to know how it is that you've left a princely house, with plenty of servants and all the luxuries of life, to come and live in a shabby corner of an obscure town and smoke penny cigars? There's the riddle I want you

to solve for me."

For some seconds Bramleigh's confusion and displeasure seemed to master him completely, making all reply impossible; but at last he regained a degree of calm, and with a voice slightly agitated, said: “I am sorry to baulk your very natural curiosity, Mr. Cutbill, but the matter on which you seek to be informed is one strictly personal and private."

"That's exactly why I'm pushing for the explanation," resumed the other, with the coolest imaginable manner. "If it was a public event I'd have no need to ask to be enlightened."

Bramleigh winced under this rejoinder, and a slight contortion of the face showed what his self-control was costing him.

Cutbill, however, went on: "When they told me, at the Gresham, that there was a man setting up a claim to your property, and that you declared you'd not live in the house, nor draw a shilling from the estate, till you were well assured it was your own beyond dispute, my answer was, "No son of old Montagu Bramleigh ever said that. you may say of that family, they're no fools.'

Whatever

"And is it with fools you would class the man who reasoned in this fashion?" said Augustus, who tried to smile and seem indifferent as he spoke.

"First of all, it's not reasoning at all; the man who began to doubt whether he had a valid right to what he possessed might doubt whether he had a right to his own name,-whether his wife was his own, and what not. Don't you see where all this would lead to? If I have to report whether a new line is safe and fit to be opened for public traffic, I don't sink shafts down to see if some hundred fathoms below there might be an extinct volcano, or a stratum of unsound pudding-stone. I only want to know that the rails will carry so many tons of merchandise. Do you see my point? do you take me, Bramleigh?"

"Mr. Cutbill," said Augustus slowly, "on matters such as these you have just alluded to, there is no man's opinion I should prefer to yours, but there are other questions on which I would rather rely upon my own judgment. May I beg, therefore, that we should turn to some other topic." "It's true then,-the report was well founded?" cried Cutbill, staring in wide astonishment at the other's face.

"And if it were, sir," replied Bramleigh haughtily, "what then?" "What then? Simply that you'd be the-no matter what. Your father was very angry with me one night, because I said something of the same kind to him." And as he spoke he pushed his glass impatiently from him, and looked ineffably annoyed and disgusted.

"Will you not take more wine, Mr. Cutbill?" said Augustus, blandly, and without the faintest sign of irritation.

"No, not a drop. I'm sorry I've taken so much. I began by filling

my glass whenever I saw the decanter near me,-thinking, like a confounded fool as I was, we were in for a quiet confidential talk, and knowing that I was just the sort of fellow a man of your own stamp needs and requires; a fellow who does nothing from the claims of a class-do you understand ?—nothing because he mixes with a certain set and dines at a certain club; but acts independent of all extraneous pressure,masonry, Bramleigh, that wants no buttress. Can you follow me, eh ?" "I believe I can appreciate the strength of such a character as you describe."

-a bit of

"No, you can't, not a bit of it. Some flighty fool that would tell you what a fine creature you were, how great-hearted-that's the cant, greathearted!—would have far more of your esteem and admiration than Tom Cutbill, with his keen knowledge of life and his thorough insight into men and manners."

said Bramleigh, quietly.

"You are unjust to each of us," "Well, let us have done with it. I'll go and ask Miss Ellen for a cup of tea, and then I'll take my leave. I'm sure I wish I'd never have come here. It's enough to provoke a better temper than mine. And now let me just ask you, out of mere curiosity,-for of course I mustn't presume to feel more,— but just out of curiosity let me ask you, do you know an art or an industry, a trade or a calling, that would bring you in fifty pounds a year? Do you see your way to earning the rent of a lodging even as modest as this?"

"That is exactly one of the points on which your advice would be very valuable to me, Mr. Cutbill."

"Nothing of the kind. I could no more tell a man of your stamp how to gain his livelihood than I could make a tunnel with a corkscrew. I know your theory well enough. I've heard it announced a thousand times and more. Every fellow with a silk lining to his coat and a taste for fancy jewellery imagines he has only to go to Australia to make a fortune; that when he has done with Bond Street he can take to the bush. Isn't that it, Bramleigh-eh? You fancy you're up to roughing it and hard work because you have walked four hours through the stubble after the partridges, or sat a sharp thing' across country in a red coat! Heaven help you! It isn't with five courses and finger-glasses a man finishes his day at Warra-Warra."

"I assure you, Mr. Cutbill, as regards my own case, I neither take a high estimate of my own capacity nor a low one of the difficulty of earning a living."

"Humility never paid a butcher's bill, any more than conceit ! " retorted the inexorable Cutbill, who seemed bent on opposing everything. "Have you thought of nothing you could do? for, if you're utterly incapable, there's nothing for you but the public service."

"Perhaps that is the career would best suit me," said Bramleigh, smiling; and I have already written to bespeak the kind influence of an old friend of my father's on my behalf.”

"Who is he?"

"Sir Francis Deighton."

"The greatest humbug in the Government! He trades on being the most popular man of his day, because he never refused anything to anybody-so far as a promise went; but it's well known that he never gave anything out of his own connections. Don't depend on Sir Francis, Bramleigh, whatever you do."

"That is sorry comfort you give me." "Don't you know any women?"

"Women-women? I know several."

"I mean women of fashion. Those meddlesome women that are always dabbling in politics and the Stock Exchange,-very deep where you think they know nothing, and perfectly ignorant about what they pretend to know best. They've two-thirds of the patronage of every Government in England. You may laugh; but it's true."

"Come, Mr. Cutbill, if you'll not take more wine we'll join my sister," said Bramleigh, with a faint smile.

