"Where was it? was it in town, or in Edinburgh, the other day?" murmured old Wertley; "hippocampus-hippocampus-I remember that word; nearly knocked over my argument; I heard that joke before." "You heard it?" said Chantrey in stern agitation. "From whom?" "Egad, I believe it was Johnny Wayre," said Mr. Wertley dreamily. At this moment, whether by design or accident, a piece of Wedgewood escaped from Emmie's hands, and fell in halves upon the carpet.

The catastrophe brought down old Wertley from the clouds like a winged bird, to flutter over his cup and mourn for it; his grief was always whimsical; you might fancy he was half-laughing at himself.

“Oh dear, oh dear, my beautiful Wedgewood set! It's a judgment on me for trusting you with them, you little milkmaid. Ah, Chantrey, a joke never yet broke a china cup; there's more mischief in a lady's white hand, my boy, than all the satires that ever were written."

Here he took up the precious fragments, and apologising to Chantrey for leaving him a moment, went upstairs to his workshop to repair the injury with cement.

Chantrey rose to go, but a sudden parlous spirit seemed to enter into Emmie. She was quite pale, looking very nervous, and she began to chatter in a very random sort of way. He was of course obliged to stand hat in hand and listen. She questioned him about the theatres with a fluttered haste. She flitted from them to the churches. Then she took a flying glance at the late shipwreck. Her conduct and treatment of her subjects were somewhat flighty and insincere. In fact, had Chantrey been in an observant mood then, he would have been in much perplexity. But he, on the contrary, seemed rapt upon some purpose and impatient to be gone.

After these airy excursions on Miss Wertley's part, she suddenly came back to the subject of the review.

"Do you know who wrote it?" she asked.

"Perhaps I may find him out."

"But the harm is done, is it not? In a few days this attack will be quite forgotten, will it not, Mr. Chantrey?" she said, so soothingly.

"It will be a relief, nevertheless, to tell him my mind," said Chantrey, with a sinister smile. "Good-morning, Miss Wertley. I am very much obliged by your sympathy."

"You-I trust, Mr. Chantrey-you don't mean to do any thing rash!" she said, unconsciously retaining his hand in hers, and looking at him with a startled, not to say anxious, expression.

Now I am not bound to say that Chantrey gave her emotion any flattering interpretation. I believe he was too sick at heart and too sincere to take such curious note; but to an unsophisticated reader it might seem as if she were alarmed for the sake of him whose hand she most indiscreetly retained in hers-that with the instinctive misgivings of love she saw some danger over his path. Instinctive misgivings of love indeed she felt; but not a whit for him.

"Don't alarm yourself," he said, with a careless laugh; "I am not going to challenge the fellow."

"Pray don't go for a few moments," she said, bashfully dropping his hand. She seated herself and pointed to the chair he had lately occupied. He went back, and sat down with aroused attention.

"Mr. Chantrey, are you not taking this a little too bitterly?"
He looked at her reproachfully.

"I may have been a little unmannerly, but just at present it is difficult to hide what I feel."

"Oh, yes, just at present; but you will think over it quietly by and bye, won't you?"

"I daresay it will come to that," he said, with increasing reserve.

"All I mean to say is this-and I won't be frightened by your ferocious looks," laughed she, with that peculiar coaxing perversity with which woman the siren always treads on dangerous ground—“ all I mean to say is, might there not be great injustice and cruelty done in great part out of ignorance? All the pitiful melancholy circumstances known to you and me, which make us so indignant, might be wholly unknown to the reviewer."

"It grieves and surprises me to hear you defending this reviewer, Miss Wertley, because I respect you so much," said David, with cold obstinacy.

66

"I am not defending him. I look on his attack upon your mother's book, of course, from your own point of view. It seems dreadful to me," said poor Emmie, resorting to a vague young lady's word in her dilemma.

"Whoever wrote it was a cowardly hound!" muttered David, with masculine expression about which there was no equivocation. Then, in a half-jesting tone, he continued:

"It seems to me, though I have no great experience, that ladies always like to advocate a weak cause. Now, Miss Wertley, I am speculating whether, if you heard that I did-something rash, you would put in a kindly word for me?"

