man. Such mistakes have, and always must frequently occur; they make up the cross purposes of courtship, and may be called the indigenous flowers or weeds of social life. Putting jealousy out of the question, it is undoubtedly true, a lover generally pleases his sweetheart's personal friends; he is petted by them, and in a thousand small ways assisted to make love to the lady.

As will be supposed, this kind of feeling had a good deal to do with the coupling of Annie and Vowhampton at the pic-nic, and sending them after the sticks.

This sisterly feeling of one woman to another is, however, confined to the good-natured and simple-hearted. A very contrary feeling influences others; and, of course, where there is any rivalry, the other extreme is reached, and whatever can be set up as an obstacle to the peace or tenderness of the young people, is remorselessly set up to keep them apart, and prevent those pleasant little interviews and oppor tunities, which would-be lovers know how to value.

And Annie Homewood had left an acquaintance in London of this latter description, in Cecily Bancroft, who had felt all the more keenly the liking which she had discovered between Annie and Vowhampton, as she had failed to attract the same amount of attention to herself, after making a decided attempt. This not unnatural jealousy of Annie was, however, so carefully concealed that the friendship between the two acquaintances had been kept up by correspondence, after Annie's retirement to the country, and in the course of that correspondence a letter had just reached Hillchurch, detailing amongst other events the social gaieties of the London spring, at which Cecily Bancroft had noticed the very polite attention bestowed by Mr. Vowhampton on Miss Elinor Homewood, and the satisfaction with which that attention was evidently received. Of course there were several minute stabs smoothly pointed in the lady's angular writing; but the weapon reserved to make a gaping wound in Annie's heart and pride, was that of rumour. "And," Miss Cecily put in her postscript, "to show that these are not only my own impressions, I hear your cousin will be married when she comes of age, so this looks as if our former gallant had already proposed and had been accepted," etc. etc.

Of course, there is a limit to a woman's concealment of her love, as there is to most earthly passions, and this letter from Cecily Bancroft carried Annie beyond the silence she had carefully preserved for a whole year. The thought of Vowhampton marrying another woman had never been pleasant, but that that she should be her own cousin Elinor, was unendurable; so she sat down and let the long pent in flood of her love, passion, and disappointment flow through her pen, in the following long letter to Elinor:

"MANOR HOUSE, HILLCHURCH, May 12, 1840. "My dearest cousin, my sister, my only friend, I write to you at last, for my broken heart can no longer contain the secret, which should

never have been concealed from you. O Fortune, your gold had already blighted my life, by coming between me and my one friend, and now it is crushing my soul as it presses on my love. Yes, Elinor, I feel all this and, because I feel it, I humble myself to say it. How very happy were the days when living with you, during your dear father's lifetime, I believed our fortunes were nearly the same, and when at last the sad knowledge came in our affliction, that I was absolutely dependent on your sisterly kindness, and you, in the fulness of your love and friendship, offered me a sister's share, why did I not trust you and stay with you? My judgment, my affection, both pleaded with me to do so; but a stubborn and hateful pride commanded me, against my wishes, to leave you. Alas! in this pleasant house, and amidst the scenes of early life where peace, if anywhere, should have been found, I have never ceased to reproach my fate. But I now ask pardon of you, my own Elinor, for all my injustice to your heart, and in a yet greater trouble, I bring you once again my inmost confidence, for I am alone in the world, and I feel, what I have never before admitted, that I cannot stand alone and live without sympathy.

"You will recollect, dearest, among the incidents of the gipsy fête, that we (you will remember who) went into the little wood to find some sticks to make a fire. I have now to tell you, for the first time, that this task gave us an opportunity which Harry Vowhampton said he had long desired. He told me he loved me! These were words that made music in my heart, and if you ever hear, and certainly one day you will hear, such words spoken by one whom you already love, you will understand the happy triumph I felt in the power of making another happy. But I did try a little to conceal my love, indeed I did, Elinor, and yet I am sure I was not successful, and that he saw I had in truth given up to him my first thoughts, the dewy dreams of my young life, whilst he looked so unfeignedly proud, and spoke to me so tenderly, that I believed there could be nothing occur in this world to separate us. Alas! even at that moment, I began to speak of my position and should have told him, dearest, that I had nothing but what you chose to settle on me when you came of age. I then felt, I could gratefully accept your kindness, not that I thought he would love me yet more; but because I did not think his own fortune was ample enough for him. But this little speech was never spoken; and I blush to tell you how he stopped the words before they could leave my lips.

