not actually luxurious, were as comforta- or late, he always found his wife sitting
ble as London lodgings ever are; they up for him on his return
a little pale
were kept by a worthy conple whose perhaps, but ever in the best of spirits,
hearts were at once conquered by the and not in the least sleepy, as she unhes-
baby, who were kind to Fanny, and not as itatingly declared, if he remonstrated
inquisitive as the servants at Coomassie with her on not having gone to bed.
Villa had been; and if the cooking left There was a cheerful fire, there were his
something to be desired, this was but a slippers and his velvet smoking-coat, and
small drawback to Philip, since he was his particular armchair all ready for him;
frequently obliged to dine away from on the table were the little cut-glass de
home.
canters which Fanny had purchased for
him out of her own pocket-money, know-

It was not only to the Temple that he
went when he thus absented himself, noring that he liked pretty things, and the
was the obligation in question by any seltzer-water, and a plate of sandwiches,
means of a stringent nature; but, as in case he should feel exhausted after all
Philip was careful to explain, it was not the labors of the evening.
on that account the less real. It would
never do for him to refuse invitations, he
said, and to allow people to forget him.
Social interest and social influences were
of the greatest importance to a man who
had to make his own way in the world,
and counted for more in the profession
that he had chosen than the uninitiated
might suppose. He gave instances of
artists who had obtained the most lucra
tive engagements by securing the good
word of a certain melomaniac nobleman,
and of others who had met with all man-
ner of slights and obstacles simply through
having failed to please the same potent
individual.

But, indeed, he need not have taken so much pains to excuse himself. Fanny was, in the first place, firmly convinced that her lord and master could do no wrong; and, in the second, she would have put up with any amount of personal inconvenience rather than have defrauded him of the least of his amusements. Any one who should have suggested to her that she was a neglected wife would have occasioned her quite as much surprise as anger. For her own part, she had never been able to accustom herself to late dinner, and greatly preferred a cup of tea and some hot buttered toast at six o'clock. When the baby had been tucked up for the night, and the nurse, after an hour or so of pleasant gossip over the cradle, had also gone to bed, Mrs. Marescalchi would get out some of the books by means of which she was perfecting her education, draw up her chair to the fire, and prepare for a solitary evening, without the faintest suspicion that she was a person whose lot any one would venture to pity.

Sometimes Philip did not come in until long after midnight; for there were evening parties as well as dinners at which he felt it his duty to be present; but, early

When Philip had made himself quite comfortable, Fanny would seat herself upon a footstool beside him, with her little flaxen head resting against his knee, and coax him to tell her about all the lords and ladies; and then he would indemnify himself for many hours of enforced self-restraint by taking off the little peculiarities of those to whose coat-tails and apron-strings he was clinging in the hope of being upheld by them until he should be in a position to dispense with such aid. His keen sense of the ridiculous stood in need of some vent of this kind; and it was as much to amuse himself that he acted as to amuse Fanny, upon whom some of the finer touches of his mimicry were somewhat thrown away. Yet it is probable that her enjoyment of these midnight performances was greater even than his; and upon one occasion the old gentleman who lodged on the second floor came down in his dressing-gown to say that, if there was a joke, he should take it as a favor if he might be let into it, so that, since it appeared that he was to be deprived of sleep by the noise of laughter from below, he might at least have the satisfaction of being able to laugh too.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when London in the winter was a city of the dead, so far as people who wished to be considered fashionable were concerned; but all that is changed now. Society has greatly enlarged itself; people whose professions require them to spend the greater part of the year in the metropolis are allowed to call themselves fashionable in spite of that necessity; other people, who are in the proud position of requiring no profession, occupy their town houses every now and again, and receive their friends there: there is less of a crowd and bustle than in the spring, but there is more sociability; and

singing in public. I am here by invitation, and so, I suppose, are you."

"I am nodding of the sort," returned the other. "I am paid; and if I was not paid I would be smoking my pipe at home. Do you think I come out at night to hear you sing 'Parigi, O cara'?"

"Well, well," said Philip; "I am not paid, at all events, and the question of payment was what our agreement referred to, wasn't it? I quite understand that you will expect to have a percentage off my earnings, when I make any."

"I do not want your money," growled the German, reddening; "I want that you should be a gredit to me. And that you will never be, if you let yourself be flattered by the old Tommasini and spoilt by all these laties, and give up your work. You work no more as you did; you are getting lazy and gonseited-you will go to the teffel!" And he turned on his heel and walked off, fuming.