"Do not put it to the test, pray," she said, with a sort of significance. "Oh, Mr. Chantrey, this is what I wanted to say. We are to have some friends here to dinner on Saturday. I know that is your holiday. Will you give us the pleasure of your company?"

"I should have enjoyed it a few days ago, Miss Wertley; but without playing tragedy-king about the matter, I really have not the spirits just now to make new acquaintance."

"My brother is to be there. I hope that is an inducement," said Emmie, with a blush like a peony. "What a shame it is to have known us so long and never even to have met him!"

"I had forgotten you have a brother till this moment,” said David. "There now! Was papa just in his charge that I can speak of nothing else? We never spoke of him since the first day you came here."

"I can acquit you."

"I want you and my brother to be friends. I have been planning a meeting this long time, and you must not disappoint me now."

"There can be no difficulty on my side," said David, amiably. “To those who take the trouble, I am easily won; and your brother!-a good auspice, I should think, to begin with."

"Then you will come. Just be prepared for a little

You can't guess how much you'll like him. reserve at first," she continued hastily, as if chattering against time. "People who don't know him call him satirical, but it is only lip-deep: he has such a kind good heart."

"I will take that on your credit," said David, cheerfully. Then with an indifferent air, as he rose once more to go, "Miss Wertley, do you know such a person as-"

She laid her hand lightly upon his arm, and her smile quivered with latent anxiety.

"Mr. Chantrey, you are not attending. I don't know why I should tell you family affairs, but just to give you a clue to my brother's real nature, I will tell you how he acted towards me. I can never forget it. I don't think his kindness to me could be matched in the whole world." "I can assure you I want no inducement to like him," said David. "Why do you mistrust me? I have always been thought a great friendly calf of a fellow, who could swear eternal friendship with any one who would let him, in one day. All this time you should be recommending me to him. Try to make your brother like me, and he'll find me all right."

"But I have reason to think you might not like him on first acquaintance. I must bespeak your regard for him by telling you a noble act of his, which we need not be the least confidential about."

She then told him leisurely, yet with glowing cheeks which belied all pretence of serenity, the whole story of the little Highgate property so manfully relinquished by him to herself.

"You could forgive a good deal to such a man," said she sweetly, as she came to the close.

It was far from David to depreciate the action, and he lauded it heartily.

She listened to his comments with an earnest regard upon her face, and then bade him rather a hasty adieu.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE GREAT MRS. BLENHEIM !

AND how did Mrs. Blenheim conduct herself to this interesting couple of turtle-doves? We know the course many a lady would have taken in a similar adverse mood. Reproaches, direct opposition, summary ejection from the house, threats, and all such waste of energy comprise the vulgar treatment of such cases. Mrs. Blenheim permitted

the wooing and the cooing on gentle sufferance. She tolerated apparently; but beneath her smiles and her indulgence ran a quiet opposing current, a bias-influence, which sapped and sapped the foundation of the romance. Sometimes, for instance, she seemed to take it for granted that the die was cast, and the marriage was to take place. Then she became a seer; a pleasing melancholy colouring her inspiration. She knew all about their future-it was passing before her; yet it was a pity to disturb the pretty unconscious beings. Just as we see kind old people listen to the rosy raptures of children, suppressing their sorrowful wisdom with a mild, thoughtful shaking of the white locks.

Milly appreciated the delicacies of the table, and her mother would playfully chide her luxury.

"No, love, no wine; you know you will not be able to afford it." And again, "My darling child, don't touch that sweetbread; you will never learn submission to your future lot." And again, "Milly, my love, that silk gown terrifies me. Why won't you lay-in some nice cotton prints; now a sensible little jacket of brown-holland for washing up the cups and plates. Ah, I am beginning to despair."

