'Well, we hope not; because he is a dissipated sort of youth, with no means and apparently no belongings. Probably her relations wouldn't let her marry him. But mamma says

that she has in a manner bound herself to him, and one can only suppose that she must like him."

Gerald groaned. "If she does care for the man," said he, "I hope she will marry him, in spite of her relations and friends. At the worst, he would be better than Ellacombe."

Lady Grace was unable to agree. Mr. Ellacombe, she observed, if he had not much character, had at least money enough to support a wife, which Mr. Richardson had not; and Gerald was pointing out to her in vehement language how atrocious and ignoble a thing it is in a woman to set wealth above love, when his eloquence was interrupted by the sudden appearance upon the scene of Mr. Ellacombe in person.

Ellacombe was sober and sorry: he had ridden over in order to say so. With scarcely any preface, he made so abject an apology for his conduct that even Gerald's hard heart was softened, and his consternation on hearing that Miss Compton had gone away almost made the young diplomatist sympathise with him.

"We

are in the same boat," Gerald thought: "neither of us is going to win, so we needn't be jealous of one another."

"My dear fellow," he said, when

the contrite Ellacombe declared that he could not go away without having begged Lady Barnstaple's pardon, "don't bother yourself any more about it. It's all right. My mother noticed nothing, and I'm sure she would much rather you didn't speak to her upon the subject."

But Ellacombe insisted; and as, while they were talking, Lady Barnstaple came in from her drive, he hastened to the front-door and intercepted her with a very humble entreaty for a five minutes' interview.

His request was of course granted; and after he had abased himself and had been assured that, so far as his late hostess was concerned, he was fully pardoned, he ventured to inquire what chance there was of Miss Compton's proving equally generous.

"I know I made a beast of myself, and I know she thought so," he said dejectedly; "but after all, it's one of those things which might happen to anybody, isn't it?"

"I don't know," answered Lady Barnstaple; "but I must say that I shouldn't advise you to let it happen to you again in her presence."

"I give you my word of honour that I won't!" cried Ellacombe earnestly. "Lady Barnstaple, I'm sure you understand how it is with me, and that you know I'd cut off my right hand sooner than offend Miss Compton. And-and I fancy that you don't altogether disapprove of me, in spite of my having behaved so disgracefully the other night. Would you mind," he added in persuasive accents, "giving me Miss Compton's address in London ?"

Lady Barnstaple stroked her chin meditatively. She still thought that it would be in every way desirable that Chris should espouse this intemperate, but penitent landed proprietor; yet she was not prepared to send him straight off to London to declare himself. If he did so he would assuredly be refused, and there was no telling what might not happen after that. So she said: "My dear Mr. Ellacombe, you

must have a little patience. You have been dreadfully indiscreet, and I am afraid you will have to suffer for your indiscretion. Later in the year-in October or November, perhaps when we come back from Scotland, I hope to be here again for a few weeks, and I shall try and get Miss Compton to stay with us. Then-well, then you must take your chance. I need hardly tell you that she is her own mistress, and that I would on no account assume the responsibility of influencing her for or against you. Meanwhile you had better allow her a little time to forget that you were bitten by her dog. Why he bit you I'm sure I don't know; but by your own account he had some provocation. The wisest plan is to let the bite and the provocation both heal."

Ellacombe, impatient though he was, was disposed to think that there was sound sense in that counsel. He thanked Lady Barnstaple profusely and took his leave with a lightened heart.

Gerald, who saw him ride away, said to his sister: "Look here, Gracie, that fellow hasn't given up the game. I know it by the way he sits his horse. Now, if he doesn't despair, I needn't; and what I want to know is whether you mean to be upon my mother's side or mine."

But

"Oh, well," answered Lady Grace, laughing; "if it comes to that, I suppose I shall be upon yours. you will have forgotten all about poor Chris before you have bagged half-adozen brace of grouse."

CHAPTER IX.

IT was not without some soreness of spirit that Chris left her friends in Devonshire-leaving them, as she felt that she was doing, for ever. It had been kind of Lady Barnstaple to speak of having her back in the autumn: they had all been kind to her from the very first; but she did not intend to return to them. Despite their kindness, they had shown her, intentionally

or unintentionally, that she was not of their class, a fact which had never been brought home to her during her father's lifetime. If they had not said in so many words, they had at least hinted that she had made an attempt to fascinate a member of their family, and that such attempts could not be tolerated for a moment. "No," thought Chris, "I shall never see Brentstow again. If I am not their equal I would much rather not associate with them." And this was sad enough; because she had been very happy at Brentstow When, all of a sudden, she found her eyes full of tears and brushed them impatiently away, she attributed that momentary weakness to regret at bidding a long farewell to Lady Grace and to a part of England which had taken her fancy. Assuredly she had nothing else to cry about.

