side of far-sightedness, and to detect intrigues and manœuvres which were almost or wholly imaginary. She received Emerson with her usual familiar kindness; but there were other visitors present, and, of course, he could not begin the topic he was anxious about before them. They went, but others came, and call succeeded call, like wave upon wave, while Emerson sat by in a state of rapidly increasing irritability, playing but a very indifferent part in the conversation, and fancying what people would think of his thus turning a visit into a visitation. At last all the callers had departed, and Mrs. Aston, who had noticed Philip's uneasy, constrained manner, and divined that there was some motive for his lingering, sat before him, looking quietly and fixedly at him, and evidently expecting him to state what he had called for.

He was thoroughly confused; he felt obliged to say something, and commenced with some stumbling commonplaces.

"You gave us a very pleasant party last night."

"I did so."

"I-I was sorry I could not stay it out. "You did so."

I left early."

"One always meets such very pleasant people at your house." "You do so."

Philip was reduced to silence, fairly stumped for a fact to serve as a peg for further conversation. Mrs. Aston now assumed the interrogative.

"Pray, Philip, was it for the sake of making these very original observations that you have been waiting to talk to me? What is it that you want to know?"

Fairly driven to desperation, Philip bolted out his leading question. "I want to know where to find Mrs. Omber."

"You want to know where to find Mrs. Omber?" repeated the old lady, pausing on every word. "And pray, Philip, what do you want with Mrs. Omber?"

"I-I must not-I cannot say.

Pray, pray tell me.”

"Philip Emerson, are you mad ?”

But do you know where she is?

"Not quite at present; but I believe I shall be soon driven so." Philip," said the old lady with an air of great dignity, "I must speak seriously to you: you want advice and warning. Philip, you flirt too much. I have noticed it in you for some time, and I ought to have spoken to you about it before. Not that I object to flirting in moderation among young people; it animates them, and makes society amusing; but it must not be carried too far. And, Philip, Mrs. Omber is a married woman. She was thought pretty some years ago; but I really did not think that you could be so infatuated. Your tête-à-tête with her last night was remarkable, and I assure you it was very much remarked. There, now,-don't tell me that I am mistaken; it was impossible to mistake it. My eyes are old, but they can see as clearly as most people's. However, this can go no further, that is one comfort. All I shall tell you about Mrs. Omber is, that I know she and her husband were to start today for the Continent; so it is impossible that you should see her for a long time to come; and I am sure that a young man of your sense will soon have forgotten all about her. Now, don't pretend, Philip, that you had no such motives in asking me about her. What

others could you have?

You see you cannot answer. You must not turn away like a peevish boy. I am your best friend and adviser, and so you will own, on a very little reflection. So now good bye; but I shall hope to see you here again soon as merry as ever; and you will always find in this house the truest welcome and the truest kindness."

Philip left the house almost savage at the increase of his embarrassments, and at the baffling series of misconceptions by which his efforts for the best only resulted in working worse confusion. As he walked sullenly along, with his eyes bent on the tips of his boots, in turning a corner he nearly ran against a party of pedestrians, and, on looking up to apologise, saw before him Charles Melville, with Lucy Hillary on his arm; and Mrs. Traill, Lucy's aunt, and a covey of Misses Traill, closely following. Lucy recognized, and bowed to him with the most perfect ease and self-possession, only a a very, very slight smile of some significance was perceptible for an instant round the corners of her lips. Melville eagerly introduced him to the Traills, and he was eagerly pressed to return with them to Dorset Square, from which they were not very far distant, and to join their family dinner-circle. A messenger had been dispatched to Furnival's Inn with an invitation for him; there was no need of ceremony, or going back to alter his dress; they dined at six precisely, and it was already half-past five. Emerson accepted at random. He had worked his ill-humour up into a state of desperation, and between Mrs. Traill and the eldest Miss Traill he suffered himself to be led captive along, making very abrupt, incoherent answers to the elder lady's remarks, and not volunteering any of his own to the younger one. His eyes were fixed on the crown of Lucy's bonnet, which he thought covered the most artful hypocritical head that ever wore tortoiseshell and ringlets.

During part of the interval which elapsed between their reaching the house and dinner-time, Melville and Emerson became joint tenants of a dressing-room, and of course an opportunity was given for conversation between the two friends, which Emerson, if he had felt less thoroughly wretched, would probably have manoeuvred to avoid; but he was in a state of dogged moroseness, and took no trouble to avoid anybody or anything.

