at all was a grievance. Had they not been all that a man ought to desire in the way of family ties to him? What could make him wish for more? So, while the mother was jealous of the son's heart, which had been stolen away from her, the sisters were jealous that this child, this stranger, would come into the family to take the first place as John's future wife.

II.

There was not much affection in the hearts of Mrs. Foster and her daughters towards the girl who was to be John's wife; but there was, at all events, a good deal of excitement as the day of her arrival at Vale Lodge approached. To these three middle-aged women, living alone a dull monotonous life, the advent of a stranger among them could not fail to be a great event. Mrs. Foster's future daughter-in-law must be received with all due honor; it would never do for people to say that John's betrothed was not welcomed in his mother's home.

To begin with, they must all go into decorous mourning for Dr. Deane's death; then the best bedroom must be got ready for Miss Deane's reception. All the details of her arrival were arranged beforehand with due precision and solemnity.

After long and anxious deliberation, Mrs. Foster settled not to go herself to the station, but to send the brougham to meet the traveller, whom she would receive at her own hall-door, her daughters standing by her.

The eventful morning dawned, and the brougham was sent to the station.

"There is the carriage coming back,” cried Jane, at last, rushing out into the hall.

Mrs. Foster again rehearsed the little speech she intended to make: "Welcome, my dear, to my home and to my heart." Then she said to herself, "I shall fold her in my motherly embrace, and kiss and cry over her." She had settled it so a dozen times during the course of the morning; and now that the carriage-wheels were heard actually turning in at the gate, she stood smoothing her hair at the glass, in a nervous tremor lest her little speech

should not be properly repeated. All at once, while her back was to the windows, there came a clear young voice behind her.

"How do you do, Mrs. Foster? Here I am, you see. I saw you from the drive, and I jumped out of the carriage instead of going all round to the front door. I am hardly fit to kiss, I am so dusty. Ah, this must be Laura, and this Jane. I should have known you anywhere from your likeness to your brother."

In from the lawn, through the open window, stepped Nelly Deane, lighting up the dingy little drawing-room with all her wondrous beauty. She was a very beautiful girl. With a face set in a dark frame of soft wavy hair: a face that could brighten into liveliness, or sadden into pity, or at times deepen into passion; with large gray-blue eyes, that had a way of opening wide when they looked up, with an expression half of innocent surprise, half of fearless pride, that made them strangely fascinating. Her figure was like that of a young goddess, tall and supple, with a charm in every movement, an inborn grace in every attitude.

When she came thus unexpectedly into the drawingroom at Vale Lodge, the three women stood still and stared at her. They had somehow imagined that the girl of seventeen who was coming to them would be shrinking and child-like, slight and small of stature, who could be patronized or petted or scolded at will.

Mrs. Foster's little speech all went out of her head, and as to that motherly embrace with which she had purposed to receive her future daughter-in-law, why, somehow she felt that the bare idea of it was incongruous, not to mention the physical difficulty, owing to Nelly Deane being a good head taller than herself. The two sisters, whose faded faces looked more washed-out than ever in contrast with this radiant young creature, could not find a word to say to

her.

They, one after the other, took her outstretched hand in silence, and then one of them pushing forward a chair for her, the three stood in awkward silence, not knowing what to say next. But Nelly Deane was in no way discomposed.

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Ah, I see I am not at all like what you expected," she said, very gravely and quietly; "John has not properly described me to you. But then," she added, turning to the mother with the loveliest of smiles, "I don't think any one could describe me in a letter - do you ?" "Such vanity!" as Laura said afterwards to her sister when they were alone. But she was mistaken, Nelly Deane was not half so vain as Laura Foster.

Poor Mrs. Foster was startled out of all her sense of propriety and fitness.

"My dear," she said primly, "I don't suppose my John, when he selected you as his companion for life, thought as much of your appearance as of your disposition and character; it would not be natural for a man of his sterling qualities to think much of mere outward attractions."

