and take off your travelling dress, and I will order dinner at once."

Clare was glad to make her escape. Her heart was bursting to tell her aunt all she knew, and even then her resolution was giving way. She went to her room, and instead of changing her dress, sat in deep thought, until Louise came, uncalled, and roused her. She was making unpleasant comparisons. She seemed to feel upon her cheek the warm, fond kiss of her mother, and the maternal tears of joy and love that accompanied it: she was, in imagination, pressed in her arms, in a long, heartfelt embrace-she saw her mild, beautiful eyes beaming upon her she heard her gentle tones of affection-she was conscious of being tenderly loved by a mother and sisters-and such a mother and sisters! and she knew that they were at that moment thinking and speaking of her. She had left them in retirement-not now, she thanked God, in poverty-though their

means of support were uncertain-she had come back to affluence and the world: but what were they? There was the cold, formal salute of her cold, fashionable aunt -there would be soon the mockery of warm-heartedness, in the visits of her acquaintances. Oh! that she were again in her mother's arms-oh! that she were by her sweet sister's side!

Louise dressed her without her saying a word. She went down to dinner, it passed without much conversation, for the servants were in attendance. Her aunt asked her if she were tired, or in love, or both, that she was SO silent; and her reply was short and absent. Her aunt was curious to know about the Wynnes, their Place, &c.; but she was unsatisfactory. When they were left to themselves, the Countess began upon the visit to Hastings Abbey.

"I almost promised Lord Hastings to go as soon as Colonel Llewellen would permit.me. The only drawback is my poor

frame. I never have recovered that Italian affair. By the bye, Lord Hastings said he had seen the poor tutor's grandfather." "Yes," said Clare, "and so have I." "You! and what was he like ?"

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Very old, very venerable, and deeply afflicted."

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'My dear, you give me the horrors by your solemn tones. One would think you had seen a ghost! Who and what is he?"

"He is a clergyman by the name of Lloyd, Rector of the parishes of Glanheathyn and Craigyvellyn in Wales."

Clare fixed her eyes on her aunt as she pronounced these names. When they were. in Italy, Glanheathyn had been familiar to them as the residence of the unfortunate Herbert, and to which place Lord Hastings had directed his letters; but Craigyvellyn had never been mentioned. Clare knew that her aunt must have addressed her few and short letters to her mother at Craigyvellyn, therefore, she wished to see whether the name would strike her. It

did, apparently, since she repeated the word, though evidently, at first, without knowing where she had heard it.

"I have

"Craigyvellyn," she said. heard that name, surely," then suddenly recollecting herself, her face flushed scarlet, and she asked, anxiously, how Clare had managed to get there.

"I went with my sister to see my mother," said Clare, whilst her heart beat quick, and her lips quivered.

Had a thunder-bolt, suddenly fallen between the aunt and niece, the former could scarcely have been more terrified and astonished. For the first time in her life, Clare saw her display natural feelings. She trembled between passion and shame -shame at being found out by the girl she had so cruelly deceived. But this unwonted combat did not last long. She soon relapsed into her customary indifference, and asked, as coolly as she could what Clare meant.

Steadily, but respectfully, Clare went

through the history of her meeting with Gwenthlean, and the consequent discovery of her relatives. She endeavoured to avoid aggravating her aunt's feelings by any personal allusions-did not even seem to suppose that she knew anything about her mother, but simply told an unvarnished tale, leaving her aunt to draw her own conclusions from it. And she certainly did appear to draw her own conclusions, if her countenance was the index of her mind; for it underwent perpetual variations. She listened, however, coolly, and without once interrupting her niece, until she ceased to speak, and then drawing herself up proudly, and as if she were deeply injured, said

"Well! you have made quite a Novel out of your meeting with that distinguished songstress at that vile Welsh music affair; and, doubtless, think yourself a heroine. I always imagined that child would disgrace her family; she was the image of her mother."