the fire-screen, which was to be grounded in pale amber, and afterwards sold at a bazaar. The lady's visits, though somewhat dreaded, and considered by many as not unmixed blessings, were endured without a murmur, and her advice conscientiously followed. Miss Carrington had recently revived her ancient faith in lemons; and poor Muriel drank lemonade instead of zoedone at her meals. The boys were sent to cheap schools, though it nearly broke their mother's heart to part with them; and the daughter was recalled from Clapham, and remained at home to nurse the invalid. She was a sharp-tempered haughty young lady, with high aspirations, a knowledge of German, and much strength of character. Muriel had always preferred the attentions and kindness of Regy, her eldest born, to the indifferent carelessness of Hester.

Mr. Heath was detained in England on business. Both he and Lady Hester were terribly annoyed and disgusted at the Earl's marriage, and Derwent's silence on everything concerning his engagement with Patricia seemed ominous and by no means satisfactory. They had never coerced Derwent; he had ever been the petted child of their love and ambition. They now found it was impossible to rule him, and so resorted to forms of supplication, argument, and entreaty, at which he smiled. He had the firmness, constancy, and determination of the Heaths, and was given to deeds more than words.

The change to Italy had been ordered for Gwendoline, whose broken-down health had alarmed her family. The Earl, softened by happiness, and somewhat ashamed of his conduct, wrote her beautiful letters, faultless in style and rhetoric, full of cheap philosophy and

world-worn maxims. The spirit might be willing, but the flesh was weak.' She had fainted under the strain. As every spectacle in Nature is viewed with varied surprise, delight, or indifference by people according to their imagination, temperament, or comprehension of the sublime and grand, so are the phases of a soul's anguish regarded according to the sympathy, intelligence, and feeling of those who are brought in contact with it; and there are certain forms of suffering whose force and depth are as difficult to calculate as those of a breaker dashing in headlong might on an ice-bound shore. Lady Hester considered Gwendoline's grief immoderate, overstrained; in fact, she was wholly wanting in capacity to understand it. Dolly found it absolutely ridiculous Gwen liked to make a fuss over things.' Derwent, who was unenlightened, wrote to her from Cambridge to go and see Patricia all she could ere leaving England; and Mr. Heath comforted himself with the reflection that Hilliard was a man to make any girl miserable, after the few festive weeks of the lune de miel had passed. With Gwendoline's peculiar temperament, requiring the curb at times through its ardour and warmth, she needed a husband with some breadth of mind and heart, definite pursuits, and a controlling will. Such would be the basis on which he wished her future life to be formed. Occupation, which in itself is a wonderful leverage, would soon reconcile her to a loss which, in the end, must be proved a gain.

Lady Hester was kinder and gentler than of old to Gwendoline; she never let her think much, seldom left her alone, and kept her in a round of gaiety from morning to night. The Hallinghams and Lady Catherine Hilliard had left

Nice, and were now staying in Rome; and, as they knew some of the best people in the city, Dolly and Gwendoline were in constant request.

Perhaps Gwendoline was too young for grief and loss to leave any very deep scars. The fever had burnt out the poison of passion; the exquisite fragrance, luxuriance, and softness of the climate and the absence of east winds caressed and soothed her imperceptibly; she felt, by degrees, a return of playfulness and gaiety and childlike insouciance; the egotism of suffering passed away, and she was once more innocently happy, caring for others, throwing herself into their hopes and wishes; for nothing on earth is so softening in its influence, or so beautiful in its results, as innocent happiness, making us kind and considerate, amiable to live with, and grateful for life. Not to have loved her would have been impossible.

She had feared that the imprisoned secret in her heart might give her character a fatal warp, kill her youth, and make no sign; and now, as if by a miracle, the pain was fading and health returning; she had, in fact, only begun to live, to feel, to understand, after she had suffered. Having been so near death made her appreciate life.

Mr. Carrington's society had a good deal to do with all this; he understood her nature, he aroused her mind. Unconscious that she was the victim of a secret love, he imperceptibly led her away to study, to dream, to appreciate art in a finer, higher sense than she had ever done.

All the quaint costumes and customs, the gorgeous architecture, the ancient cathedrals and old towns, the superb edifices in the various cities they passed through, their historical associations -the picture-galleries, churches,

and ruins appealed to her imagination in a thousand formis. He saw that a few chords, simply touched, moved her beyond all expression, and explained to her that the pathetic in art is alone infallible. A sunset over the Campagna, a nosegay of simple flowers, the sound of a wellchanted chorus, filled her eyes with tears, and revealed all the sadness and divinity of her soul. It was to him she turned at last for sympathy, for comprehension; for who can visit Rome in its splendid decay, and with enough education to appreciate what its past has been, unmoved? All the violent contrasts Rome has ever reflected of power, glory, cruelty, might, oppression, and final overthrow; the bigotry, superstition, and darkness of bygone ages; the creed which made life more anguished and difficult than was necessary with its stony repression, its denial of pleasure, its imperious edicts so utterly opposed to the laws of Nature, the theory of evolution and survival of the fittest, seemed here full of sombre energy and keen vitality. The ruins, palaces, and churches of Rome, with their marvellous histories and dark crimes, all forced themselves almost violently upon her quick and keen emotions, and imperceptibly took her out of herself and enlarged her reflective capacities.

'You are going again to the Vatican?' Lady Hester was saying, with an encouraging smile, as Gwendoline, dressed for her walk, came into her apartment at the hotel. I should think you must surely prefer a drive with us out to the Campagna.'

With tact, and even gentleness, Lady Hester now invariably addressed her younger daughter.

'Lionel wishes to show me one of his favourite pictures,' said Gwendoline, and Dolly would

rather be alone with Laura Hallingham.'