For all answer to this speech, Miss Deane looked at her future mother-in-law for a minute in silent amazement, and then, without farther warning, laid her little head against the back of her chair and burst into a long, low laugh.

"Poor John!" cried Miss Deane, when she had had her laugh out.

Then Mrs. Foster got very red. ter come up-stairs to your room. I will send you up a cup of tea;

stairs.

"I think you had betWe dine at seven, and and she led the way up

"And so unladylike too, to laugh in our faces. What was she laughing at?"

"I think it may have been partly hysterical," said Mrs. Foster. "But, dear, dear," she added, with a great sigh, "what could John have seen in her?"

John had seen in her simply the most beautiful woman he had ever met in his life, and many a wiser man than John Foster would have had his head bewildered by her.

Away in the wilds of Cornwall, where Nelly's life had been spent, there had been none to gaze upon her beauty excepting the old father, who had worshipped her. John Foster, her second cousin, was the first marriageable man who had come across her path since she grew to womanhood, and from the first moment he set eyes on her he succumbed utterly to her beauty and her strange fascinating ways. Nelly appreciated his devotion, and thought him very kind and pleasant, and when her father's sudden death left her with no one in the world to turn to but this grave cousin, it did not seem so very strange to her to promise him anything he chose to ask, especially as the immediate result was a home in which she could take refuge, the farther consequences seeming to her to be very

remote.

"John is very kind," she had said to herself; "he will be as good to me as daddy was, and then, as I am not a girl to fall in love, he will suit me very well." And that is how Nelly Deane and John Foster came to be engaged.

III.

A little incident happened the first evening which considerably softened the hearts of the trio towards their guest. Just as dinner was ready, the housemaid came in with a message from Miss Deane. "Miss Deane is sorry, ma'am, she doesn't feel well enough to come down to dinner: she has had her tea and doesn't want anything else." Mrs. Foster was a little put out; dinner was a solemn ceremony in the Foster family, not to be lightly set aside. Besides, a special feast had been prepared in honor of John's betrothed. However, after dinner, Mrs. Foster went up-stairs, and creeping softly into the stranger's room saw there a sight which melted her. Lying on the sofa, with her face buried among the cushions, lay Nelly, sobbing as if her heart would break.

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Oh, daddy, daddy!" cried the sad broken voice over and over again.

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6.

My poor child," said Mrs. Foster, stooping down over the weeping girl, what can I do for you?" "Oh, nothing, thank you," said Nelly, half raising herself from the sofa. 66 'I want nothing;" and then she went on crying.

"Shall we write and ask John to come down to see us next Sunday, my dear?" said Mrs. Foster, hardly knowing what to say to comfort her.

"Oh no, what would be the use of John? No one can do me any good. Please go away."

She went on sobbing quietly, and Mrs. Foster, seeing she could not do her any good, crept softly away downstairs and told her daughters.

They talked of her long and late that night. Nelly, weeping and miserable, was much more amenable than Nelly composed and smiling. If she was capable of improvement something might be done with her, thought Mrs. Foster.

"She only wants training and teaching," she said to her daughter Jane as she wished her good-night; and trained and taught Mrs. Foster was determined that she should be. The next morning, when the maid came in to call Mrs. Foster, her first thought was of the orphan girl. "Take

a cup of tea to Miss Deane," she said, " and tell her not to get up to breakfast unless she feels inclined."

"Oh, ma'am, Miss Deane has been out in the garden an hour ago."

And sure enough, looking out of window, Mrs. Foster saw Nelly scampering around the garden after the little

Scotch terrier, clapping her hands, jumping over the flower-beds, and laughing aloud, her dark hair all blown about in the breeze, a picture of high spirits and happiness. Could this be the weeping, woe-begone girl of the night before?

