and muffs, forget how girls must suffer who are out selling fish or weeding turnips, with tattered clothes and bare arms, from early morning till late at night, in winter weather.

Ladies, too, who lie on their sofas when they feel weak and wretched, have the same humanity as their sisters who have to wash, and bake, and mend for a husband and, perhaps, eight or ten children, and whose backs, one would think, are quite as liable to ache, if not more so.

Not that the lady is wrong; only let her remember the poor, and be tender and loving in her thoughts of them, and not be disgusted at their too frequently found dirt and rags.

If, with her aching limbs and weary head, my lady had to clean her own rooms, as well as to feed and put to bed all her children, or to wash her husband's thick fustian clothes and work-stained linen, perhaps her house would not be as neat and clean as her smiling housemaid and attentive parlourmaid now keep it.

And, added to this, perhaps half of her weekly income, to say the least, spent at the beershop by her husband.

Our Master came as the child of a carpenter's wife, born in a stable, chose His followers amongst fishermen, and gathered into His fold them that had been publicans and sinners. And shall His servants enjoy every luxury and forget the poor?

CHAPTER VI.

THE LOVERS.

"And Time passed by,

And breathed on Love, and killed it with his breath,

Ere Death was nigh."

A. Procter.

GOLDEN summer had faded into purple autumn when Captain Augustus Stuart wrote to the lady of his love, to announce his immediate embarcation from Bengal on leave of absence for two years. The Princess was to make her homeward voyage viâ the new Suez Canal. The letter did not say a word on the subject of his marriage; indeed, it was, as letters gone before, full of details of himself, of his plans, his feelings, his furlough, his health, and so on.

Margaret read it all over, first to herself and then to her aunt, as she had been accustomed to do with Captain Stuart's letters these four years past. Mrs. Stuart was delighted at the prospect of her son's arrival, for she was very proud of him.

Once or twice she mentioned her trousseau to

Margaret, and advised her to be taking it into consideration, at least the more matter-of-fact parts of it, in order to leave her time more free when Augustus came. Margaret did not seem very anxious about it, and so Mrs. Stuart made Eliza Davies write to a house in London for sets of ladies' underlinen, to be made for a voyage to India, and patterns of spring and summer dresses to be sent as early as possible in the coming season.

Eliza Davies had become quite initiated into all Mrs. Stuart's ways and doings by this time; she had taken, too, a pretty fair gauge of that lady's character.

Every order given in Llangavon Castle passed through Eliza's hands, and all the mistress's letters and messages were known to her; indeed, most of the letters were written by her own hand at Mrs. Stuart's dictation.

At first Eliza (who by the bye was called "Davies" by her mistress) had been very meek and submissive in her manner, currying favour with the servants by overlooking their small peccadilloes and absences from home at late hours. Just before Captain Stuart came home, Josephine, Mrs. Stuart's maid, and Eliza had a fierce quarrel; it was about an old silk dress of Mrs. Stuart's, which Josephine thought belonged by rights to her, but which Eliza had set her heart on, as she thought its deep blue colour would suit her fair complexion, and she had managed to get Mrs. Stuart to give it to her.

The lady's maid had been getting discontented for some little time. She said "there was no doing anything without Miss Davies poking her nose into it." And so it came to a regular quarrel, and Josephine gave warning.

Now the woman was in a passion when she told her mistress that she would leave her, and, notwithstanding the obnoxious companion, would have been glad to stay, when she thought calmly over it. Eliza, however, used all her influence with Mrs. Stuart to prejudice her against her old servant, who was a conscientious person, and, consequently, often in the way of Eliza's plans. It ended in Josephine being too proud plainly to ask her mistress to keep her, and overlook the ebullition of temper. So she left, and a girl of Eliza's recommendation was taken in her place.

At present Eliza had not come much in Margaret's way. She was perfectly aware of Miss Clevedon's engagement to Captain Stuart, and she treated her with a certain sort of respect, though she looked after her ways and doings pretty sharply, and knew quite well what letters she received, as the post-bag was always brought up into Mrs. Stuart's room.

All the time of her residence in that house up to the period of Captain Stuart's return home, Eliza had not let an opportunity slip of gaining influence over her mistress, and of making herself useful to her.

Eliza's voice was always softly pitched when she

spoke to the lady of Llangavon Castle, and her manner profoundly respectful when she waited on her. Her observations, too, when asked to give an opinion, were of a delicately flattering nature, as to the good judgment or wise conduct of her mistress. Besides which, Eliza took pains to learn the exact way in which Mrs. Stuart liked little things about her done, so that no one could please Mrs. Stuart as well as herself.

A good deal of the custom of the Castle had been transferred from the great grocer's shop in the High Street to that of the Widow Davies, in Short Street. Once a dozen pounds of brown sugar had been full half a pound short weight; but Eliza had taken it back herself, heavy though it was for her delicate arm, and a fresh parcel was returned, with an elaborate apology for the mistake from Mrs. Davies, and the like offence never happened again. The boy who carried the sugar back reported to having heard high words between Miss Davies and her mother on the subject; but it was surely impossible that the tones of that young lady's voice could have been raised to the pitch the boy reported.

It was an evening in October when Captain Stuart arrived at his mother's house. He had lingered a full fortnight in London, en route, while he entered his name at some fashionable clubs, and had been fêted by several brother officers, and introduced to their wives and sisters.