Upon Mr. Wayre's glowing happiness also she directed her hose with a continual flow of banter. She would plaintively inquire why had he not his pen in his ear sometimes, to look like work. "And, my dear Mr. Wayre" (she never called him by his Christian name), "have you heard of that sweet little cottage yet-that Woodbine Cottage for twelve pounds a-year? I believe there are such vernal spots out at Ilford; and we might prevail upon the charwoman who comes here in the morning to emigrate with you, and cook your chops."

Sometimes she played an amiable Iago in petticoats, and shrewdly assailed his peace and faith by insinuations against Milly's sincerity. It must not be supposed that, because her daughter was thus temporarily engaged, Mrs. Blenheim suffered her to decline invitations; no, on that point alone Mrs. Blenheim was overtly firm. Milly still appeared at party or picnic; and Mrs. Blenheim would give her future son-inlaw uncomfortable details of the admiration and the attentions bestowed upon his intended: how Major This and Captain That, militia-officers and men of mark, almost quarrelled for a dance with her; how she sat in the greenhouse for an hour with Sir Something Somebody, and what could they have found to talk about so low and so long?

Now Mr. Wayre was placed in this dilemna by such treatmentwhich we may call constitutional poisoning-that if he were to question Milly, he might seriously offend her, should there be no foundation for these innuendoes; and if all this were true, he should be investing himself in that most farcical of character-parts-a jealous lover. Better renounce his happiness than fall to such degradation.

There was a Sir Hugh Rowly; a man of large property, with a house in Belgrave Square, and a beautiful country-seat on the banks of the Thames. He was a friend and patron of the Mastertons; and, indeed,

Mr. Harvey Masterton was one of his agents for some property in Surrey. This gentleman's name was familiar on Mrs. Blenheim's lips in her Iago moods. He had met Milly once, and it was Mrs. Blenheim's expressed belief that he was much attracted by her.

"Well, Mrs. Blenheim," our quiet friend Wayre would reply, "I should be flattered. No man properly values his own till he learns that others desire it."

Mrs. Blenheim would not permit the congratulations of her friends, and yet she made them all welcome to the intelligence, and referred to it frequently with an easy, gossiping sort of irony.

"Oh, pray don't talk of it," she would say, rolling up her eyes, lifting up her hands, and smiling. "It is one of those engagements made in heaven, and I hope only fulfilled there. I have no control; they are both such good creatures. John is such a good little fellow; but he has nothing but his pen-and-ink. I am going to present them with a silver inkstand, and two little silver doves sipping from it. Won't that be pretty?" Then she would chassé the subject quite gaily as mere childish folly.

Mrs. Blenheim did not know Sir Hugh, and his resorts were not her resorts; they moved in different spheres. Indeed, Sir Hugh was a very steady little planet, who liked to bide among his satellites, so she understood, and was so happy singing round in his little orbit, that he seldom came to town. At the great picture-sales, indeed, he was always present, and well known to the picture-dealers as their natural prey. He had instituted, it was said, a number of little signs upon the lid of his gold snuff-box, signifying the advance on his bid from one sovereign up to a hundred, which last was said to be indicated by a full pinch of Prince's. In one house alone, whose inmates were known to Mrs. Blenheim, was Sir Hugh a frequenter; and that house was Mr. Masterton's. He was a great patron and admirer of Miss Masterton's artistic talents, and it was said secured all her productions of any merit.

Whilst the Blenheims were on visiting terms with the Mastertons, the probabilities of meeting Sir Hugh did not seem distant; but a cloud had been for some time gathering on Miss Masterton. People had begun to talk of her; she was called "too fast;" and Mrs. Blenheim really could not have it supposed for a moment that her daughter visited there. The young lady's name began to be coupled disreputably with the gallant Major de Lindesey, who rode out with her, permitted her on the country roads, more than once, to drive his drag for him; her father, of course, sitting somewhere behind among other fast gentlemen, all of them smoking like chimneys and looking very rakish. At exhibitions and flower-shows she was always to be seen languidly sauntering about at the Major's side, in a very "flashy" silk without a bustle! It was perfectly out of the question that Milly could be allowed inside the walls of that banned house.

Mrs. Blenheim, then, waited her opportunity to make acquaintance