"What a strange girl!" she murmured, much puzzled. A strange girl she was. They could none of them make her out, and yet the key-note to her character was a very simple one-it was only that she was perfectly natural and unconscious of self. All the little proprieties and conventionalities of life were unknown to her; she did what she felt inclined to do, and said what she meant without a thought of what people might say or think of her. She had never been thrown with women all her life. Her father had brought her up from her babyhood, and her father's training had left no room for all the little pettinesses of woman's education. But it was no wonder that she created a commotion in Mrs. Foster's orderly mind. Mrs. Foster had a deep traditional reverence for the appearances and decorums of life, in which faith she had carefully trained her daughters. "What will people think of you?" was a phrase constantly on her lips, and Nelly Deane shocked and horrified her at every hour of the day. "I cannot understand your rushing about the garden and laughing so loud as you did this morning, Nelly," she said to her that first day.

"Why not, Mrs. Foster?" opening her large eyes in astonishment.

"With your poor father hardly dead a week."

"I had forgotten papa just then. I was so glad to forget," she answered, her eyes filling with tears at once. And Mrs. Foster felt puzzled, and did not know what to

say next.

Sometimes she would come down to breakfast with freshgathered roses clustered in her hair and among the crape folds of her mourning dress.

"How can you wear those bright-colored flowers?" one of the daughters would say, reprovingly.

"But why not, cousin? They look so pretty; don't you think so?" Nelly would answer simply; and if they tried to point out the indecorum she would quietly dismiss the subject by saying, gently, “I don't understand what you mean."

So, after a week, goaded on by these and many similar delinquencies, Mrs. Foster wrote in despair to her son: "I don't know what to do with her, John. She is certainly very beautiful, as you say - far more so than is good for any modest young woman; but she is sadly in need of training. Your sisters and I try our best from morning till night; but we seem to make no impression whatever upon her. She is full of inconsistencies; she has no method, no order, no sense of the proprieties of life. I cannot think, my dear boy, how she can ever be fitted to take her place in the world as your wife."

Then there came down by return of post the most fearful letter that had ever fallen upon that meek devoted mother.

"If you or my sisters," wrote furious John, "attempt to alter my darling in any way, if you try any teaching or training or changing in any way upon her, I will never forgive any of you. Can't you see how perfect, how fresh, her lovely character is? Don't you see that what you call her want of training is her greatest charm? She is mine, and I will not have her altered. I have trusted her to you to take care of, not to alter. Make her as happy as you can, but in the name of all that is good, my dear mother, leave her unspoilt."

"John is very hard on us," said poor Mrs. Foster, wiping her eyes.

"John has been bewitched by her," said Laura, indignantly. "Nasty, designing little minx, with her innocent looks. I don't believe in innocence. You mark my words, mamma; as sure as his name is John Foster he will live to repent the day he ever set eyes on her." And Laura flounced away out of the room. But the mother and quieter Jane talked the matter over more soberly.

"We must get at her through her heart, Jane. She is affectionate. And we must talk to her more about John."

'What has that to do with it? I always do what I like. If John doesn't like what I like, he need not marry me." Or oftener she only laughed as she had done the first day she came, and, in a soft, half-mocking way, cried, " Poor John!"

One day there came a letter from John to say that he was coming down for a short visit, just to see how they were getting on.

"How delightful!" cried Nelly, jumping up and clapping her hands. All day long she danced about the house crying out, "John is coming to-morrow!" till Mrs. Foster quite melted towards her. "You see how really fond of John she is," she said to her daughters; and they were obliged to admit that she seemed to be so.

But Nelly was saying to herself, "Dear old John! I am so glad he is coming. I shall be able to talk to him about dear daddy and my old home, and I shall tell him what horrid old women his sisters are; and then of course he will bring me a present."

"I wonder what John will bring me for a present,” she said calmly, just before his arrival, when they were all sitting expecting him.

"Our brother never wastes his money in presents," said Laura, stiffly.

"Do you mean to say he has never given you anything?" said Nelly, looking much surprised. "Why, he has given me a lot of things. He gave me my dressingcase and my gold ear-rings and a bracelet - and " Oh, you don't suppose he is to go on giving you things forever, do you?" interrupted Laura, spitefully. "He is not at all likely to give you anything now. It is not John's way to give presents."