"Thus far, dearest, I have confessed my love; I must now explain how deeply it has been disappointed.

"The first letter I received, came, Elinor, from prison. He had been arrested for some racing debt on his return to London, after leaving you at Bexley Heath. Of course, this news greatly shocked me; and, if I could have consulted my own feelings, I should have come to you at once, and asked you for the money, which I would have taken to him in the horrid prison; but, I knew too well, this step was one that might

bring us all into notoriety, and I only wrote a kind letter to him-more affectionate than I believed I could ever write to any man. Judge, Elinor, of my despair, and sorrow when I received the following reply:

"MY DEAREST ANNIE,-For this once I suffer myself to call you so, although my honour tells me it must be the last time. Do not hate me for what. I have to say, rather pity one who, pursuing the little pleasures of life, has deprived himself of the chance of enjoying the greatest the possession of the woman he has chosen out of the world This happiness now can never be mine. If this present debt was my only one, the difficulty might soon be overcome; but, to add to the horrors of prison, I have had to go through my affairs, go over the path of my past extravagances, and I find myself driven to the yielding up of the sweetest hope you gave into my keeping. It is because I love you, that I cannot marry you-my honour peremptorily forbids me asking you to share the ruin in which I am involved. Take back then, dearest Annie, the secret I have kept in my heart, since you placed it there. My heart will be left empty; but I must bear that fate like a man, which I shall be able to do all the better for having acted as one.

"As second heir to my uncle's estate, there is the possibility of my fortunes being restored; but the chance is so remote, that I dare not let a mere shadow come between me and my duty, to say now, good-bye for ever; and, may the blessings come to you for which I pray—I would add, forget me; but I cannot pray for that-remember and pityYour's HARRY VOWHAMPTON.'

"Think, Elinor, I have borne all this trouble, and kept it secret from you for a year! On receiving his letter I should have had but one thought; to encourage him, and vow never to abandon him, or shrink from the bonds I had accepted; but, oh! dearest, I was cut to the heart at the sight of my own letter, the only one I had ever written. It was returned to me, and the sight of it set the seal on my suffering, it numbed my heart, and silenced all the fond arguments that love was making.

"My heart has been numbed, and my suffering has been silent, since that day; and now shall I tell you, my cousin, why I speak?

"I will; but whilst I do so, I must take my head off your shoulder where it has been resting. We must stand apart whilst I tell you, and it is according to your answer whether I can ever again call you Elinor. Forgive me, O forgive me, that I thus, for a moment, prejudge you! The words chill my blood as I write them; but there they are:

"Are you going to be married to Harry Vowhampton?-will you walk over, and crush under your heel, my affections, to be his wife?'

"No, no, no. Oh say no at once, Elinor; other girls besides you have fortunes to give to a ruined man; he does not love you as he loved me; let him (if he must) sell his life, to keep his social position, to any other woman who will buy it, but Elinor, my orphan cousin, you must not

you dare not, will you not, after this letter, even let rumour, as it has done, marry you to Vowhampton.

"And now I wait for your answer-my head is very heavy, my brain aches with thought, and my tears cannot put out the fires of passionmy head is very heavy, and there is no rest for it in the world, if it loses the sister's shoulder, the friend's heart. Heaven does not often suffer us to lose more than we can bear; and I can lose no more and live. ANNIE HOMEWOOD."

On the day after the above letter was written two scenes occurred in Russell Square, the one in the morning, the second in the afternoon, which directly bear on the subject; and, although neither of them arose out of the receipt of this letter, yet, as will be seen, its arrival on the same day was one of those coincidences which are differently called luck or fate.

