shooting, or to be a Times correspondent, or some other of those exciting things which you young men do nowadays, will not cure you.' I should have said, 'You have not known her very long, it cannot have gone very deep.' I tell you this to show you what my advice would have been had you asked me before speaking to Jane."

44

But it is of no use speculating upon what we should have done in an imaginary case," said Winton. He had awoke from his first bewilderment, and began to understand vaguely that everything was not going to be easy for him as he had once thought. "You see I have spoken to her," he said. "You frighten me horribly; but then it is of no use considering what you would have done in a totally different case."

The duchess sighed and shook her head. "That is what I should have thought it my duty to say, in view of all the pain and confusion that are sure to follow. Do you know, Mr. Winton, that her father will never listen to you never!" she said with a sudden change

of tone.

Winton dropped upon his chair again and stared at her with an anxious countenance. "I know - I was told, that the duke would not be easy to please. And quite right! I agree with his Grace. I am not half good enough for her; but, then," he added after a pause, " nobody is. If there is one man in the world as worthy as she is, neither the duke nor any one knows where to find him; and then," he continued in tones more insinuating still, "it would not matter now. If that hero were found to-morrow she would not have him, for she has chosen me! I allow that it is the most wonderful thing in the world!" said the lover in a rapture which became him; "but you will find it is true. She has chosen me!"

"Don't promise too much," said the duchess with a smile, " for no doubt you have got a family lawyer who will be of a very different opinion; indeed, I hope you have, if that is your way of doing business. But, alas! the duke will not be satisfied, I fear, even with that."

"Then what in the name of heaven!I beg you a thousand pardons, duchess. I don't know what I am saying. I have no title, to be sure. Is it a title that is necessary?"

"I can't tell you what is necessary," said the duchess with a tone of impatience. "The duke is-well, the duke is her father; that is all that is to be said. He will never listen to your proposal never! That is why I should have said to you, don't make it. Leave her in her tranquillity, poor girl."

"But " Winton cried. He did not know what more to say a protest of all his being, that was the only thing of which he was capable.

"But" the duchess repeated. "Yes, Mr. Winton, there is always a but. To tell the truth, I am not so very sorry that you did not ask me after all. I should have been obliged to tell you what I have now told you. But since you have taken it into your own hands I am rather glad. If her father had his way Jane would never be married at all. Oh, don't be so enthusiastic; don't thank me so warmly! I have done nothing for you, and I don't know what I can do for you."

"Everything!" said Winton. "With you to back us it is impossible that anything can prevail against us. The duke's heart will melt; he will hear reason."

A faintly satirical smile came upon the mouth of the duke's wife, who knew better than anybody how much was practicable in the way of making him hear reason. But she did not say anything. She let the lover talk. He went on with the conviction natural to his generation that all these medieval prejudices were fictitious, and paternal tyranny a thing of the past.

"Cruel fathers," said Winton, are things of the Middle Ages. I am not afraid of them any more than I am of the Castle Spectre. The duke will rightly think that I am a poor sort of a fellow to ask his daughter from him. I ought to have been something very different better, handsomer, cleverer."

"You are not at all amiss, Mr. Winton," said the duchess with a gracious smile.

He made her a bow of acknowledgment, and his gratification was great, for

with Winton. His look and tone when he spoke of her daughter satisfied her. He was fond enough, adoring enough, reverential enough to content her; and how much this was to say!

"To me that is everything," she said. "How could it be otherwise?" cried the young man; "it is everything. I have no standing-ground, of course, of my own; but Jane - loves me! It is far too good to be true, and yet it is true. The duke will not like it, let us allow; but when he sees that, and that she will not give up, but be faithful faithful to the end of our lives. Dear duchess, I have the greatest veneration for your Grace's judgment, but in this point one must go by reason. Life is not a melodrama. So long as the daughter is firm the father must yield."

