He

'A man kept me talking. wants to see you, too.' Then I whispered to him, 'The man from the beach.'

He nodded intelligently, and said, 'I'll go after the next act.'

'Take care of yourself for five minutes, Ada. We'll send you some ices to pass the time with. Now, Jack, where is this youth?'

'Here I am,' said a voice. Tell me, sir, what right have you to take away my girl from me like this, with your fine speeches and pretty face like a woman's face?'

'First of all, what right have you to ask questions, and make extremely personal remarks to me, whose only excuse is the obviously sincere flattery conveyed by them?'

'Can't you understand I love the girl, and I thought she loved me, and I find her here with you?'

I can quite understand your loving her whom you describe as "the girl." I can understand her making you think she loved you. I can understand your sensations at the present moment. I have been through that mill myself occasionally. It is bracing. Whisky is a good specific, I believe. Have you any further observations to offer?'

'I wonder the earth don't open and swallow some of you London swells, leading a girl on to destruction as you do, and making cool speeches all the time like the feller down there in the play!'

'I think the earth has frequently seen that sort of thing before, and is not much given-in London, at least-to show its emotions in the way you describe. I may remark, that so far from being led to destruction, as you strongly term it, a girl would be rather more improved at any rate, in her use of the English language-in my so. ciety than in yours. And the particular girl in question looks as if she was enjoying herself, don't

you think?' Ada was placidly eating a large pink-and-white ice, and admiring her black mittened hands.

'Curse you! Why do you talk to a fellow till he wants to wring your neck?'

'Don't you be violent, my young friend. Marwood's long drop is a very talented invention-best studied from a distance. I bear you no ill-will.'

'That's kind,' snarled the young man from the beach.

'It is. I might have borne you ill-will, you know, and you wouldn't have liked it, I can assure you. And I advise you never to pin your entire happiness on the words or faith of any one girl. Have several irons in the fire. Hedge, as the betting-men say. This correspondence will now cease. Goodnight. Come, Jack.'

6

The expression of the swain from Norfolk was a study, as he stood leaning against the wall. I saw him once again, before we left the theatre, at the bar. He was drinking raw whisky. I mentioned the fact to George. Ah, taking my advice already.' We walked from the theatre to a café in the Strand, where we had supper in an upper room. George was very gay, and Ada seemed very happy. After we had all had a certain amount of liqueurs and lager beer, I believe we sang. Certainly it was a remarkably cheerful finish to the evening, and when George said,

'I hope you are satisfied with the entertainment, Ada ?'

'I never spent such a jolly evening in my life,' she replied.

and supper away from our heads; to smoke, and to talk things over. I saw behind us, always at a distance, a dark shadow dogging our steps. It lay in wait up a court at the door of our cafe. It followed us up the Strand to Nelson-street. It followed us on to the Embankment. It followed us to George's rooms, observed the number on the door, and the floor on which the light sprang up in the windows. Then it went I told George.

'The young man on the beach. Poor young man! I remember a time when I walked about stalking people and houses late at night not good enough -no, sir!'

VI.

'Time turns the old days to derision.' WINTER was drawing near. For the next week or so I saw but little of George Sterne, though I heard vague rumours and stories from acquaintances of his about his being seen frequently in public places, in theatres, in picture-galleries, in restaurants, in company with an extremely pretty blackhaired girl. The tales I heard were contradictory, some absurd, some scandalous, and all insignificant, as the gossiping reports of a bar room or club usually are. It was apparent that one of them had 'fallen into the toils,' as the phrase was, of the other, but opinion differed as to which. I let opinion take its fling without comment, which I knew by experience to be fruitless, few things being such established articles of belief in the minds of their circulators as coined stories of a personal nature. accepted an invitation to spend Christmas and most of January with certain country friends, and lost sight of the doings of the town for that period. George was

I

not much of a correspondent, except when the fancy seized him, and then he could be very diverting, especially if he had some ephemeral folly of his own to describe. On this occasion he was silent. At length I found myself again, one muddy mild February day, in the beloved old Fleet-street, and was sitting in one of our favourite taverns, not far from Temple Bar, or rather from the dire and grotesque object which marks its late situation, when George himself walked in, apparently in his normal easy-going condition. He sat down before me, remarking, Hullo, Jack! Back again!' He was not demonstrative, as a rule, and despised the conventionality of shaking hands and uttering sentiments of welcome, as a bourgeois barbarism akin to conversation anent the state of the barometer.

'What is your news, old man ? I inquired.

Irish are being patriotic in Parliament, I believe, to a fatiguing extent. Consols are at par. There is a new burlesque at the Gaiety. Drury Lane is very muddy. I am very hungry.'

But you? How is the pretty sphinx of Nelson street?'

'The autumn idyll is played out. It is winter now, you see.'