Nevertheless, she would not have been inexcusable if she had wept a little out of sheer self-pity at the outlook before her. The idea of spending the early autumn in London would be appalling enough to most people to spend that season in a dismal little house on Primrose Hill with a miserly old woman who denied herself and those about her all the comforts of civilised existence is a trial which, one would fain hope, no reader of these pages will ever be called upon to face. But Chris, who had to face it, wisely determined to do so without repining; and although it is true that her heart sank a little as she drew near the end of her journey, and the murky atmosphere of the great city became perceptible, she said to Peter, whom a Civil guard had allowed her to keep with her, that they would pull through somehow.

Peter rubbed his rough head against her and raised his honest eyes, and gave her to understand that such was also his view. He did not like London-what dog does ?-but he was content to be where his mistress was, which is more than can be said for the generality of human friends.

Ugly old Martha had a grin of welcome for the weary traveller, and whispered: "I'll bring you a nice cup of 'ot tea to your bedroom directly: there's nothing but a bit of cold boiled mutton for your supper down stairs."

But Martha's mistress was less gracious. "I can't understand your ways of going on, Christina," Miss Ramsden began querulously, the moment that she caught sight of her niece. "You seem to delight in shaking my nerves with telegrams. You might have sent a letter for a penny; and anybody but you would have done it. However, I suppose you can't be happy unless you are throwing away money: it's only what might have been expected."

Chris explained that her departure from Brentstow had been decided upon rather hastily.

"Why?" inquired the old lady sharply. "What need was there of haste?"

This being an awkward question to answer, Chris left it unanswered, which provoked her aunt into remarking: "You outstayed your welcome, no doubt. I can't say I am surprised at that it isn't everybody who would put up with your caprices as I do."

What she meant it was rather difficult to understand: probably she meant nothing at all, except that she was out of temper and would like to relieve her feelings by a comfortable quarrel. But Chris, not having been brought up among women, and comprehending little of their queer ways, forbore to request an explanation from her aunt, who called her a sulky girl and went grumbling off to bed.

Miss Ramsden was always grumbling, and all the patience and forbearance in the world would have been thrown away upon her. There was nothing for it, Chris thought, but to leave her to herself as much as possible and to remain silent when she railed at imaginary slights and affronts. That was doubtless the more dignified course to adopt; but in some ways it would have been better to fight with the

stingy, ungracious old woman, to reduce her to tears (which could have been easily done) and to make friends with her again afterwards. That was what she wanted, and that would at least have produced intervals of peace and good humour. As it was, Miss Ramsden soon began to complain bitterly of her niece's neglect.

"I did think," she would say, "that when it was arranged that we should live together, I should gain something in the way of companionship in return for all the expense and inconvenience to which I have been put; but it seems that I am never to be allowed to see your face except at dinner-time.”

To such reproaches Chris made no reply. She was willing to play bésique for an hour or two every evening, much as she abhorred that game; but to surrender her share of such fresh air as London has to give, to sit indoors every afternoon, with the blinds drawn down in order that the faded old carpets might be protected from the sunshine, was more than she could bring herself to undertake; and as she did not intend to concede that point, she held her tongue.

Every afternoon she and Peter wandered about the Regent's Park, and they soon became acquainted with every square yard of that not very extensive pleasure-ground. The weather was sultry, the grass was burnt up, the trees were blackened with the London soot they were neither of them very happy in that brown oasis of theirs, amid the surrounding desert of bricks and mortar. After the first few days Peter did not care to roam about much in such an uninteresting place. He sat dejectedly under the trees beside his mistress, while she told him her troubles, which he seemed to understand, and which were as desperately real as the troubles of young people always are. Chris even reached the point of wishing that it were not wrong to commit suicide, and wondering why it should be. Her life was of no use to her or to anybody else: from life, as she had formerly understood

the term, she was hopelessly cut off; and she could no longer look forward, as she had done at first, to eventual escape from her present sordid surroundings. She had been given to understand that she did not belong to the upper class and could not be admitted into it, except upon sufferance. She knew nothing and was not likely to know anything of that which she supposed was her own. Even after she had attained her majority she would probably have to go on living with her aunt, since there was nobody else for her to live with. Sometimes she thought longingly of the Lavergnes; but she had no claim upon them, and after all, they were old and might be dead before the day of her emancipation should arrive.

And so, having neither present nor future that could be reflected upon without wretchedness, her thoughts were naturally occupied for the most part with the past; nor was it strange that in that past the figure of Gerald Severne should fill a prominent place. She did not expect ever to see him again he was nothing more than a memory to her, and he could not be anything less than a pleasant memory. She remembered his bright, handsome face and his manly unaffected ways, and how well they had always got on together; and occasionally-just for a moment at a time-she wondered whether, if she had been Lady Somebody Something and an heiress, instead of being what she was, it would not have been a very pleasant lot to be wooed and won by such a suitor.