Why, Phil," said Melville, as soon as no third person was within earshot, "I find that you and Lucy Hillary know each other. When I said that I had been breakfasting with you, and spoke of you as my oldest and best friend, Lucy guessed whom I meant, and described you immediately. She says she has repeatedly met you during this season."

"Yes. I believe she may have."

"Well, it's odd that you did not say this morning that you knew her. Did not the name strike you?"

66

Why, one meets so many people in town, after the lapse of a little time names are quickly forgotten."

Yes; but Lucy tells me that she met you last night,—at a Mrs. Aston's I think the place was."

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'Ay?—did Miss Hillary tell you that she met me last night at Mrs. Aston's ?"

The peculiar tone in which this was spoken arrested Melville's attention. He turned and looked fixedly at his friend: Emerson was

now and then he caught her eye on his, and saw the same quiet significant smile upon her lip which he had noticed when they met in their walk. This exasperated him more and more, and he felt more and more indignant at her shamelessness and perfidy, and more and more commiserative of poor Charles. Meanwhile " poor Charles" observed something of the way in which Lucy eyed Emerson, and began to get a little jealous-only a very, very little, but quite enough to sour the pleasantness of his society.

The dinner was at last over; the ladies left the room, nor did the gentlemen linger long behind them. Melville was, of course, anxious to rejoin his intended; and Traill, who had fancied from Emerson's manner that he was a conceited coxcomb, who wanted to play Captain Grand over his company, forebore to press an extra bottle with his usual hospitable zeal. On their reunion up stairs, matters looked at first as black as they had done down below; but there was one among the parties interested who had a keen observation, a cool judgment, a resolute will, and tact and perseverance in working out that will. This was Lucy Hillary. Lucy had a portfolio of prints before her, which she had been arranging in a particular order; Melville was sitting near her; two of the Misses Traill were fulminating on the piano, and creating that happy mask for earnest conversation which music always provides, and for which it indeed deserves the praise of all; for if we do not listen to it, we are enabled by it to listen to the sounds we love best. Emerson was leaning gloomily against the wall, in the true Lara fashion, when Miss Hillary turned to him and said,

"Mr. Emerson, I remember that at Lady Vellum's, last week, you were praising Turner's paintings: here are some very beautiful engravings from them."

Of course Emerson was obliged to approach the portfolio, Melville began to turn over the prints, and, after the first five or six they came to some prints of Scenes on the Essex Coast. Emerson looked at Lucy; Lucy looked first at him and then at Melville. Melville and Lucy smiled.

"Is this much like the rocks in the bay below Scrubville, Lucy ?" said Melville. Lucy blushed a little, but still smiled. I think, Lucy," said Melville, "that those rocks, near which we met that odious Mrs. Omber looked more boldly upon the sea."

'What," interposed Emerson eagerly, "what, Charley, were you ever at Scrubville?"

Yes," said Melville, "I was there in September, for a day or two. I knew that the Hansons were there, and that Lucy was with them; so I played truant over in a timber-ship, but was obliged to keep very much out of the way, for fear some of Pulley and Brown's people should recognise me, and report me to my grandfather."

"You need hardly have feared recognition," said Lucy, "in those absurd mustachios which you wore then, and which made the wise folks of Essex take you for a soldier."

Emerson drew a long deep breath,-a load was taken off his heart, and he felt like a bottle of champagne with its resin and wire knocked off. He received one quiet glance of intelligence and forgiveness from Lucy, which told him how thoroughly she had seen through his blunder, and made him, while he blamed himself for having suspected her so undeservedly, feel doubly rejoiced on his friend's

account in having gained such a wife. No further explanation was entered into, and Emerson saw and appreciated Lucy's instinctive knowledge of human nature in avoiding it; for Lucy rightly judged that, though she herself freely forgave Emerson for his mistake, and for his injurious thoughts respecting her, perhaps Melville, if he were made aware of them, might not find it equally easy to do so, and she might be the means of depriving her husband of the friendship which she knew he valued most. A total alteration in Philip's manner soon relieved Charles of the idea that he was his own friend's successful rival; or, at least, he thought, from the vehement flirtation which Emerson immediately began with the eldest Miss Trail, that his friend's heart could not have been very seriously wounded. The pretence of the sudden departure of a bad toothache, and an instant flow of lively, cheerful spirits, served with the rest to account for past deficiencies, and to place Philip high in favour. He long rejoiced in the happiness of Melville and Lucy; and he never forgot the lesson which he had learned,—not to let others volunteer their confidential communications, not to pledge his honour without reflection, and not to get again involved in