CHAPTER VII.

MARRIAGE SETTLEMENTS IN A LIBRARY.

On the morning of the 13th of May, on the library table of the house in Russell Square, several important papers were arranged. Now in the arrangement of flowers in a vase, the arrangement of toilet knic-nacs in a lady's bed-room, and even in the arrangement of a kitchen, when the servants have a party, there is expected in all these and similar cases, a certain display of taste and order which give a holiday appearance. And even business has its finesse! The committee rooms of benevolent societies, the tables at an accountant's when a meeting of creditors takes place, and a library table given up to the family lawyer, all wear on important occasions a certain appearance of "full dress," which is a fact worth notice, as showing, the general liking for display no matter whether or not the nature of the place or business is suitable.

This impression was felt when Mrs. Witherington, Elinor Homewood, and her guardian, Mr. Carsellis, Mr. Frank Willmott, and the solicitor of either side, accompained by clerks, entered the library on this particular morning.

Miss Elinor Homewood would come of age in the month of June next, and the present meeting was to arrange the marriage settlements proposed to be made between Elinor Homewood and Frank Willmott. As there was an ample fortune on both sides, and as the alliance was sanctioned and approved by relations and guardians, the lawyers had but little difficulty in preparing a draft of the conditions. Indeed, there would have been scarcely any necessity for the present formal meeting of all parties concerned, but for the intention, on Elinor's part, to alienate from herself, as soon as she was of age to do so, a considerable portion of her estate in favour of her cousin.

Mr. Cassellis properly stated her fortune to be about £80,000, and now, as arranged with Elinor at a previous interview, he explained how this handsome portion was to be divided. The £40,000 of personal estate would come, on her marriage, under her husband's control, but would be secured as the portion of any girls who might be born. The real estate situate at Hillchurch, comprising the manor-house and farm, and another farm of about equal value called the "Grange," was to remain the sole property of Elinor, and this, immediately after her marriage, she proposed to divide, retaining the Grange estate which she would entail; and, lastly, she would convey, by deed of gift, the manorhouse and lands, worth about £20,000, the fourth of her fortune, to her cousin, Annie Homewood.

This proposal took the men of law entirely by surprise, and they had ready a pretty little set of arguments against such an arrangement, in the delivery of which they would have experienced a lively satisfaction; but, as Mrs. Witherington kissed her niece tenderly; next, her guardian, Mr. Cassellis, shook her hand with hearty respect, observing that her father's intention, as known to him, would have left Annie £10,000, half the sum; and as Frank Willmott manifested his love for Elinor, after such arrangement, more than he had ever done before, the lady's lawyer simply hemmed! and asked if Mr. Willmott's solicitor had any objection to the conditions named.

Of course, there was no objection. The lover was too well off to be sordid, and the control of the £40,000 was an advantage that even his lawyers would not have asked.

With this episode, the interest in the interview expired, and the terms of the marriage settlements were concluded almost as quickly as they could be written there had been no haggling over fields or pinmoney, and yet the parties mostly concerned felt all the happier that "these business matters" were over. The meeting had no sooner been dispersed from the library, when Elinor received in her boudoir the letter which had just arrived from Hillchurch.

It was not easy to measure the amount of pain that she, happy in her affections, felt on reading her cousin's epistle. If she felt annoyed at her own name being coupled with Vowhampton, she rightly attributed it to the correct cause-some half-intimate and gossiping friend—and, only so far as the report grieved Annie, should she take any trouble to explain it away. At the same time she thought, with a woman's ready foresight, that if Mr. Vowhampton really intended to pay her the compliment of asking for her hand and fortune, she might find an opportunity of making matters smooth with him and Annie.

Meanwhile, she would answer the letter at once, and had opened her writing desk to dispatch her reply by that afternoon's mail, when her own maid brought in a gentleman's card.

A glance showed it was that of Mr. Vowhampton.