Gwendoline always mistrusted the effect of Lady Catherine Hilliard's presence on her nerves, and Lady Catherine was constantly with the Hallinghams in Rome. The mother's eyes were like her son's, and so was her voice, and sometimes the girl had a foolish inexplicable longing to throw herself on Lady Catherine's breast. She yearned to tell her all; but the impulse quickly passed.

'You and Lionel seem to get on capitally together-he is so clever. There is so much worth and dignity in his nature. Has he ever, in referring to your marriage next summer, asked if you have learnt to love him?'

'No,' said Gwendoline quickly, the colour rising, and clasping nervous hands; and I should not deceive him if he did.'

'My dear girl, be less boisterous,' said Lady Hester, with persistent vivacity. He is trying to win your affection. Many men dislike forward girls, who are all gush and feeling; plenty have thrown themselves at his head, and disgusted him ;nothing could possibly be going on better than-than your courtship. You have made us-your father and I-perfectly happy. You have proved yourself a dear, noble daughter.'

'I am glad,' faltered Gwendoline; then-with the deadness at her heart and her thoughtful sadness passing into a change of tone and manner- and do you know, mother, I am beginning to understand some of the mysteries and wonders of art at last. Lionel is teaching me; he's very patient; his companionship has a wonderful charm.'

'You were always a brilliant child,' said Lady Hester, buttoning her glove as the carriage drove round; 'full of ideas, and that

sort of thing. Go and enjoy the Vatican. Lionel leaves to-day, and we are expecting Hugh to dinner.'

Lady Hester bent her head and kissed Gwendoline almost tenderly. This love of art Lady Hester accepted as an auspicious omen; it threw the lovers together, and opened fresh channels for sympathy and communion, and wove other webs for snaring the capricious little god; and Gwendoline, humming an air from Lucia, said playfully, pleased at her mother's caress,

'Tell me what you think of my study of drapery here,' bringing a small oil-painting towards the window.

'Wonderfully fine l' cried Lady Hester, falling back in mock ecstasy. 'One can almost feel the texture of that monk's cowl. We must have it at the Towers, and hang it in a good light in a corner of the library.'

She was so overjoyed at their success with Gwendoline, she scarcely mourned over the Earl's marriage with a notorious actress ; and, since the Blackmores had left the neighbourhood to bury themselves in London, had ceased to worry over Derwent's possible sacrifice.

'Your grandfather has written, requesting me to receive his bride, but I have declined the honour,' she said, with a little bitter laugh. 'No Rosie L'Estrange of musichall celebrity shall ever pollute our rooms, even as Countess of Clivedale.'

'Quite right, mother,' cried Dolly, entering the room. 'And now are you ready for our drive? We have only another week to stay here. We must be home for Christmas. I suppose we shall leave Gwen in the clouds, dreaming over paintings in the Vatican? What it is to be clever!'

Lady Hester gave Dolly a glance which she understood, and both turned away, and descended the stairs, mutely blessing the various providential arrangements that promised to culminate so beautifully in sound marriages. Anything in the way of ideas had hitherto always disquieted Lady Hester. She was not a woman of many words, and seldom exceeded a select and chosen répertoire of phrases. Ideas were dangerous; they sometimes jeopardised society, and had been known to sweep away empires. Conservatism, with its steady old-fashioned principles, and its watchword 'no progress,' really represented her political views. That thousands yearly perish for want of a meal, while a few pampered favourites, by a fluke of birth or fortune, revel in wealth they could under no possibility have earned, never struck her as one of the problems of existence it were well to study. The human race, we know, possesses very few ideas, or even images. It is only when a grand mind comes amidst us we how very few thoughts have sufficed for daily life in contrast with the immense resources of the mind typified in such poets as Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. We must understand the, toil of an ardent student in order to plumb the depths of another's ignorance, to detect counterfeit, and see whether a 'pushing faculty' does not hide veneer and sham. We must be acquainted with faultless models of style in authorship to perceive the vulgarisms and absurdities in the penny dreadfuls. The faculty of taste, developed by culture, will be shocked as much by certain habits of a conspicuous kind, in either man or woman, as it will be refreshed by elegance, picturesqueness, and refinement of style. The greater the power of

see

language, the greater the thought. A Yorkshire farmer will eat, drink, marry, beat his wife, rear children, and die, using about two hundred words in all, where a Milton uses 17,000. Ladies of fashion may be as mindless as they please for what society cares. Silence has its own eloquence when lovely eyes smile and dress has been carefully studied. Her thoughts hitherto systematically crushed, and her intelligence stifled, Gwendoline found in Mr. Carrington a most delightful companion. The antique fables, the unknown and impossible, the bacchantes and sibyls, the river gods and goddesses in the old world, with all its wild extravagances and grotesqueness of fancy, had fresh meaning now. Every fantastic nicety, every weird dream, the varied power of individuation in the paintings, were interpreted by a man as externally elegant as he was intellectual and accomplished. And for all purposes of personal intercourse, personal qualifications are the main consideration. Voice, look, gesture, alike conveyed his superiority; for there is little doubt that, as a clever Frenchman wrote, 'A man may have virtue, capacity, and good conduct, and yet be insupportable.'

Can we believe that a man, dirty as a pig and stupid as an owl, although amiable and honest, is to be delighted in, or that a woman, coarse, cold, and shrewish, is to be sought as a companion, no matter how virtuous and honest she may be?

One might as well try to hold hot coals in one's hand by thinking of the ice at the North Pole, as endeavour to reconcile the agreeableness of such people to our tastes upon a mere consideration of abstract properties and claims.

To-day, as Mr. Carrington and Gwendoline entered the Vatican on this the last day of his visit to