society as well as Mrs. Hornbury as she could as Lady Hornbury. No, if she cares for this man, and he is really the man

"Of which we are not sure as yet," interrupted Mr. Compton.

"Of which we are not sure as yet," repeated Sir John; "I would do anything I could for peace. For, Compton, we must not take this into court without a very good case; a better one than we have at present. I am not going

"Aye, but he will want that. I must be £300,000 in his debt."

'It is settled on herself."

"Aye, but I will make her give it to himevery penny; she never disobeyed me yet, and she will not now.

Mr. Compton looked at his old friend with eyes which were brightened with admiration. And this," he thought, "is the man whom the world calls mean in money matters, and jealous of his young wife?" "Sir John," he continued aloud, "I have something to tell you which will surprise you more than anything, my dear old friend. This young man has told Watson in confidence, and Watson has told me in confidence, that he not only knows Miss Edith, but is absolutely certain that he gained her affections eight months ago when she was staying with her aunt. Mr. Holmsdale says

"What!" cried Sir John.

"Mr. Holmsdale-by-the-by, I forgot to tell you that the young gentleman who claims to be Sir Richard Hornbury goes by the name of Holmsdale, which the Jesuits gave him (they seem to have given him none of their evil ways, for he is behaving very well)-Mr. Holmsdale says that he is absolutely certain that his attentions would not be disagreeable to Miss Edith, and should his claim, on examination, be allowed by you, he asks you to put the question to the young lady herself."

"Why, Compton," said Sir John, solemnly, striking his hand on the table, "Lady Hornbury and I sent that young man to the rightabout with a flea in his ear eight months ago. I believe Edith did care for him, though she behaved splendidly, sir; nobly."

"Of that I have no doubt," said Mr. Compton. "Now the question is, supposing all things go wrong with us, will you- -?"

lap, and leave you unpaid."

"I'd fight the matter for you if you were bankrupt to-morrow, Sir John," exclaimed Mr. Compton.

"I have not the least doubt of it at all, you obstinate old man. Now I will go to bed and sleep over it. I should like to see this Holmsdale. Have you any idea whether he knew of this when he first knew my daughter?"

"Yes," said Mr. Compton, "as Watson pointed out to me, he had been to them about his claim before he ever saw her. His affection for her is utterly disinterested. When he got his dismissal from her he waited to see if he could see her again, and win her affections entirely without letting her know the fearful power in his hands. Watson says-and Watson knows young men pretty well-that Mr. Holmsdale will not move in the matter at all during your life unless Miss Edith marries some one else. That is Watson's opinion. I am of opinion that he might if he was to find a young lady more accessible than Miss Edith, but that is all guess-work. Has Miss Edith any predilections in another quarter?"

"That good ass Lumberton seems smitten," said Sir John, "but I don't think old d'Aurilliac has given him much chance. Good night!"

We must now leave Sir John to his own thoughts, and take flight to Paris, where the most terrible events were taking place. Lady Hornbury got to the Hôtel Meurice by two o'clock in the day, and by half-past two she was in the salon of Madame d'Aurilliac, in the Rue St. Honoré, awaiting that lady's pleasure with deep anxiety. She had not asked for Edith, considering it wiser to see the duenna herself. It is worthy of note that Lady Hornbury had been thinking matters over, and had come to the conclusion that Edith was not ill. Having allayed her maternal fears on this point without the least foundation, she had travelled on alone, and by thinking about her sea-sickness, the rumbling of the railway, and her postponed ball, she had arrived in Paris extremely cross, and was just nourishing a mortal hatred against Madame d'Aurilliac for having tele

"None such were given," said Lady Hornbury, interrupting.

"I beg madame's pardon. Here is madame's letter, in which you told me that his visits were a family affair."

"I wish I had written in French," said Lady Hornbury.

"I wish you had, madame. I suppose that with that letter in my hand I may be excused from blame."

"Go on with your tale, and we will talk about blame afterwards," said Lady Hornbury, who felt a trifle guilty, though she would have died sooner than show it.

"In consequence of that letter I admitted Lord Lumberton's visits; nay, after I had discovered the affair Holmsdale, I encouraged them."

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Lady Hornbury nodded, and sneezed in the most unconcerned manner, and said, Go on, madame, for you begin to interest me.' "I encouraged his visits, knowing what I knew, and at last he proposed to her. She refused him with scorn, and he told me of it. I went to her and told her that in consequence of the affair Holmsdale she was destined to marry that young man by her parent's orders." "Oh, you told her that, did you, madame?" said Lady Hornbury.

"Yes, madame; I considered that I was acting under your instructions, and I told her that. I told her that she must give Lord Lumberton a favourable answer in five days. On the second day after that she was gone, and at night the young Comte de Millefleurs came and told me all that had happened: he had acted as groomsman, and his sister as bridesmaid."

"How very nice of them," said Lady Hornbury. "You have not got such a thing as a hair-pin, have you, countess? for I slept in the train last night, and my hair is coming down. Now about this young Millefleurs. He is quite respectable?"

will send me a note of my daughter's expenses here to my hotel to-night I will discharge it. May I ask, had you any suspicions of the attentions of M. de Rocroy towards my daughter?"