a young man who has talents of a certain kind and a sufficiently large acquaintance, need have no fear that his time will hang heavily upon his hands. Philip's talents were of the most popular order, being such as contributed directly to the amusement of his fellow-creatures, and it soon became understood that he was living in London, and that a note addressed to his club would find him. Hitherto he had been chiefly known as a good-looking young man with a turn for amateur theatricals; he had now acquired a fresh claim to attention in the possession of a wonderful tenor voice; and this gift served him as a passport into many houses which would otherwise have remained closed to him. He accepted all invitations from great and small alike; and this would doubtless have been good policy upon his part, if he had been pursuing a policy at all; but the probability is that he was doing nothing of the sort. He was not really ambitious, nor was it in him to look far ahead. He went everywhere, because it amused him to do so, and because he had no particular leaning towards one class of society more than another. He did not inform his friends and patrons that he proposed eventually to appear upon the stage, judging that the time was not yet ripe for that announcement; but when some of them suggested to him that a voice like his ought to be public prop-not hear you on the stairs. How often erty, and that if he decided to make it so, must I tell you to open your mouth wide he might almost command his own price -so!- as if you would schwallow the for it, he thanked them for their hint, audience? When will you learn to do laughed, and said well, perhaps that like this?" might be worth taking into account. In the mean time he was good-naturedly willing to eat their dinners and amuse their other guests, and sing for them as often as they asked him to do so.

Herr Steinberger, whose avocations took him to most of the musical parties and private concerts that were going, did not altogether approve of all this. One evening, after hearing Philip sing a duo from the "Traviata" with the famous Signora Tommasini before some three or four hundred people, he caught his pupil by the elbow, and having led, or rather pushed, him into a corner, began to scold him roundly.

"What do you mean by this?" said the irascible little man. "It is a preach of gontract! Did I not tell you I would not have you sing in public?

"Don't be rude and disagreeable, Steinberger," said Philip, who was now on terms of familiarity with his master and was not at all afraid of him; "this isn't

But when Philip went to take his lesson as usual, the next morning, Steinberger recurred to the subject.

"You think you learn to sing that way? You think, because they all clap last night, that you sing like the Tommasini? The Tommasini she is olt, she is past her day; but if she would have let 'out her voice, she would have lift the roof off that meeserable little room; while you! one could

And Steinberger opened his own great jaws to their utmost capacity, struck a terrific din out of the piano with his fat fingers, and attacked the same air that his pupil had warbled so sweetly on the previous night- "Ba-harichi, o-ho ga-ra!"

Philip burst into a shout of laughter. "No, no, Steinberger; I shall never be able to sing like that."

Ah, you may laugh," said the other, whose voice in truth was more powerful than melodious; "but what is your English proverb? Let him laugh who wins.' And we have a German proverb too, which says, 'Zeit ist Geld! And you will never win anything at all, my vrient, if you spend your time at evening barties."

Philip did not allow his peace of mind to be disturbed by any such prognostications as these. He knew that Steinberger was fond of scolding, and would have found something else to grumble at in default of the present pretext. He him

self thought he was getting on famously. the heights of Shorncliffe, where the wind
And then it was such a jolly life! No- is always in the east, except when it blows
body bothered him; nobody asked ques- a strong gale from the south-west, and
tions; nobody wanted to know where he where the general aspect of things during
lived, or what he was doing when he was the winter time is about as cheerful as
not at the club or in society. Even Wal- that of a central Asian steppe. Pinched
ter, whom he saw occasionally, had not and shivering in this high-lying region,
inquired his address. Walter, fortunate- and brooding daily over the puzzle of ex
ly, was busy from morning till night, and istence and the hardships of a soldier's life,
was quite content to dine with his friend the poor man would have been almost in-
at the club on Sundays, and refresh him- clined to gratify several promising brother
self with a talk about Oxford and cricket. officers by resigning his commission, had
Philip, after having for many years of his not a letter from Longbourne come, from
life looked up to Walter with reverence time to time, to cheer him up. These com-
and some little awe, now found their munications were at first somewhat stiff
respective positions reversed, and was and formal; but as the replies which they
rather disposed to patronize his former elicited were quite as constrained in char-
protector, who was only a clerk in a bank, acter, and a great deal more awkward, it
entirely "out of it" as regarded the gay was but natural that Margaret should try
world, and ridiculously ignorant of Lon- to make some advance towards the re-
don and its ways. Brune would get up newal of a friendship so unhappily dis-
and say good-night with a grave face, turbed, and to show that she, on her side,
when Lord Salford dropped in after din- was ready to forgive and forget. Thus
ner and proposed to Philip to adjourn to by degrees the tone of this long-sustained
another club, where they could play correspondence slipped back into its ac-
poker. No doubt he was thinking that customed groove, and before the year was
Sunday evening might be better employed out, Hugh could look forward to receiving
than in this manner, and that Philip could his weekly budget of news just as of old.
hardly have been worse employed, on any
evening of the week, than in staking his
slender purse against Lord Salford's inex-
haustible one.

added, "only that I know I am perfectly safe in telling you anything; and I should so very much like to hear what you think of it all. Do you ever go up to London for a day or two? If you do, I wish you would try to see Philip one day at the

It was in the month of January that Margaret for the first time informed him of Philip's change of plans. She had not mentioned it before, she said, because she The latter young man used sometimes had not felt quite at liberty to do so; to allude to Fanny in a way which it could" and I should not mention it now," she not have been very pleasant for her husband to listen to, and once he threw our poor hero into a cold perspiration by suddenly fixing his little red eyes upon him, and saying, "I believe you know more about her than anybody else, Marescalchi." But this was probably only a random shot; and as Philip kept his countenance, and declared that he had neither seen nor heard of the girl for more than a year, the subject dropped, and there seemed little fear of his secret being discovered.

