only meant common food and coarse clothing; but it implies scores of things that are far less endurable."

While they thus talked, Cutbill had hurried down to the station, and just caught the messenger as he was taking his seat in the train. Two others-one bound for Russia and one for Greece-were already seated in the compartment, smoking their cigars with an air of quiet indolence, like men making a trip by a river steamer.

"I say, Bollard," cried Cutbill, "where is Cattaro ?" "Don't know; is he a tenor ?"

"It's a place; a consulate somewhere or other." "Never heard of it. Have you, Digby?"

"It sounds like Calabria, or farther south." "I know it," said the third man.

"It's a vile hole; it's on the

eastern shore of the Adriatic. I was wrecked there once in an Austrian Lloyd's steamer, and caught a tertian fever before I could get away. There was a fellow there, a vice-consul they called him : he was dressed in sheepskins, and, I believe, lived by wrecking. He stole my watch, and would have carried away my portmanteau, but I was waiting for him with my revolver and winged him.'

"Did nothing come of it?" asked another.

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They pensioned him, I think. I'm not sure; but I think they gave him twenty pounds a year. I know old Kepsley stopped eight pounds out of my salary for a wooden leg for the rascal. There's the whistle; take care, sir, you'll come to grief if you hang on."

Cutbill attended to the admonition, and bidding the travellers good-by, returned slowly to the Bramleighs' lodgings, pondering over all he had heard, and canvassing with himself how much of his unpleasant tidings he would venture to relate.

"Where's your map," said he, entering. "I suspect I can make out the place now. Show me the Adriatic. Zara-Lissa,-what a number of islands. Here you are, here's Bocca di Cattaro-next door to the Turks, by Jove."

"My dear Gusty, don't think of this, I beseech you," said Nelly, whispering. "It is enough to see where it is, to know it must be utter barbarism."

"I won't say it looks inviting," said Cutbill, as he bent over the map, "and the messenger hadn't much to say in its praise either."

"Probably not; but remember what you told me a while ago, Mr. Cutbill, that even this was better than depending on my little talents."

"He holds little talents in light esteem then?" said Ellen, tartly. "That's exactly what I do," rejoined Cutbill, quickly. "As long as you are rich enough to be courted for your wealth, your little talents will find plenty of admirers; but as to earning your bread by them, you might as well try to go round the Cape in an outrigger. Take it by all means,take it, if it is only to teach you what it is to earn your own dinner." "And is my sister to face such a life as this?

"Your sister has courage for everything-but leaving you," said she, throwing her arm on his shoulder.

"I must be off. I have only half-an-hour left to pack my portmanteau and be at the station. One word with you alone, Bramleigh," said he in a low tone, and Augustus walked at once into the adjoining room.

"You want some of these, I'm certain," said Cutbill, as he drew forth a roll of crushed and crumpled bank-notes, and pressed them into Bramleigh's hand. "You'll pay them back at your own time; don't look so stiff, man; it's only a loan."

"I assure you, if I look stiff, it's not what I feel. I'm overwhelmed by your good-nature; but, believe me, I'm in no want of money."

"Nobody ever is; but it's useful all the same. Take them to oblige me; take them just to show you're not such a swell as won't accept even the smallest service from a fellow like me-do now, do!" and he looked so pleadingly that it was not easy to refuse him.

"I'm very proud to think I have won such friendship; but I give you my word, I have ample means for all that I shall need to do; and if I should not, I'll ask you to help me."

"Good-by then. Good-by, Miss Ellen," cried he aloud. "It's not my fault that I'm not a favourite with you;" and thus saying, he snatched his hat, and was down the stairs and out of the house before Bramleigh could utter a word.

"What a kind-hearted fellow it is," said he, as he joined his sister. "I must tell you what he called me aside for."

She listened quietly while he recounted what had just occurred, and then said,

"The Gospel tells us it's hard for rich men to get to heaven; but it's scarcely less hard for them to see what there is good here below! So long as we were well off I could see nothing to like in that man."

