"After all," said Tony, in a half dogged tone, "I don't see that the speech had any reference to me, or to any peculiar delicacy of yours with respect to me."

"Ah, my poor Tony, you have a deal to learn about women and their ways! By good luck fortune has given you a friend-the one manI declare I believe what I say-the one man in Europe that knows the whole thing; as poor Balzac used to say, 'Cher Skeffy, what a fellow you would be if you had my pen!' He was a vain creature, Balzac; but what he meant was, if I could add his descriptive power to my own knowledge of life; for you see, Tony, this was the difference between Balzac and me. He knew Paris, and the salons of Paris, and the women who frequent these salons. I knew the human heart. It was woman, as a creature, not a mere conventionality, 'that she appeared to me."

"Well, I take it," grumbled out Tony, "you and your friend had some points of resemblance too."

"Ah! you would say that we were both vain. So we were, Tony -so is every man that is the depositary of a certain power. Without this same conscious thought, which you common folk call vanity, how should we come to exercise the gift? The little world taunts us with the very quality that is the essence of our superiority."

"Had Bella perfectly recovered? was she able to be up and about?” "Yes, she was able to take carriage airings, and to be driven about in a small phaeton by the neatest whip in Europe."

"Mr. Skeff Damer, eh?"

"The same. Ah, these drives, these drives! What delicious memories of woodland and romance! I fell desperately in love with that girl, Tony-I pledge you my honour I did. I've thought a great deal over it all since I started for Ireland, and I have a plan, a plan for us both."

"What is it?"

"Let us marry these girls. Let us be brothers in law as well as in

love. You prefer Alice-I consent. Take her, take her, Tony, and may you be happy with her!" And as he spoke he laid his hand on the other's head with a reverend solemnity.

"This is nonsense, and worse than nonsense," said Tony, angrily; but the other's temper was imperturbable, and he went on. "You fancy this is all dreamland that I'm promising you; but that is because you, my dear Tony, with many good qualities, are totally wanting in one-you have no imagination, and like all fellows denied this gift, you never can conceive anything happening to you except what has already happened, You like to live in a circle, and you do live in a circle-you are the turnspits of humanity."

"I'm a troublesome dog, though, if you anger me," said Tony, half fiercely.

"Very possibly, but there are certain men dogs never attack." And as Skeffy said this he threw forward his chest, held his head back, and looked with an air of such proud defiance that Tony lay back in a chair and laughed heartily.

"I never saw a great hulking fellow yet that was not impressed with the greatness of his stature," said Skeffy. "Every inch after five feet six takes a foot off a man's intellectual standard. It is Skeff Damer says it, Tony, and you may believe it."

"I wish you would tell me about Tilney," said Tony, half irritably.

"I appreciate you, as the French say. You want to hear that I am not your rival-you want to know that I have not taken any ungenerous advantage of your absence. Tonino mio, be of good comfort - I preferred the sister; shall I tell you why?"

I don't want to hear anything about it."

"What a jealous dog it is, even after I have declared, on the word of a Damer, that he has nothing to apprehend from me! It was a lucky day led me down there, Tony. Don't you remember the

old woman's note to me, men tioning a hundred pounds, or some thing like it, she had forgotten to enclose? She found the bank note afterwards on her table, and after much puzzling with herself, ascertained it was the sum she had meant to remit me. Trifling as the incident was, she thought it delicate, or high-minded, or something or other, on my part. She said 'it was so nice of me;' and she wrote to my uncle to ask if he ever heard such a pretty trait, and my uncle said he knew scores of spendthrifts would have done much the same; whereupon the old lady of Tilney, regarding me as ill-used by my relatives, declared she would do something for me; but as her good intentions were double-barrelled, and she wanted to do something also for Bella, she suggested that we might, as the Oberland peasants say, 'put our eggs in the same basket. A day was named, too, in which we were all to have gone over to Lyle Abbey, and open negotiations with Sir Arthur, when came this confounded despatch ordering me off to Naples! At first I determined not to go-to resign-to give up public life for ever. 'What's Hecuba to him?' said I; that is, 'What signifies it to me how Europe fares? Shall I not think of Skeff Damer and his fortunes?' Bowling down dynasties and setting up nine-pin princes may amuse a man, but, after all, is it not to the tranquil enjoyments of home he looks for happiness? I consulted Bella, but she would not agree with me. Women, my dear Tony, are more ambitious than men-I had almost

said, more worldly. She would not, she said, have me leave a career wherein I had given such great promise. 'You might be an ambassador one day,' said she. 'Must be!' interposed I; 'must be!' My unfortunate admission decided the question, and I started that night."