The discovery of such secrets as his can, however, only be a question of time; and, considering how few precautions Philip had thought it necessary to take, it was rather strange that he should have been able to remain a matter of two months in Conduit Street without any of his friends suspecting him of being a married man. One old friend found him out at last in the simplest and most natural manner in the world.

Colonel Kenyon, after having been baked and enervated for ten years in the Madras presidency, had been sent by a considerate country to recruit himself on VOL. XL. 2078

LIVING AGE.

Club, and let me know how he is looking, and whether he seems in good spirits about himself. I don't like to bother him with questions; but I have felt uneasy about him lately. He writes very seldom, and he never came to see me at Christmas, though it had been arranged that he was to come down for a week. give you full leave to laugh at me; but I can't help having a feeling that something is wrong," - etc., etc.

I

Colonel Kenyon did not laugh. He thought it exceedingly likely that something might be wrong, and for his own part was not particularly anxious to find out what that something might be. It is not pleasant to pry into the private affairs of one's neighbors, nor is it pleasant to be the bearer of bad news. He did not, however, suffer these considerations to weigh with him, but, like the docile slave that he was, took a return-ticket to Lon

66

don, and presented himself at Philip's Driver Jennings, a mild-mannered man, club that same afternoon. Mr. Mares- having obtained permission to remain at calehi was not there, and the colonel, Folkestone till midnight in order to soothe having only a few hours to spare, asked the last moments of an aged relative, for his address. This was readily given returned to camp, very drunk, at an adto him by the porter, who had not been vanced hour, and was seized with a notion told to observe any secrecy in the matter; that it might contribute to the general and so it came to pass that Colonel Ken- hilarity if he were to "set the 'ole bloomyon reached Conduit Street just in time ing place afire." He accordingly collected to see Philip step out of a hired brougham, many furze-faggots, piled them up as followed by a young lady, who carried a neatly as could have been expected from baby in her arms. The young lady Hugh one in his condition, applied matches and at once recognized as the same whom he paper to the bottom of the structure, and had encountered in Philip's company on then proceeded to lie down upon the top a former occasion, and the presence of of it himself, like an Indian widow. the baby was a fact the significance of Here he would doubtless have perished which there was no misinterpreting. The miserably, had he not been dragged off whole truth flashed instantly into the in- by the heels, in a somewhat charred contelligence of the astounded spectator. dition, by Colonel Kenyon himself, close to whose door this auto-da-fé had been kindled. A very pretty blaze was by this time lighting up the surrounding district; and although no great damage was done, the whole camp had turned out to extinguish the flames, and Driver Jennings was led away, weeping bitterly, to be locked up. The whole affair gave the good colonel much annoyance; for the man had been his own servant, and between Jennings drunk and Jennings sober there was all the difference in the world. Moreover, Mrs. Jennings washed for him, and there were numerous little Jenningses. He therefore felt bound to remain upon the spot, and see what could be done in a quiet way towards mitigating the punishment due to so heinous an of fence; and so, with one thing and another, a fortnight slipped away before Colonel Kenyon again inquired for Philip at his club. Once more he was disappointed of finding the object of his search; and this time the porter added that he had not seen Mr. Marescalchi for three or four days, and believed he must be out of town.

Oh, you unspeakable young ass!" he muttered; "you have done for yourself now, and no mistake. Mercy upon us! how am I to tell Margaret of this? I won't tell her I'll be hanged if I will! Let the young beggar do it himself. The question is, shall I go and have it out with him, or shall I wash my hands of the whole business?"

While Hugh was standing doubting on the pavement, Philip and Fanny had entered the house. Neither of them had noticed, in the gloom of the winter afternoon, the tall figure that had remained motionless within a few yards of them as they hurried in out of the cold. The colonel took two turns up and down the street, and considered of it. Finally he decided that he would not attempt to see Philip that day. It would hardly be fair, and it would certainly be most embarrassing, to walk straight into the presence of Mrs. Philip; moreover, a man must have a little time to prepare himself for interviews of this disagreeable kind. No; he would come up to town another day, and try the club again; and in the mean time surely he was not bound to tell Margaret what he had accidentally

seen.

Now it so happened that a series of trivial accidents prevented Colonel Kenyon from carrying out his intention as speedily as he could have wished. To begin with, he was short of officers, having good-naturedly allowed too many of them to go away on leave. Then the general commanding the district took it into his head unexpectedly to hold a fieldday. Then came three courts-martial within a few days of each other; and then occurred the vexatious case of Driver Jennings.

Hugh sighed, and walked straight off to Conduit Street, inwardly hoping that the porter's conjecture might prove correct. Should it be so, he would have done all that could be required of him, and might write to Margaret explaining that he had failed to discover anything about the young man, good, bad, or indifferent.

However, the fat landlady who opened the door for him said yes; Mr. Marescalchi was at home.

"And
asked the colonel hesitatingly.

Yes, sir; they're both in. But I don't know as they'd care for to see any one."