ness, and it was a relief to turn against her daughter who had done nothing wrong-but who might, who knows?

'Miss Aurora took it to copy the pattern, and told me to call for it to-day,' returned Hilda meekly.

'It is the first I have heard of it,' my lady said still more sharply.

'Yes,' said Hilda sweetly. 'I did not say anything about it till I saw what you were going to do, and whether you wanted me or not. If you do not, shall I go for it? I do not like to let her have it so long; and perhaps Arthur will go with me.'

'Is any one to be there?' asked my lady, still unpleasantly. She was in one of her porcupine moods, and not easily handled.

'Not that I know of. It is only to get my bracelet,' replied the child with childish simplicity.

Lady Machell looked at Wilfrid. Hilda followed her eyes.

'You come with me, Wilfrid,' she said prettily, knowing that he was engaged to go to Paumelle House, and conscious that her mother trusted him more than she trusted Arthur. Her request for his escort was, she knew, suggestive of safety.

'I would if I could, little one,' he answered kindly; but I am engaged.'

'Shall I let her go with Arthur?' asked my lady doubtfully. That favourite son of hers had fallen terribly low in her esteem of late, and Wilfrid, who had acted as a Machell and a man of honour should, had risen in proportion.

'It will be a pleasant little walk for her,' said Wilfrid, who never could refuse his sister anything; there can be no harm in it."

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'Yes, you may go, Hilda,' repeated Lady Machell not too graciously; that is, if Arthur will go with you. Perhaps he has other engagements!' scornfully.

'I will ask him,' said Hilda, rising from her chair and gliding out of the room with her smooth unhurried step, but skipping gaily through the hall so soon as the door was safely shut between her and her mother, more like an ordinary girl released from restraint and glad of the prospect of a pleasant afternoon, than like Hilda Machell as she was being made by training and the severity of polite discipline.

Running lightly down the long north passage till she came to the 'boys' study,' as the end room was called, she opened the door and thrust in her pretty richly-coloured curly head.

'Arthur, are you here?' she said.

'Yes, come in Lil,' he answered, putting back into his pocket

book the photograph of Muriel which he had been studying as if it were something new and unknown.

'I want you to come with me to Tower,' said Hilda when she entered. Miss Aurora took my bracelet to copy, and said that I was to go for it this afternoon. Will you come with me like a dear boy? Oh what lovely flies! I wish I could make flies as well as you do, Arthur,' with admirable acting.

Her brother looked at her keenly as she stood by the table turning over the leaves of his fishing-book. Did she know of those dead rose-leaves which Miss Aurora had proposed should be gathered for her pot-pourri, and was she coming as a spy? No, it was nothing; a mere coincidence-that Cinderella of circumstance bound to carry all the burdens and accountable for all the ashes; or Miss Aurora had made the excuse designedly, wishing to give the child a little pleasure. It was nothing; and he was glad that she should go.

Has the mother given her permission?' he asked with dutiful caution.

'Yes,' Hilda replied, still intent on the brown heckles and yellow dubs.

'Very well,' he returned kindly. Be ready in half an hour, little one, and I will take you.'

Whereupon Hilda smiled, nodded, called him a dear boy, and then vanished; flying up the stairs like a young goat, and spending the greater part of the half-hour intervening in arranging her hat so as to show to the best advantage the little fringe on her forehead, quite satisfied with life as it stood, and believing in the beneficence of fortune as devoutly as ten years ago she used to believe in the generosity and foreknowledge of Santa Claus.

Meanwhile Lady Machell drove off to Owlett for the interview which had for its object Mrs. Smith's absolute refusal to consent to this mad and wicked engagement between her daughter and Arthur.

'And if she has any sense of her duty as a mother, and any kind of personal pride, she will refuse her consent after I have said all that I mean to say,' thought my lady to herself, settling herself firmly in her seat and touching up the old cob smartly.

(To be continued.)

BELGRAVIA

AUGUST 1877.

The World Well Lost.

BY E. LYNN LINTON.

L

CHAPTER XXII.

WE ARE AGREED.

ADY MACHELL had always respected Mrs. Smith. Though the curiosity, which it was but natural she should feel as a woman, had been baffled by the reticence which it was just as natural she should resent as a denial of the rights due to rank and assured position by a commoner of unknown antecedents, still the refusal to tell the world more than she wished it to know, which was one of Mrs. Smith's characteristics, claimed my lady's respect, and won it. It was what she herself would have done in the same circumstances, and what, to her mind, every woman who respected herself should do. Consequently she approved theoretically even while personally annoyed; and she had justice enough to say so.