"I don't think I clearly understand you," said Tony, passing his hand over his brow. "Am I to believe that you and Bella are engaged?".

I know what's passing in your mind, old fellow; I read you like large print. You won't, you can't credit the fact that I would marry out of the peerage. Say it frankly; out with it."

'Nothing of the kind; but I cannot believe that Bella

"Ay, but she did," said Skeffy, filling up his pause, while he smoothed and caressed his very young mustaches. "Trust a woman to find out the coming man! Trust a woman to detect the qualities that insure supremacy! I wasn't there quite three weeks in all, and see if she did not discover me. What's this? Here comes an order for you, Tony," said he, as he looked into the street and recognised one of the porters of the Foreign Office. "This is the place, Trumins," cried he, opening the window and calling to the man. "You're looking for Mr. Butler, aren't you?"

"Mr. Butler on duty, Friday 21," was all that the slip of paper contained. "There," cried Skeffy, "who knows if we shall not cross the Channel together to-night? Put on your hat and we'll walk down to the Office."

Tony Butler was ordered to Brussels to place himself at the disposal of the Minister as an ex-messenger. He crossed over to Calais with Skeffy in the mail-boat; and after a long night's talking, for neither attempted to sleep, they parted with the most fervent assurances of friendship.

"I'd go across Europe to thrash the fellow would say a hard word of him," muttered Tony; while Skeffy, with an emotion that made his lip tremble, said, "If the world goes hard with you, I'll turn my back on it, and we'll start for New Zealand or Madagascar, Tony, remember that-I give it to you as a pledge."

When Tony presented himself at the Legation, he found that nobody knew anything about him. They had, some seven or eight months previous, requested to have an additional messenger appointed, as there were cases occurring which required frequent reference to home; but the emergency had passsd over, and Brussels was once again as undisturbed by diplomatic relations as any of the Channel Islands.

"Take a lodging and make yourself comfortable, marry, and subscribe to a club if you like it," said a grey-headed attaché with a cynical face," for in all likelihood they'll never remember you're here." The speaker had some experiences of this sort of official forgetfulness, with the added misfortune that, when he once had summoned courage to remonstrate against it, they did remember him, but it was to change him from a first to a second class mission-in Irish phrase, promoting him backwards for his temerity.

Tony installed himself in a snug little quarter outside the town, and set himself vigorously to study French. In Knickerbocker's History of New York,' we read that the sittings of the Council were always measured and recorded by the number of pipes smoked by the Cabinet. In the same way might it be said, that Tony Butler's Progress in Ollendorf was only to be computed by the quantity of tobacco consumed over it. The pronouns had cost two boxes of cigars; the genders, a large packet of as sorted cavendish and bird's-eye; and he stood fast on the frontier of the irregular verbs, waiting for a large bag of Turkish that Skeffy wrote to say he had forwarded to him through the Office.

Why have we no statistics of the infiuence of tobacco on education? why will no one direct his attention to the inquiry as to how far the Tony Butlers a large class in the British Islands-are more moved to exertion, or hopelessly muddled in intellect, by the soothing influences of smoke?