"That was my own thought a few minutes back; so you see, Nelly, we are not only travelling the same road, but gaining the same experiences."

"Sedley says in this letter here," said Augustus the next morning as he entered the breakfast-room, "that Pracontal's lawyer is perfectly satisfied with the honesty of our intentions, and we shall go to trial in the November term on the ejectment case. It will raise the whole question,

and the law shall decide between us."

"And what becomes of that-that arrangement," said she, hesitatingly, "by which M. Pracontal consented to withdraw his claim?"

"It was made against my consent, and I have refused to adhere to it. I have told Sedley so, and told him that I shall hold him responsible to the amount disbursed."

"But, dear Gusty, remember how much to your advantage that settlement would have been."

"I only remember the shame I felt on hearing of it, and my sorrow that Sedley should have thought my acceptance of it possible."

"But how has M. Pracontal taken this money and gone on with his suit ?-surely both courses are not open to him? "

"I can tell you nothing about M. Pracontal. I only know that he, as well as myself, would seem to be strangely served by our respective lawyers, who assume to deal for us, whether we will or not."

"I still cling to the wish that the matter had been left to Mr. Sedley."

"You must not say so, Nelly; you must never tell me you would wish I had been a party to my own dishonour. Either Pracontal or I own this estate: no compromise could be possible without a stain to each of us, and for my own part I will neither resist a just claim nor give way to an unfair demand. Let us talk of this no more."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WITH LORD CULDUFF.

In a room of a Roman palace large enough to be a church, but furnished with all the luxury of an English drawing-room, stood Lord Culduff, with his back to an ample fire, smoking a cigarette; a small table beside him supported a very diminutive coffee-service of chased silver, and in a deepcushioned chair at the opposite side of the fireplace lay a toy terrier, asleep.

There were two fireplaces in the spacious chamber, and at a writingtable drawn close to the second of these sat Temple Bramleigh writing. His pen as it ran rapidly along was the only sound in the perfect stillness, till Lord Culduff, throwing the end of his cigarette away, said, "It is not easy to imagine so great an idiot as your worthy brother Augustus."

"A little selfishness would certainly not dis-improve him," said Temple, deferentially.

"Say sense, common sense, sir; a very little of that humble ingredient that keeps a man from walking into a well."

"I think you judge him hardly."

"Judge him hardly! Why, sir, what judgment can equal the man's own condemnation of himself? He has some doubts-some very vague doubts-about his right to his estate, and straightway he goes and throws it into a law-court. He prefers, in fact, that his inheritance should be eaten up by lawyers than quietly enjoyed by his own family. Such men are usually provided with lodgings at Hanwell; their friends hide their razors, and don't trust them with penknives."

"Oh, this is too much: he may take an extreme view of what his duty is in this matter, but he's certainly no more mad than I am."

"I repeat, sir, that the man who takes conscience for his guide in the very complicated concerns of life is unfit to manage his affairs. Conscience is a constitutional peculiarity, nothing more. To attempt to subject the

business of life to conscience would be about as absurd as to regulate the funds by the state of the barometer."

"I'll not defend what he is doing-I'm as sorry for it as any one; I only protest against his being thought a fool."

"What do you say then to this last step of his, if it be indeed true that he has accepted this post ?'

"I'm afraid it is; my sister Ellen says they are on their way to Cattaro."

"I declare that I regard it as an outrage. I can give it no other name. It is an outrage. What, sir, am I, who have reached the highest rank of my career, or something very close to it; who have obtained my Grand Cross; who stand, as I feel I do, second to none in the public service;―am I to have my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, gazetted to a post I might have flung to my valet!"

"There I admit he was wrong."

"That is to say, sir, that you feel the personal injury his indiscreet conduct has inflicted. You see your own ruin in his rashness."

"I can't suppose it will go that far."