He gave forth this dogma with a little excitement, almost with a peremptory tone, smiling a little in spite of himself at the tradition in which even this most sensible of duchesses believed. Perhaps a great lady of that elevated description is more liable than others to believe that the current of events and the progress of opinion have little or no effect apon the race, and that dukes and fathers are still what they were in the fifteenth century. He, this fine production of the nineteenth, was so certain of his opinion that he could not feel anything but a smiling indulgence for hers. On the other side, the duchess was more tolerant even than Winton. His certainty gave her a faint amusement-his gentle disdain of her a lively sense of ridicule; but this was softened by her sympathy for him, and profound and tender interest in the man whom Jane loved. She was a little astonished, indeed as what parent is not? that Jane should have loved this man precisely, and no other; but as the event called forth all her affection for her woman-child, it threw also a beautifying reflection upon Jane's lover. On the whole she was satisfied with his demeanor personally. It is not every man who will show his sentiments in a way which satisfies an anxious moth

cr.

The duchess, however, was pleased

'Well," she said, "we will hope you may be right, Mr. Winton. You know men and human nature, no doubt, better than I do, who am only about twice your age," she added with a soft little laugh. Anyhow, I wish with my whole heart that you may prove to be right. The only thing is, that it will be prudent not to speak to the duke now. Don't cry out I know I am right in this. In town he is never quite happy; there are many things that rub him the wrong way. He sees men advanced whom he thinks unworthy of it, and others left out. And he thinks society is out of joint, and cannot quite divest himself of the idea that he, or rather we, were born to set it right." All this the duchess said with a little half-sigh between the sentences, and yet a faint sense of humor, which gave a light to her countenance. "But in the country things go better. If he is ever to be moved, as you say, by love and faithfulness, and such beautiful things, it will be in his own kingdom, where nobody thwarts him and he has everything his own way."

Winton's countenance fell at every word. What! he who had come hither with the intention of persuading Jane to decide when it should be, was he to go away without a word, -to be hung up indefinitely, to be no farther advanced than yesterday? His whole heart cried out against it, and his pride and all that was in him. He grew faint, he grew sick with anger, and disappointment, and dismay. "That means," he said, "complete postponement; that means endless suspense. I think you want me to give up altogether; you want to crush the life out of us altogether!"

"Of course you will be unjust," said the duchess, "I was prepared for that; and ungrateful. I am advising what is best for you. The duke, I believe, is in the library. He is the pink of politeness; he will see you at once, I feel sure, if you ask for an interview; but in that case you will never darken these doors again. You will be shut out from all intercourse with Jane. The whole matter will be ended as abruptly and conclusively as possible. I know my husband; you will not have time to say a word for yourself. You can take what course you think best, Mr. Winton. What I say to you is for your good; and in the mean time, if you do as I wish,

everything that I can do for you I will do."

The young man sat and listened to these words in mingled exasperation and dismay. As she spoke of the duke in his library, Winton's heart jumped up and began to thump against his side. Oh, yes, it might be decided fast enough. Evidently he could have an answer without fail or suspense on the spot. He sat and gazed at her blankly in such a dilemma as he had never known before. What would Jane think of him if he submitted? What would she say if he insisted, and got only failure and prohibition for his pains? The duchess, it was evident, was not speaking lightly. She knew what she was talking about. She wished him well, too well to let him go on to his destruction. But, on the other hand, there was the postponement of all his hopes, a sickening pause and uncertainty, a blank quenching of expectation. He could do nothing but stare at the duchess while she spoke, and for some time after. What was he to answer her? How calmly these old people sit on their height of experience, and look down half smiling upon the frets and agitation of the young ones! What was it to her that he even that Jane, who naturally was of far more importance-should suffer all these pangs of suspense? Probably she would smile, and say that life was long, and what did it matter for a month or two? A month or two! It would be like a century or two to them. Sometimes Winton resolved that he would not be silenced; that he would go and have it out with the duke, who, after all, was Jane's father, and could not wish his child to be unhappy. And then again, as she went on laying the alternative before him, his heart would fail him. He changed his mind a hundred times while she was speaking, and after she had ended still gazed on her, with his heart in his mouth.

seemed in gaieté du cœur, with rather a pleasant sense of the exasperation it would produce in him, called forth a muttered exclamation, a groan from the victim) "or perhaps two, at the most," the duchess repeated; "whereas tiger-shooting would take six, at least, But Mr. Winton, I repeat, I force you to nothing. There is the bell, and the duke is in the library. Ring it, if you will, and ask him to see you; he will not refuse."

Winton rose slowly, and went towards the bell. But he had not the courage to take this extreme step. "I suppose may see her sometimes?" he said; "but it will be a kind of treachery."