Tony smoked on, and on. He wrote home occcasionally, and made three attempts to write to Alice, who, despite his silence, had sent him a very pleasant letter about home matters. It was not a neighbourhood to afford much news; and, indeed as she said, "they had been unusually dull of late; scarcely any visitors, and few of the neighbours. We miss your friend Skeff greatly; for, with all his oddities and eccentricities, he had won upon us immensely by real traits of generosity and highmindedness. There is another friend of yours here I would gladly know well, but she- Miss Stewart-retreats from all my advances, and has so positively declined all our invitations to the Abbey, that it would seem to imply, if such a thing were possible, a special determination to avoid us. I know you well enough, Master Tony, to be aware that you will ascribe all my ardour in this pursuit to the fact of there being an obstacle. As you once told me about a certain short cut from Portrush, the only advantage it had was a stiff four-foot wall which must be jumped; but you are wrong, and you are unjust-two things not at all new to you. My intentions here were really good. I had heard from your dear mother that Miss Stewart was in bad health

that fears were felt lest her chest was affected. Now, as the doctors concurred in declaring that Bella must pass one winter, at least, in a warm climate, so I imagined how easy it would be to extend the benefit of genial air and sunshine to this really interesting girl, by offering to take her as a companion. Bella was charmed with my project, and we walked over to the Burnside on Tuesday to propose it in all form.

"To the shame of our diplomacy we failed completely. The old minister, indeed, was not averse to the plan, and professed to think it a most thoughtful attention on our part; but Dolly-I call her Dolly for it is by that name, so often recurring in the discussion, I associate her best with the incident

"For heaven's sake come to the point and be done with it," said the Curate. "What is it you want me to do ?"

"Sir," said Elsworthy, solemnly, "you're a real gentleman, and you don't bear no malice for what was a mistake-and you ain't one to turn your back on an unfortunate family-and Mr. Wentworth, sir, you ain't a-going to stand by and see me and mine wronged, as have always wished you well. If we can't get justice of him, we can get damages," cried Elsworthy. "He ain't to be let off as if he'd done no harm -and seeing as it was along of you

"Hold your tongue, sir!" cried the Curate. "I have nothing to do with it. Keep out of my way, or at least learn to restrain your tongue. No more not a word more," said the young man, indignantly. He went off with such a sweep and wind of anger and annoyance, that the slower and older complainant had no chance to follow him. Elsworthy accordingly went off to the shop where his errand-boys were waiting for the newspapers, and where Rosa lay up-stairs, weeping, in a dark room, where her enraged aunt had shut her up. Mrs. Elsworthy had shut up the poor little pretty wretch, who might have been penitent under better guidance, but who by this time had lost what sense of shame and wrong her childish conscience was capable of in the stronger present sense of injury and resentment and longing to escape; but the angry aunt, though she could turn the key on poor Rosa's unfortunate little person, could not shut in the piteons sobs which now and then sounded through and through the house, and which converted all the errand-boys without exception into indignant partisans of Rosa, and even moved the heart of Peter Hayles, who could hear them at the back window where he was making up Dr. Mar

66

sense of injury waxed stronger and stronger in Rosa's bosom, she availed herself, like any other irrational, irresponsible creature, of such means of revenging herself and annoying her keepers as occurred to her. Nobody ever took no care of me," sobbed Rosa. "I never had no father or mother. Oh, I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!-and nobody wouldn't care!" These utterances, it may be imagined, went to the very heart of the errand-boys, who were collected in a circle, plotting how to release Rosa, when Elsworthy, mortified and furious, came back from his unsuccessful assault on the Curate. They scattered like a covey of little birds before the angry man, who tossed their papers at them, and then strode up the echoing stairs.

"If you don't hold your d-d tongue," said Elsworthy, knocking furiously at Rosa's door, "I'll turn you to the door this instant, I will, by.

The

Nobody in Carlingford had ever before heard an oath issue from the respectable lips of the Clerk of St. Roque's. When he went down into the shop again, the outcries sank into frightened moans. Not much wonder that the entire neighbourhood became as indignant with Elsworthy as it ever had been with the Perpetual Curate. husband and wife took up their positions in the shop after this, as far apart as was possible from each other, both resenting in silent fury the wrong which the world in general had done them. If Mrs. Elsworthy had dared, she would have exhausted her passion in abuse of everybody-of the Curate for not being guilty, of her husband for supposing him to be so, and, to be sure, of Rosa herself, who was the cause of all. But Elsworthy was dangerous, not to be approached or spoken to. He went out about noon to see John Brown, and discuss with him the question of damages; but the occurrences which took place in his absence are not të be mixed up with the present nar