Then one afternoon she had a bitter disappointment. She came in late, as usual, and as she entered the dingy little drawing-room, Miss Ramsden remarked drily: "You have missed a visitor. A Mr. Severne, who says he is a son of your friend, Lady Barnstaple's, has been here and waited a long time in hopes of seeing you; but I told him that you could never be counted upon. I asked him whether I could deliver a message for him; but he did not appear to have come upon any particular

errand, except to give you his mother's love and to mention that he was going to Scotland by to-night's mail."

Well, there was no denying that it was a disappointment. After what Lady Barnstaple had said, it was perhaps as well that she had chanced to miss Gerald; but she could not help being glad that he had not forgotten her, nor could she help wishing that she had seen him, if only for five minutes. It seemed such an age since she had exchanged a word with a sympathetic fellow-creature.

This incident had the odd and unexpected effect of making Miss Ramsden jealous. Apparently it did not strike her to regard Mr. Severne and his visit in the light in which they would have been regarded by most old women and chaperons: she saw only that her news had made Chris sad and out of spirits, and throughout the evening she bewailed herself at intervals accordingly.

"Any stranger is preferred to your nearest relations," she moaned. "You seem to be as communicative with other people as you are reticent with me; and you make complaints, I have

no

doubt; though what you can truthfully have to complain of I leave it to your own conscience to say. You need not deny it, Christina: I am neither blind nor deaf nor stupid, and from the way in which that young man spoke and looked this afternoon, it was very evident that he was pitying you. Well, when your aunt is no longer with you, you will perhaps be sorry for having treated her with such ingratitude.

This last phrase became a frequent one with Miss Ramsden. She was not long for this world, she would say, and doubtless the sooner she was dead and buried the better everybody would be pleased-particularly those who were likely to inherit her small savings. She did not always speak of these savings as small. Sometimes she would hint at their being considerable, and would sigh at the prospect of their being senselessly

and wickedly squandered in the course of a few years. At other times she

would declare that she had next to nothing to leave; and then again that what she had would go to hospitals and charities. Chris was often tempted to retort that she would willingly resign all claim upon a doubtful future inheritance if only she might be allowed a few more present creature comforts, such as, for instance, a somewhat larger supply of clean sheets and clean table-linen; but she held her peace, knowing that no request of that kind would be granted, and that anything in the shape of a complaint would be indignantly resented.

Possibly Miss Ramsden may have been visited by an occasional qualm of conscience; for this is a phenomenon which is wont to exhibit itself in the most unexpected quarters.

At any

rate, she was haunted by an idea that her niece, who complained of nothing, had every inclination to make complaints, and she was greatly perturbed when Mrs. James Compton wrote to invite Chris to spend a day at Wimbledon.

"That lawyer man," said she, "is just like the rest of his tribe. He expects to get the value of a shilling for every sixpence that he lays out, and I am sure he will try to persuade you that I don't spend every penny receive from him for taking charge of you. Well, you may tell him from me that if you are discontented it is no fault of mine. I have done my best; but I can't afford to give you champagne every night upon the pittance that he allows me.

You may

say what you like against me, and I have no doubt you will say a great deal, but you can't honestly assert that I haven't done all I ever undertook to do."

glad to leave me where I am, and that if I were to say I was dissatisfied he wouldn't believe me."

But Miss Ramsden refused to be

conciliated. "You speak as if you

had some cause for dissatisfaction," said she. "What cause have you? If you could tell me we might perhaps get on better together."

Chris, rather foolishly, answered: "Well, if you ask the question, Aunt Rebecca, I don't think I get quite enough to eat."

It was perfectly true that she did not get nearly enough to eat, and that what she did get was often so bad of its kind as to be uneatable. But if that circumstance had to be mentioned at all, it would have been far better to mention it to Mr. Compton than to Miss Ramsden, who instantly burst out into a furious invective. "You wicked, ungrateful girl! I knew very well that you meant to traduce me, and I might have guessed that you would hit upon some accusation which cannot be disproved. The pounds and pounds that I have spent upon the butcher and poulterer since you have been here! And of course you took care to find out that I always pay ready money and have no bills to show. Well, I am rightly served! If I had had any sense I should have foreseen what your father's daughter would turn out."

Chris had an admirable temper; but it was not her way to refuse a fight when those whom she loved were attacked. As a matter of fact, she had had no great reason to love her father; but her life with him had been a happy one, and now that he was gone she very naturally thought he had been the most indulgent and considerate of parents.

"You can abuse me as much as you please, Aunt Rebecca," she returned; but I will not allow you or anybody else to abuse my father."

"You will not allow! Do you consider that a proper and respectful way to speak to your aunt? And do you