Rome for he could no longer remain absent from his businessshe was listening eagerly to his description of the various marbles, bronzes, paintings, and inestimable treasures of the Vatican. He was a connoisseur in paintings, and had seen some of the finest pictures in the world. She breathed freer here away from the narrowness and oppression of her home circle. She liked his grave musical voice, encouraging and kind, and his refinement of thought. He knew the books she loved best-her favourite poets; every day disclosed to him some new and adorable trait in her character. Her face lost its pallor; eager expectancy returned, and with it her enthusiasm and energy.

'Have we time, do you think, to pay a visit to the house of an old friend of mine?' he asked suddenly, leaning against one of the marbles, and glancing at his watch. 'He possesses a picture painted by a young artist in whose career I took deep interest, and who has recently died. I should like you to see it.'

'We have an hour to spare.'

'Come, then, and I will drive you to the house; my friend Baroni is away from Rome, but he will be delighted for us to see his collection.'

A few minutes after, they were standing together in a small picture gallery, and Lionel was pointing out to her the painting by his dead friend.

'The peculiar charm of that work consists in its pathos,' he said; and I consider it the gem of the collection. The sublime wearies, the beautiful too often deceives; but that picture has genius, because I believe it has been painted from the heart. Poor fellow! He has since died; and neither love nor money can induce Baroni to part with it.'

She looked at him as in a reverie,

glancing thoughtfully again at the girl's fair face and the blossoms of the almond-tree in her hair. The picture was called 'Love in Idlenesse,' and the following lines were printed beneath :

'They stood within a marvellous land,
Fruitful, summer-like, and fair.
The light wind sported with her hair.

From overhead the blossoms sweet Fell soft, pink-edged, upon her feet.' 'Was he unhappy ?' she asked, after a pause.

'Yes, he was. He had been initiated into love's mysteries by grief; he painted, like many write, from force of sheer anguish-inward promptings drive them to sound, colour, words, as vehicles of emotion. Ah, you don't understand these things, my darling.'

'Tell me about it,' she whispered, turning a shade paler under his keen scrutiny, and her eyes filled.

'He had been a persecuted, a disappointed man when I first met him and bought his pictures. He taught in London, and had the pleasure of seeing one of his pupil's daubs on the line when his own superb masterpiece was rejected. You will see it in Bayswater in my dining-room.

'All this is common enough,' went on Lionel art has great consolations, even if, like every other work whose aim is high, it has great disappointments; and he had borne them patiently for a long time. Lonely and sad, he lived for fame.'

'It is very seldom people have especial gifts to turn to into which they can cast their sorrows.'

And for want of an object to pursue, they find no good result from the purifying pain; they are enthralled by an infatuation, and often lose their reason as well as peace of mind. Only a lover could have thus interpreted that superb pose.'

'But the subject is not an original one,' said Gwendoline, moving away a little hastily. "I have noticed in many exhibitions a certain sameness and monotony in artists' ideals.'

'And why? Because thought is incessantly renewed or born again under circumstances no one could have foreseen. Claude knows all about Alsace; you want Perugino to interpret the loveliness of Italy; Turner, Crome, and Constable to appreciate the wind-blown misty shores and changing skies of England-storm-charged, rainy, sunlit, all in turn.'

'Artists are not men of universal minds.'

'No, they are often dull on matters unconnected with their art; they dream away their lives; but they see beauty everywhere, and under various hues, and in all seasons, in Nature-a cloud, a hill, a stream, a meadow; beauty laughing in the sunlight, or stealing in the moonbeams, hiding under a flower, or flashing in the storm; they catch her every form with quick alternate vision.'

'It seems sad to think the artist died so soon,' she murmured, glancing back at 'Love in Idlenesse.'

'The colouring is superb; it seems to haunt one, and yet it is indescribable.'

Lionel held her hands in his for a few moments, and drew her towards him on a sudden impulse.

'If I were to lose you, I hardly think I should ever get over it. You are something more than mortal to me. I used to wonder at his folly. I understand it now.' 'I am not worthy,' she said gently.

'Love's eyes, they say, are blind; but I think he sees clearer than is generally thought. You interpret life in a new, wonderful way for me. I see all its glory, its loveliness;

the gloom that once swept over me like a cloud has gone. I hardly think my cousin Valentine would say I was only born for the drudgery of an office.'

