"So she may be, but she knows better than that. She mayn't have been long out of the schoolroom, but she doesn't smell of bread and butter;" and the Baronet laughed long and loudly at his own wit.

"She isn't the sort of person that I should have thought he would have chosen," said Zara, feeling some observation to be necessary, and in her difficulty giving vent to a part of what she felt.”

"That's so like a woman! Why, a steady-going fellow like Frank is just the one to fall in love with a little rattlepated, harum-scarum scrap of a girl, just because she's so unlike himself. She'll rouse him up, and keep the old house alive for him; it'll do him good-he doesn't want a wife as grave and sober

faced as himself." And Sir Harry, who had been inclined to run down Lady Selton at first, turned from detraction to praise, in opposition to what he thought was his wife's opinion.

If her mind had not been full of other and more engrossing thoughts, it might have occurred to Zara how very averse Sir Harry himself would be to the process of "stirring up" and "keeping alive," which he arranged so comfortably for his friend!

Through the drive home, her husband's incessant talk occupied her attention; but when she was alone, she could allow herself to consider what was her own real opinion about Frank's choice. The one feeling in her mind the one cry of her heart-was, How could he? She had believed that, after the first inevitable pang of seeing any other woman as his wife, she could have brought herself to rejoice in the fact

of his marriage to one worthy of him; but this this wild little school-girl-what was there in her, which could charm the taste which had always been so fastidious? That she would possess a dangerous fascination for many-nay, perhaps for most men-Zara was well aware; but not for him-ah! not for him. Surely he would want something more in the companion of his life, than a pair of roguishly wicked dark eyes, a childish abandon of manner, and slang talk-which was piquante, not vulgar, only because it issued from pretty pair of lips, and was uttered with an air of saucy defiance.

And this was Frank's wife.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LITTLE BRIDE.

"Sir Peter. Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I'll not bear it! Lady Teazle. Sir Peter, Sir Peter, you may bear it or not, as you please; but I ought to have my own way in everything, and, what's more, I will too. What! though I was educated in the country, I know very well that women of fashion . . . are accountable to nobody after they are married."

MIDLANDSHIRE was a quiet county, as free from any stirring interest as most country neighbourhoods; and Lady Selton, her manners, conduct and conversation, soon created quite a little breeze of excitement in the surrounding district. Every one had something new to tell or to say about her, and she was soon the one conversational topic of her new neighbours and acquaintances. But opinions varied,—nay, discussion waxed quite warm, over the motives and meaning of her behaviour.

Some said "she was young, a mere child, and knew nothing of the ways of the world, . . . her freshness was amusing, her simplicity delightful. She would learn all the duties of her position in time; but meanwhile it was quite pretty to see the little thing trying to play the grande dame, and then forgetting herself, and running off to some childish prank or other; while all the while you could see that she was bubbling over with fun and frolic, which it was almost impossible for her to repress. It was hard on a merry little thing like that, to have to take her place among staid matrons, and entertain dowagers three times her own age. What could you expect? People ought to make all allowance for her. Her young husband looked after her a little anxiously at times, but no wonder; he was afraid of her giving offence to any one by her original ways, but he might be sure that no one, with any