"Madame's memory is short. I thought that his attentions were directed to your daughter's maid, and so I discharged her; she was only the go-between subsidized by Rocroy."

If

"Ah! I see," said Lady Hornbury. "Well, madame, I suppose that neither of us has much cause to talk about this matter. I do not want to talk about it, and I should think you did not either. You had better not. you hold your tongue I will hold mine; if you speak I will ruin you: you depend on your pension; and affairs of this kind, so grossly misconducted as this has been by you, would ruin a dozen pensions."

So Lady Hornbury got into her fiacre and went to the Hôtel Meurice after her great victory. Madame d'Aurilliac would have given a year's income had she seen her in her bedroom, alone with her maid, an old friend, who had been her nurse in times gone by.

Pinner," said Lady Hornbury, throwing herself in a chair, "I have borne up before that woman, but I am going to die."

"What is the matter, my lady?" said the maid, kneeling before her.

"I never can face Sir John. And oh, my Edith! my Edith! dearer than ever, why could you not have trusted your mother?"

"Is Miss Edith dead?" asked the frightened maid.

"No, Pinner; but she has married a Frenchman, and deceived us all. Oh, Madame d'Aurilliac, I will remember you!"

Pinner got her mistress to bed as soon as possible. Lady Hornbury wrote a letter to her daughter, poste restante, Dijon, full of tenderness and kindness, only regretting that Edith had not confided in her, and putting her entirely in the right about Lord Lumberton's attentions. "I will not conceal from you the fact, my darling, that we should have liked you to marry Lord Lumberton, but that old idiot, Madame d'Aurilliac, mistook everything. As for this Rocroy of yours, give him a box on the ears for me, and tell him that I will give him another when I meet him."

That was the way that Lady Hornbury got out of the difficulty: was she a wise woman, or was she not? I think that she was wise. She said to Pinner before she cried herself to sleep, "She shall love me still, though that miserable old Frenchwoman made her distrust me. must be off by the first train to Calais, and

We

I must break it to Sir John. That woman d'Aurilliac will send in her bill to-night. Wait up and pay it. It will be 10,000 francs, or thereabouts. Don't haggle; I'll give her her receipt some day.”

Sir John slept over Mr. Compton's astonish-, ing communication, and he came to this conclusion, that it was in all probability perfectly

true.

In the first place, it was obvious that Compton believed it, and Compton was the first solicitor in London. It was also obvious that Watson believed it, and Watson was the last man in the world to take up a case unless he was as good as certain. Compton might still find something not known as yet, but it seemed highly improbable. Sir John quietly acquiesced in the matter as far as he was concerned: the worst thing was the breaking it to his wife. "How will she take it?" he repeated to himself a hundred times over. "There will be one explosion when I tell her the truth about Comp- | ton's story, and another when I order her to give up her fortune. I wonder how she will go through with it. Poor sweetheart, she has never seen trouble yet."

Here she was, late the next day, fresh from Paris with a new bonnet and a frank smile. "Now, John," she said, "you may kiss me, but if you rumple my bonnet you rumple two pound four, and so I warn you. And how are you, my dear?"

"I am as well as ever I was, I think," said Sir John. "I am wonderfully well. But I will come up to your dressing-room while you change your dress for dinner, for I have some very heavy news to tell you."

"I suppose that you have heard about half the truth, John," she said. "Come up and tell your story, then I will tell mine. Any one to dinner?"

phantly, and plying her hair-brushes. "I knew it as soon as you spoke. Tell me all about it, and don't keep me waiting. I was certain it was that when you spoke."

Sir John sat down and told her the whole matter, as Compton had related it, from beginning to end.

"Well," she said, "surprises will never cease in the world. At all events, we have my fortune, and we can be very comfortable on that." "Mary," said Sir John.

"Yes, dear."

"If this man is proved to be my nephew, I shall owe him about £300,000."

"I am afraid so; but we never can pay it." "We can pay him your £15,000."

"If you think it necessary to your honour, of course I will obey you; but it leaves us penniless. I suppose that we ought to give it. I will tell you what I can do better than most women-I can give music lessons."

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You are not afraid of the future, then, without a penny?"

"Not in the least. I have got you, John, and it will go hard but what I will keep you. I am not afraid so long as you are with me." "Come here, you golden woman, and sit on my knee," said Sir John.

She came, and their cheeks were together, and her brown hair was mingling with his gray hair, and they sat in the silence of love. "Then you do not mind it?" he asked.

"I don't see that there is anything to mind in it," she said. "I like money and society more than most, but I love you better than all. We are not the first people who have lost their money, and we sha'n't be the last. I should have liked my fifteen thousand pounds for your sake, but it must go if it turns out that we have been living false lives."

Edith could make everything straight for us," said Sir John.

"How?"

"The claimant is that young man Holmsdale who was in love with Edith. He will never move in the matter during my lifetime if Edith marries him. He says that he has won her love could the match be brought about. And, by the way, how is Edith, for I had forgotten to

"Now this is checkmate," said Lady Horn

as a bride can expect to be. Edith, living in that atmosphere of lies which every Frenchwoman carries about with her, has been frightened by old D'Aurilliac into running away with a French count. Edith is now Madame de Rocroy."