"And why not, pray ? When a Minister or Secretary of State dares to offend me-f -for it is levelled at me-by appointing my brother to such an office, he says as plainly as words can speak, Your sun is set; your influence is gone. We place you below the salt to-day, that to-morrow we may put you outside the door." You cannot be supposed to know these things, but I know them. Shall I give you a counsel, sir?"

"Any advice from you, my lord, is always acceptable."

"Give up the line. Retire;-be a gamekeeper, a billiard-marker; turn steward of a steamer, or correspond for one of the penny papers, but don't attempt to serve a country that pays its gentlemen like toll-keepers."

Temple seemed to regard this little outburst as such an ordinary event that he dipped his pen into the ink-bottle, and was about to resume writing, when Lord Culduff said, in a sharp, peevish tone,

"I trust your brother and sister do not mean to come to Rome?" "I believe they do, my lord. I think they have promised to pay the L'Estranges a visit at Albano."

"My lady must write at once and prevent it. This cannot possibly be permitted. Where are they now?”

"At Como. This last letter was dated from the inn at that place." Lord Culduff rang the bell, and directed the servant to ask if her ladyship had gone out.

The servant returned to say that her ladyship was going to dress, but would see his lordship on her way downstairs.

"Whose card is this? Where did this come from?" asked Lord Culduff, as he petulantly turned it round and round, trying to read the name. "Oh, that's Mr. Cutbill. He called twice yesterday. I can't imagine what has brought him to Rome."

Ferhaps I might hazard a guess, said Lord Culduff, with a grim smile. "But I'll not see him. You'll say, Bramleigh, that I am very much engaged; that I have a press of most important business; that the Cardinal Secretary is always here. Say anything, in short, that will mean No, Cutbill!"

"He's below at this moment."

"Then get rid of him!

My dear fellow, the A B C of your craft is to dismiss the importunate. Go, and send him off!"

Lord Culduff turned to caress his whiskers as the other left the room; and having gracefully disposed a very youthful curl of his wig upon his forehead, was smiling a pleasant recognition of himself in the glass, when voices in a louder tone than were wont to be heard in such sacred precincts startled him. He listened, and suddenly the door was opened rudely, and Mr. Cutbill entered, Temple Bramleigh falling back as the other came forward, and closing the door behind.

"So, my lord, I was to be told you'd not see me, eh?" said Cutbill, his face slightly flushed by a late altercation.

"I trusted, sir, when my private secretary had told you I was engaged, that I might have counted upon not being broken in upon.”

"There you were wrong, then," said Cutbill, who divested himself of an overcoat, threw it on the back of a chair, and came forward towards the fire. "Quite wrong. A man doesn't come a thousand and odd miles to be not-at-homed' at the end of it."

"Which means, sir, that I am positively reduced to the necessity of receiving you, whether I will or not?"

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'Something near that, but not exactly. You see, my lord, that when to my application to your lawyer in town I received for answer the invariable rejoinder, 'It is only my lord himself can reply to this; his lordship alone knows what this, that, or t'other refers to,' I knew pretty well the intention was to choke me off. It was saying to me, Is it worth a journey to Rome to ask this question? and my reply to myself was, Yes, Tom Cutbill, go to Rome by all means. And here I am."

"So I perceive, sir," said the other dryly and gravely.

"Now, my lord, there are two ways of transacting business. One may do the thing pleasantly, with a disposition to make matters easy and comfortable; or one may approach everything with a determination to screw one's last farthing out of it; to squeeze the lemon to the last drop. Which of these is it your pleasure we should choose?"

"I must endeavour to imitate, though I cannot rival your frankness, sir; and therefore I would say, let us have that mode in which we shall see least of each other."

"All right. I am completely in your lordship's hands. You had your choice, and I don't dispute it. There, then, is my account. It's a trifle under fourteen hundred pounds. Your lordship's generosity will make it the fourteen, I've no doubt. All the secret-service part-that trip to town and the dinner at Greenwich-I've left blank. Fill it up as your conVOL. XVII.-No. 99.

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