"Get them to make you a Commissioner-it doesn't matter of whatWoods and Forests-Bankruptcy-Lunacy-anything; it's always two thousand a year, and little to do for it. And if you can't be a Commissioner be an Inspector, and then you have your travelling-expenses ;" and Cutbill winked knowingly as he spoke and sauntered away to the drawing-room.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE APPOINTMENT.

"WHAT Will Mr. Cutbill say now?" cried Ellen, as she stood leaning on her brother's shoulder while he read a letter marked "On her Majesty's Service," and sealed with a prodigious extravagance of wax. It ran thus:

Downing Street, Sept. 10th.

SIR, "I HAVE received instructions from Sir Francis Deighton, her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, to acknowledge your letter of the 9th instant; and while expressing his regret that he has not at this moment any post in his department which he could offer for your acceptance, to state that her Majesty's Secretary for Foreign Affairs will consent to appoint you consul at Cattaro, full details of which post, duties, salary, &c. will be communicated to you in the official despatch from the Foreign Office.

"Sir Francis Deighton is most happy to have been the means through which the son of an old friend has been introduced into the service of the Crown.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your obedient Servant,

"GREY EGERTON D'EYNCOURT,
"Private Secretary."

"What will he say now, Gusty?" said she, triumphantly.

"He will probably say, 'What's it worth?' Nelly. How much is the income?'"

I suppose he will. I take it he will measure a friend's good feeling towards us by the scale of an official salary, as if two or three hundred a year more or less could affect the gratitude we must feel towards a real patron."

A slight twinge of pain seemed to move Bramleigh's mouth; but he grew calm in a moment, and merely said, "We must wait till we hear more."

"But your mind is at ease, Gusty ? Tell me that your anxieties are all allayed?" cried she eagerly.

"Yes; in so far that I have got something-that I have not met a cold refusal."

"Oh, don't take it that way," broke she in, looking at him with a half-reproachful expression. "Do not, I beseech you, let Mr. Cutbill's spirit influence you. Be hopeful and trustful, as you always were."

"I'll try," said he, passing his arm round her and smiling affectionately at her.

"I hope he has gone, Gusty. I do hope we shall not see him again. He is so terribly hard in his judgments, so merciless in the way he sentences people who merely think differently from himself. After hearing him talk for an hour or so, I always go away with the thought that if the world be only half as bad as he says it is, it's little worth living in."

"Well, he will go to-morrow, or Thursday at farthest; and I won't pretend I shall regret him. He is occasionally too candid."

"His candour is simply rudeness; frankness is very well for a friend, but he was never in the position to use this freedom. Only think of what he said to me yesterday: he said that as it was not unlikely I should have to turn governess or companion, the first thing I should do would be to change my name. 'They,' he remarked-but I don't well know whom he exactly meant they don't like broken-down gentlefolk. They suspect them of this, that, and the other;' and he suggested I should call myself Miss Cutbill. Did you ever hear impertinence equal to that?"

"But it may have been kindly-intentioned, Nelly. I have no doubt he meant to do a good-natured thing."

"Save me from good nature that is not allied with good manners, then," said she, growing crimson as she spoke.

"I have not escaped scot-free, I assure you," said he, smiling; “but it seems to me a man really never knows what the world thinks of him till he has gone through the ordeal of broken fortune. By the way, where is Cattaro? the name sounds Italian."

I assumed it to be in Italy somewhere, but I can't tell you why." Bramleigh took down his atlas, and pored patiently over Italy and her outlying islands for a long time, but in vain. Nelly, too, aided him in his

search, but to no purpose.

While they were still bending over the map,

Catbill entered with a large despatch-shaped letter in his hand.

"The Queen's messenger has just handed me that for you, Bramleigh. I hope it's good news."

Bramleigh opened and read:

"SIR,

"Foreign Office.

"I HAVE had much pleasure in submitting your name to her Majesty for the appointment of consul at Cattaro, where your salary will be two hundred pounds a year, and twenty pounds for office expenses. You will repair to your post without unnecessary delay, and report your arrival to this department.

"I am, &c. &c.

"BIDDLESWORTH."

"Two hundred a year ! Fifty less than we gave our cook!" said Bramleigh, with a faint smile.

"It is an insult, an outrage," said Nelly, whose face and neck glowed till they appeared crimson. "I hope, Gusty, you'll have the firmness to reject such an offer."

"What does Mr. Cutbill say?" asked he, turning towards him.

"Mr. Cutbill says that if you're bent on playing Don Quixote, and won't go back and enjoy what's your own, like a sensible man, this pittance-it ain't more—is better than trying to eke out life by your little talents."

Nelly turned her large eyes, open to the widest, upon him, as he spoke, with an expression so palpably that of rebuke for his freedom, that he replied to her stare by saying,

"Of course I am very free and easy. More than that, I'm downright rude. That's what you mean-a vulgar dog! but don't you see that's what diminished fortune must bring you to? You'll have to live with vulgar dogs. It's not only coarse cookery, but coarse company a man comes to. Ay, and there are people will tell you that both are useful—as alter-atives, as the doctors call them."

It was a happy accident that made him lengthen out the third syllable of the word, which amused Nelly so much that she laughed outright.

"Can you tell us where is Cattaro, Mr. Cutbill?" asked Bramleigh, eager that the other should not notice his sister's laughter.

"I haven't the faintest notion; but Bollard, the messenger, is eating his luncheon at the station: I'll run down and ask him." And without waiting for a reply, he seized his hat and hurried away.

"One must own he is good-natured," said Nelly, "but he does make us pay somewhat smartly for it. His wholesome truths are occasionally hard to swallow."

"As he told us, Nelly, we must accept these things as part of our changed condition. Poverty wouldn't be such a hard thing to bear if it