Ah, not to you, perhaps, but he will bring me something, you will see!" she answered, with a little confident toss of the head.

When the fly from the station drove up, out ran Nelly to the hall-door. "You have brought me a present, haven't you, John?" were her first words, before any one else had spoken to him.

"How did you guess that, you little witch?" said John, smiling, and diving into his pockets for a fat little parcel, which he threw to her.

"Ah, I knew you would," she said, catching it, and running off with a triumphant laugh at Laura Foster. It was a handsome locket, set with pearls and diamonds. Nelly was in ecstacies; she ran all over the house with her treasure, showing it to every one; she even ran out to show it to Jenkins, the gardener. John stood and watched her fondly and proudly, but his mother sighed over such a foolish waste of money, and his sisters were anything but pleased.

"Are you not going to thank me for it, Nelly?" said John, when she came back again to them, breathless with excitement.

"Of course I am, you kind, good old John," she answered; and then and there, before them all, without the slightest blush or the faintest embarrassment, she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks, as if he had been an old uncle.

A sharp pang flashed through John Foster's heart. He stifled the thought before he could put it into words; but the thought had been there; it was "She does not love me, or she would not kiss me like that;" and the next minute he was saying to himself eagerly," She is so simple and straightforward, it is her nature to be outspoken." But to Mrs. Foster this freely-given embrace was a breach of maiden modesty. Drawing herself up primly, "We had better leave your brother and Nelly alone, my dears," she said to her daughters, and they all sailed out of the room. "What have I done, John ?" asked Nelly, with a frightened look at her lover. "Have I said anything wrong?

No, my darling," answered John; but there was a flush of annoyance on his face. "Are you happy here, Nelly? are they kind to you ? " he asked, quickly.

"Oh yes, they are kind; but I don't think they like me much I seem to be always vexing them without intending it. But it is all right now you have come, John. How I wish you could stay! But come out into the garden now;" and she twined her hands round his arm and drew him out into the open air, and he, nothing loth, wandered about with her for hours.

Yes, John Foster was certainly bewitched. No one had ever seen him behave in such a strange way before. He fol lowed Nelly about like a shadow; he carried her books for her; he ran all over the house to fulfil her faintest wish; he hung on her every word with the devotion of a slave. And she, little queen, ordered him about freely. It was "John, do this," or "do that," all day long; and sometimes it was "No, you dear old stupid; you are doing it wrong.' And never once did it enter into her head that she should be more respectful to her middle-aged lover; for had she not ordered her daddy about in the same way ? And he was quite old, with white hair. She had been used to that kind of thing all her life. But to Mrs. Foster and her daughters it was a wonderful and painful sight. They had been accustomed to wait on John; his rare and short visits at Vale Lodge had been hailed as great events: the best room was prepared for his reception; the best sheets were taken from the lavender-covered shelf to be laid on his bed; the best silver and glass were brought out for his use; they had fluttered round him with a little gentle fuss of attention and preparations that had seemed to them the rightful due of such an honored guest. But now, before their eyes, here was John given over hand and foot into the custody of this little chit of a girl who ordered him about and scolded him and twisted him round her finger in a manner which seemed to them to be positively impertinent. And, worst of all, John seemed to like it. He was a square-set, heavily-made man, with a grave, quiet manner, and a plain, but honest-looking face, and kindly gray eyes. His had been a hard-working life, without hitherto a ray of romance to brighten the dull routine of everlasting legal business; and now, just when most men are sinking down into the practical realities of middle-age, when his hair was getting gray and his step was losing its youthful vigor, here was this wondrous sunshine that had flashed into his life, making all things seem young again to him. I doubt whether, had. John Foster been ten years younger, he would have loved Nelly so devotedly. It was not only love, it was gratitude. "What have I done,” he would say to himself, "to deserve such a radiant creature?" He could not be grateful enough to her for giving up her sweet young life to brighten the grayness and dulness of his.