That name! It brought his memory suddenly before her, as if he were present, watching her features. It passed through her every sense, and quenched the light, checking the threads of her musing and her peaceful thoughts. She had felt reconciled, almost happy, of late in her self-sacrifice; the image of the man with whose inner life and actual character she was unacquainted, and who had flashed upon her with Romeo-like fascination, had grown less vivid; and now she was once more standing under the trees in the avenue, listening to his sad farewell, weeping tempestuous tears, and seeing the fervid yearning eyes. She felt in revolt against herself, as if beholding a resurrection of dear dead hours.

'After we are married we will visit Rome again,' Lionel said, leading her to the door.

She was conscious of less discouragement in contemplating the future as he spoke, he was so much greater than herself. Her youth and innocence gave her natural elation and elasticity. His gentleness and thoughtfulness had inspired a friendship that was daily growing dearer. He was some one to lean on, to confide in, to seek counsel from. She no longer feared him; she was anxious to please, to gain his approval. If we never see a person, we insensibly forget; for time is like a sea, it either floats or sinks our wrecks, and we cannot pause to weep over them as they are swept from our sight.

There had been an unconscious fretting going on in her mind even in sleep, a dread that her disordered life, divided between frivolous real

ism and the monotony of fashionable gaieties, would be either full of chronic rebellion or filled with a clinging to the past. Her dual nature could still be fed with thought and nourished by sympathy; her sadness predisposed her to seek solace in all that appealed to her higher faculties. Lionel urged her to cultivate her gifts and expand her mind, and she found an outlet for enthusiasm and ardor in many channels that before had been closed.

'I leave you to-day reconciled to your fate, do I not?' he said as they sauntered together towards the light. 'My sister writes me word I am wanted at home, and your uncle Reginald's letters have lately been piteous in entreaties to return; and yet it is hard to leave you.'

'I am going to copy the picture of the monk you began for me yesterday,' she said with a smile,

and we shall be back in a week for Christmas. Mother must be tired of those drives out to the Campagna, and the noise of the hotel. Dolly wants to go to a ball at Lady Hallingham's to-night. Hugh is expected to be there, and after that they will be glad to

An hour later, when the goodbyes had been said, and he was alone, he reviewed the situation with the dispassionate calmness and judgment that formed one part of his nature.

'She does not love me yet, but I can make her happy,' was his reflection. Already she leans on me for guidance, and love will come-not a fitful gleam, but steady, real, and enduring. I would rather it were so.'

He

There were no specks of commonness in his taste or feeling, and it was this absence of vulgarity that made him so critical, so difficult to win, so true and loyal, so hard to convince and allure. abandoned himself to his happiness in a totally different manner from the average man, who, provided the woman he loves vivifies and caresses the senses, may numb and paralyse the soul for what he cares. Gush' of all kinds was distasteful to him, and so were the self-absorption and shallowness of the ingénue and coquette. Gwendoline's coldness was her chief charm; he liked to think of her as some young priestess accomplishing the most delicate and sacred rites of her worship with graceful seriousness and devotion. The soft flame in those grand eyes would one day kindle into fire, meeting the love in his.

CHAPTER XX.

A BELGRAVIAN WEDDING.
"If I love thee, what is that to thee?"

THE winter months passed quickly away, for for Hillingford Towers had been crowded with guests at the festive season of Christmas; there had been much dining, dressing, and dancing, skating by torchlight on the frozen lake, riding and driving when the weather permitted. Lionel and

his sister passed a month with the Heaths, and saw many proofs of the hospitality and charity of their host. Miss Carrington inspected the orphan nursery and the classes at the Morgan-street Ragged Schools in Escombe, visited the large workhouse infirmary, and contributed liberally to the various funds. She was quite sure she could manage Gwendoline when she was her brother's wife, and resolved she should be a mere symbol of wifely power in the mansion at Bayswater.

A warm morning in early June found Gwendoline sitting before her dressing-table, preparing for that ceremony which is of such vast importance in a woman's life. It was one of those exquisite mornings when one longs to escape from London to the delights of the country, to lie in a shady grove and smell the clover scents of the meadows. We know how the faint and rapturous murmurs of the bees will sound drinking the sweetness of a thousand flowers, and mingling with the voice of birds, the swaying of boughs; that the dews will have hardly left the rose, for the sun has not yet reached the fierce meridian of his July strength. Even in London the sky was blue as that of Italy; showers had fallen in the night, which only made the air softer and clearer; perfumes of delicious flowers ranged in china vases at the opened windows filled the air with fragrance, although it was Belgravia, and the roar of the great city was scarcely hushed.