"Her mother does not object; the case is an extreme one," said the duchess, though she blushed a little at her own sophistry. "What he does not know will not do him any harm.' "It will be deception," said Winton, shaking his head, and he made another step towards the bell. Then he turned back again. "How often may I see her? If we take your way you will not be hard upon us?" he said.

"But it will be deception," said the duchess solemnly.

"I know that; that is what revolts me. Still, as you say, what he does not know will not do him any harm."

I will not prevent

The duchess laughed, and then she grew grave suddenly. "Mr. Winton, I feel as if I were betraying my husband; but at the present moment my child has the first claim upon me. It is her happiness that is at stake. you from meeting -you are both old enough to know your own minds. I will do nothing to put off Jane from a woman's natural career. It is doing evil, perhaps, that good may come: but we must risk it. Come here, but not too often: I will take the responsibility; and when we go to Billings, Lady Germaine will invite you, and you can try your fortune then. I will prepare the way as much as I can. I don't give you great hopes when all is done," she said, shaking her head.

"And after?" said Winton, turning once more with a kind of desperation towards the bell.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" said the duchess piously.

But oh, the difference when he walked out crestfallen through all the big drawing-rooms! Not a word about when it was to be. No sort of arrangement, consultation, possible. Everything had seemed so near when he came - So near that he could almost touch it. Now

everything had been pushed far off into the vague. He had seen Jane indeed, but in her mother's presence, which made her happy enough, but him only partly happy. Was this how it was to be? The duchess indeed was writing at her table, taking no notice of them. But still it was very different from what he had hoped. He did not perceive the bad pictures or the over-gilding as he went away. The place looked like a prison to him, and was dark and stifling. Lady Jane indeed accompanied him through the rooms. She gave him the rose which he had thought of stealing as he came, and told him all their engagements for a week in advance. "You will be sure to go wherever we are going," she said, and called him Reginald with a blush and a tone of sweetness that went straight to his heart. But nevertheless his disappointment, he thought, was almost more than he could bear.

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CHAPTER V.

THE ANTICIPATIONS OF LADY JANE. LADY JANE, it will easily be understood, did not look upon the matter at all from the same point of view. A girl, however much she may be in love, is seldom anxious for a peremptory marriage such as - when there is no great sacrifice involved suits the bolder sex. She loves to play with her happiness, to prolong the sweet time when, without any violent breach of other habits, even any change of name, she can enjoy the added glory of this crown of life. She accompanied Winton through the great silent rooms, with a sense of perfect, quiet happiness which was exactly in accordance with the summer morning- the fresh, soft air in which there was no sunshine, but a flood of subdued light, and in which every sound had a tone of enchantment, though not music. It suited her gentle nature to dwell in such an atmosphere of delicate delight, which had no fact to vulgarize it, but only an ecstasy of feeling. She was disappointed to find that he was less satisfied, less happy. And he would have been angry to see that she was so happy. Such are the differences between those most near to each other. He kissed the rosebud and her hands, as with a sense of daring beyond words, she put it into his coat; but he wanted something more. Yes, he could have been angry with her; he felt a desire to say something brutal. "How can you be satisfied to deceive your father?" he asked. "It will be clandestineHe had the cruelty to

Suppose," he went on, "that the duke were to open that door and walk in now

as he has a good right to do into his own drawing-room- what would come of it? Would you take your hand out of mine, and bid me good-bye like a stranger?".

Her hand indeed slid out of his at the suggestion, and a little tremor ran through her frame; but the next moment she raised her head and put her hand lightly within his arm. "If you think I am with out courage!" she said then added with a smile, "when it is necessary; but at present it is not necessary."

"Then you will not, whatever happens, give me up? - not even if the foundations of the earth are shaken, not even if the duke says no?" he cried, partly furious, partly satirical, catching at the hand which was on his arm.

His violence gave her a little shock, and the savage satire of the tone in which he named her father distressed Lady Jane. "You must not speak so," she said, with her soft dignity; "the duke is my father. But you do not know me if you think that anything will change me." Then indeed Winton felt a little ashamed of himself, and began to realize that he did not yet know all of this gentle creature who was going to be his wife. She parted with him at the door of the ante-room, and went back through her mother's boudoir to her own retirement. Next to being with the objet aimé, being alone is the