Nelly, though she spoke pleasantly of his mother and sisters, could not succeed in hiding from her lover that her life at Vale Lodge was not a very happy one.

"Don't you think, dearest, we might hasten on our marriage a little it might be very quiet, you know?" he ventured to suggest to her at last.

"Impossible, John! You know you promised me till Easter; I am so very young, you know, I could not think of it before then; besides," she added, smiling, "I don't want a quiet wedding at all." Her face had looked almost scared for a minute, and again a misgiving passed through his mind. "I am really very tolerably happy

here, John. Of course, it is not like my own Cornwallnothing will ever be like that again to me," she said, with a little piteous quiver in her voice; "but I don't expect that. You see," she added, with a little grave, explanatory nod, "they are old- and that is how it is they don't get on with me, suppose. I can make allowance for them." "Don't let Laura hear you say that," said John, laughing; "but, Nelly, if you think my sisters old, what will you be saying of me next? I am forty-five, you know.” "Ah, yes, I know that. But you are a man, and that makes it so different men are so very much nicer than women," she added, with an air of profound conviction. Well, we will agree to that for the sake of argument; but, Nelly, you know I cannot come down again even for a Sunday till Christmas; how will you manage to live with these three old women till then, eh?

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--

"It can't be helped, I suppose; I must make the best of it, and try and find resources in myself,' as your mother is always telling me. Don't let us talk of disagreeable things any more — come and pick me some roses.'

(To be continued.)

FOREIGN NOTES.

THE Evénement states that the goods of the actor Frederick Lemaître have been seized for debt, and are about to be sold. The journal adds that to permit such an act would be more disgraceful to the theatres and more painful to the public than to the comedian himself.

CAPTAIN SHAW, the chief of the London Fire Brigade, would not make a successful reporter of the "gushing" type. The following is his description of the great fire at the Alexandra Pal"Alexandra Palace, a brick building, 900 by 450 feet, burned out and roof off. Cause, plumbers at work on roof. Three manual-engines and six steam-engines at work."

ace:

THE last words of Manzoni were exceedingly patriotic. Turning to those around him he said, " When I am no more, do what I have done every day of my life. Pray for Italy, for its King, and for his family, who have been so good to me." Twenty thousand francs have been already subscribed for a monument for him, and his house will be purchased and retained as an historical relic.

MR. MAPLESON, of her Majesty's Opera, who, like all managers, is pestered to death by aspirants for theatrical honors, has hit upon the "happy thought of allowing unknown Marios, Grisis, Tamburinis, Lablaches, and Albonis, to try their powers on the stage of Drury Lane Theatre every Tuesday afternoon, in presence of himself and his maestro al piano. This capital movement may some day lead to the discovery of a vocal Koh-i-noor.

'Since

ONE of the hard-hitting papers of Paris relates the following: "Monsieur X- was comfortably sleeping and snoring in an orchestra stall at the theatre. The occupant of the adjoining seat, losing all patience, proceeded to awaken him. when,' asked X- rubbing his eyes, is it forbidden to sleep at M's pieces 2 'But you make too much noise.' 'I prevent you, perhaps, from hearing the play?' On the contrary, you hinder me from sleeping, and force me to hear it; that is what I complain of." Pleasant for M- the dramatist to read this!

IN the Leisure Hour for this month a pathetic account is given by Sir John Lubbock of the last hours of his tame wasp. He says "She" a compliment to the sweet nature of the sex"would take no food, though she still moved her legs, wings, and abdomen. The following day I offered her food for the last time, but both head and thorax were dead or paralyzed; she could but wag her tail-a last token, as I could almost fancy, of gratitude and affection. As far as I could judge, her death was quite painless, and she now occupies a place in the British Museum."

THE Opinione says that Manzoni has left behind him a great number of manuscripts, some of which relate to his already published works. Among the most interesting of these are the manuscripts of the " Cinque Maggio," and "Inni Sacri," which he presented to his son Pietro a year ago, and were left by the latter to his daughter after his death. His notes for the "History of the French Revolution," which are full of minute details, show