But to-day her esteem rose to admiration, and she was prepared to admit to all-even to Arthur-her appreciation of the exceeding excellence of Mrs. Smith of Owlett; her wonderful good sense and supreme judgment; as well as, in spite of their knowing so little about him, the nice feeling and high principle of her husband. It was a rosary of laudation from end to end; and in her gratitude for their co-operation she forgot to be jealous of an assumed equality which under other conditions would have offended her beyond forgiveness, and overlooked the fact that these commoners of unknown antecedents had placed themselves throughout on the same plane with herself, and had taken a tone of repudiation as proud as her own.

'I have come to claim your help, Mrs. Smith,' said Lady Machell, as the self-possessed mistress of Owlett entered the halfdarkened drawing-room, receiving her, as she received all her guests, with that mixture of dignity and reserve which seemed to

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXXX.

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recognise no grace in the present, and to deny the possibility of favour for the future.

If I can be of use,' she answered, her calm eyes looking into my lady's steadily.

"You are the only person who can,' said my lady.

'Yes,' replied Mrs. Smith tranquilly-her favourite monosyllable expressing neither acquiescence nor curiosity; a mere monosyllable-cast in as a break to silence, no more.

'My son Arthur has engaged himself to your daughter Muriel,' said Lady Machell, one of those direct women who like to cut their Gordian knots without the trouble of trying to unpick them-to go straight to their point without making excursions by the way, or losing time in beating about their central bush; and you and I must prevent the marriage.'

Mrs. Smith's delicate nostrils quivered, but she did not speak. She only bent her head—it might be in token of acquiescence; it might be as a sign that she had h ard what my lady had said.

My son must marry money,' continued my lady. "The Machell property has gone down, owing to the undeserved misfortunes of our house; and I scarcely think that your daughter has enough for my son's needs. If she has such a dowry as will enable them to live according to his rank in the county, I withdraw my opposition. I want you to understand, dear Mrs. Smith, that it is not to Muriel herself, but to her financial position that I objectfor herself, dear girl, she is simply charming.'

'My daughter has nothing,' said Mrs. Smith curtly.

'Yet she has engaged herself to a man with nothing!' cried my lady rather angrily. Such an act of madness on either side! gave Muriel credit for better sense than this!'

I

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Young people have seldom much worldly wisdom in their love-affairs,' was the reply made with the faintest flavour of sarcasm in the calm voice.

'On which account it is the duty of those placed over them by Providence to direct them aright and keep them from folly,' said my lady.

Again Mrs. Smith bent her head without verbal answer. Always chary of her words, my lady found her to-day more than ever taciturn.

'Surely you could not have consented to this thoughtless engagement!' cried Lady Machell, a little provoked by a silence which might be dignified but which was also embarrassing.

'I have not consented to it,' said Mrs. Smith.

My lady breathed more freely.

"Thank God for that!' she said with naïve fervour. Indeed,

6

you may thank God for your side,' she added, remembering her breeding; for such a marriage would be as bad for Muriel as for Arthur.'

It cost the proud heart something to say this. Arthur without a penny would still have been to her mind a great match for Muriel with thousands; just as Wilfrid, inheriting bankruptcy, was a great match for his poor little straw-coloured Jemima, in spite of those ennobling and redeeming millions, whereby, according to the faith of to-day, the Brown vulgarity was softened into eccentricity and their mediocrity exalted into excellence.

'My daughter, like your son, must also marry money,' said Mrs. Smith coldly.

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'Just so,' said my lady, with a rapid thought of Guy Perceval and the Manor; therefore she must not marry Arthur.' 'I do not wish her to do so, Lady Machell.

asked my consent nor consulted me in her action.'

She has neither

'And when she does you will refuse that consent?' said my lady, with a peremptory kind of eagerness which seemed to take a denial as impossible.

A slight look of pain crossed Mrs. Smith's pale face. I have already,' she answered, her voice unnaturally low and monotonous, and it was never other than low and level.

'To whom, if not to your daughter? To my son?'

'To your son.'

'He asked your sanction to this absurd scheme this insane proposal-yours, when he had not dared to speak to me, his mother, of an attachment so impossible as to be almost criminal? He is mad!' said Lady Machell.

'He asked my sanction,' returned Mrs. Smith, wiping her upper lip which slightly quivered.

'And you refused of course?'

'Yes, because it is absurd, insane, impossible, almost criminal, that your son should marry my daughter, I did refuse,' she answered with a bitter smile.

'Yet he persists in it. He told his brother yesterday that he and Muriel meant to stand firm against all opposition, and that no remonstrance would move him.'

'He has said nothing more to me. Indeed, I have not seen him since. My daughter has not spoken to me. I am in entire ignorance as to the whole affair,' were Mrs. Smith's utterances made with forced calmness.

'In that case Muriel has acted with extreme indiscretion; for they have often met-they must have met,' cried Lady Machell.