A clear lovely June day, and London at the height of the season, looking its gayest and best. Fashionable Corydons were sauntering down Pall Mall and St. James's-street; dandies were gathering round West-end club windows; comic writers making notes of the follies of Vanity Fair in all its forms; new pieces were running at

the theatres; artists were criticising each other's works at Burlington House; singers were busy at opera rehearsals, as these wandering June breezes were fanning the awnings of the flower-scented balconies and stealing through the half-closed dining-room windows, where the wedding-breakfast was prepared.

There was to be nothing noisy or demonstrative in the present pageant, nothing for the journals to chronicle as sensationally extravagant or sumptuous. The chattering of the French maid, Mdlle. Josephine, whom Lady Hester had chosen as an attendant on her daughter, and her parrot-like repetition of well-learnt phrases and facts, jarred somewhat on the ears of the bride, and certainly had their desired effect-that of breaking the chain of her thoughts. What is the meaning of this languid depression, this almost passionate remorse, that is giving the haunted tired eyes a light so rarely seen of late in their brilliant depths? Not all the wealth of Asia or bridal finery of a princess could ease this sense of uneasiness, of almost terror. Is she awaking too late? Is the calmness of a tender friendship sufficient for such a day as this? Ah, if it could only have been prolonged instead of culminating thus! Where is the love which sanctifies marriage, and sends the bride trembling to the arms that are to be her safe and sure defence against all life's storms and shipwrecks? Mdlle. Josephine has seen other brides with this same blank stunned look of pain. Mdlle. Josephine understands the symptoms-who better? In France they are common enough; and the young wives often take a year to come round and grow resigned to things; and then, more dangerous and seductive than ever, they make their rentrée in society, and all the past tears and passion of

the soul are forgotten in the excitement of parties, fêtes, and crowded receptions.

The rich wavy masses of the bride's long hair were being deftly passed through the French maid's clever fingers, as she wielded an elaborately-carved brush, inlaid with mother-o'-pearl, and dressed it with the grace and dexterity which are characteristic of a true Parisienne.

'Another bouquet, another present, dear mademoiselle,' she was saying, as the door opened, and Dolly, kissing the tips of her fingers to Gwendoline, laid the treasures by her side, and vanished. 'Who does not envy you ?'

Dolly was married herself by this time, and was in the highest spirits imaginable, living in a town house not far from her parents' mansion in Eaton-square.

The dressing-room was decorated like a boudoir, with its rare caskets and jewel-cases, its dainty chests of ebony drawers and tables, and ivory scent-boxes; and the light that stole through the half-closed blinds just touched, as it were, the wide white brow, that wore a preoccupied expression and a thoughtfulness that was half self-reproach. Ought she to have yielded? Alas, all self-reproach, all remorse, were too late now!

'So many presents,' said Gwendoline, rousing herself and glancing around. Where can they all come from ?'

Will she never be fitted for the world? What was the meaning of this unuttered lamentation that stole to her lips-a sort of wearied sense of degradation and despair? As the wife of a millionaire, presents naturally pour in.

Lady

Hester had arranged that everything about Gwendoline should be bright, new, artificial; for that unfortunate tendency to mope and brood over things, and let her spirits be depressed by trifles, might

be pretty, home-like, and poetic, but fatally foolish, considering the splendid rôle she had to play in society. So the maid, who was fond of her young mistress, and had waited on Gwendoline since childhood-a girl with some delicate feeling, and disposed to be sympathetic at wrong times-had been dismissed; and both Dolly and Lady Hester set themselves to work to discover a pearl beyond price in the shape of a clever Parisian maid, and at last unearthed an individual in Cambridge Gate made according to the very shape and pattern they desired. Who more convenient, more plausible, more pushing than Mademoiselle Josephine, to whom any sense of loss, save that of sovereigns, was inexplicable? Who more able to give notes to various cavalieri serventi, at different times and seasons, and never make a mistake in their delivery, scarcely mixing the small change with which they blessed Love's messenger? She had been living with a light-minded widow (who had long posed as an ill-used wife ere death released her husband), and who now doated on black, and thought mourning so becoming. Josephine had ministered to her sorrows in so wonderful a wayeven condescending to cook little cutlets and minced chicken herself, stew her lobsters in Chablis and rognons in Madeira-that the sufferer had shown her all her pretty parures of diamonds and pearls, experimentalised in Bloom de Ninon and rice-powders, longing for the period of her enforced retirement to end, so that she might display renewed charms to her suitors not to those who had adored her as a married woman, and deserted her now she was free, but to a host of others, who went down like ninepins before the mournful and touching simplicity