'You have got tired of it, in fact ?'

Exactly so, fair sir. I admit the degrading fact that I allowed myself to get terribly in love with her. I took her to pantomimes, a form of amusement I loathe, and wrote verses about her, which brought me in just guineas enough to repay my expenditure on her amusement. I gave her my photograph and accepted hers. It is passed. There is nothing new under the sun, or rather under the fog and gaslight.'

And what has become of the poor girl? Waterloo Bridge?'

Ir

PART I.

MIDDAY.

was just midday, and the August sun, midway in the cloudless sky, sent down an almost tropical heat. The 11.45 train from Waterford had just crawled into the little terminus at Tramore, and emptied its freight of all kinds and conditions of men and women. A motley group, that quickly mingled itself with, and was lost in, another motley group that had come to meet it, both of which united their efforts to make as much din and confusion as possible. Out through the door of the stuffy little terminus, whose atmosphere was unpleasantly tainted with the mingled odours of smoke, oil, coal-dust, and stale beer from the neighbouring refreshment-bar, the throng pushed its way, and, quickly separating, went its various courses: part of it up the hill, steep and rugged as the road to heaven (though leading to close overcrowded lodgings rather than to such an abode of bliss); whilst the other part faced for the broad strand and the open sea, now blinking, glittering, and seemingly motionless under the yellow rays of the sun.

The heat had scorched up everything scorchable out of doors. The roads were thick with dust, the houses had a baked sandy appearance, the awnings that here and there hung over the shop-windows

had long ago given up all pretence to colour, and resigned themselves to their hueless fate; the cliffs looked drab, and the sloping fields above them had paled to the faintest possible shade of green.

Yet Tramore was up and doing, and, to all appearances, doing very well indeed. The visitors which had poured in from the neighbouring counties of Limerick, Tipperary, Wexford, and Kilkenny to this favourite watering-place, were abroad; and, all heedless of the possibility of sunstroke, were in search of that enjoyment to be derived from a plunge in the sea.

Brawny-legged bathing-women, in the shortest permissible blue flannel petticoats, with coloured handkerchiefs tied under their chins; bathing-men-fine gaunt fellows, whose sunburnt skins and semi-picturesque dress might lead one to mistake them, if well out of earshot of their brogue, for Neapolitan sailors; bathers of both sexes, in various stages of dress and undress; flocks of children, whose faces betrayed the fear of an inevitable dip; groups of boys, with towels flung round their shoulders, all were busy on the strand.

The principal street, leading to the beach, was likewise alive to the business of the hour, and was filled with various groups passing to and from the sea, all in high spirits, as became them on such a morning and in such a place. Some of the bathing-wo

men, dripping all over with salt spray-amphibious creatures, that reminded one of ugly mermaidshad ventured thus far from what seemed their natural element to solicit custom. Carts, loaded with barrels of sea-water, en route for Brown's Baths, went by, splashing their briny contents as they passed; young ladies in négligé costumes, with stiff dripping locks on their shoulders, hastened home to perform toilets, which it was fondly hoped would make sad havoc on male hearts ere the day was done; a knot of ecclesiastical students (a section of humanity with which the place abounds), in slouched hats and suits of shining ill-fitting black cloth, sauntered with lounging gait towards the Storm Wall;' half a dozen donkeys, ready saddled, waited for hire, tortured meanwhile by swarms of flies, which all the efforts of their nimble tails and ears were unable to keep at bay; a few medical students, rather seedy of aspect, stood at the door of Fry's Hotel; a woman, with a basket of ginger-beer, cakes, and apples, which, by way of imparting an appearance of freshness to, she occasionally rubbed in the corner of her apron, that had previously wiped her face, invited the public to take the sweets she, as the medium of the gods on the present occasion, had provided for them; and a ragged mendicant sang a popular song in a voice cracked as his own brain to a maddening accompaniment of a one-stringed fiddle.

Whilst these various figures filled the street, two ladies 'might have been seen to issue from the portals' (as James Prince Regent Grant would have put it) of one of the densely populated lodging houses on the terrace. They were both the wives of 'strong' farmers in the County Tipperary; matrons ample of form, florid of face, and

with all that self-satisfied bearing that comfortable circumstances warrant to the fortunate individuals they surround. They had had an early dip at seven in the morning, had taken a half-pint of sea-water each to gain an appetite and promote digestion, had breakfasted comfortably, and were now ready to enjoy themselves for the remainder of the day.

Mrs. Casey, the elder of the matrons by a couple of years, was clad in all the bravery of a purple silk dress, remarkably voluminous and much given to rustling, the pride and beauty of her wardrobe. Her coarse good-natured-looking face was crowned with an arrangement that looked like a bouquet of muslin roses, the predominating colour of which was scarlet. A thick gold chain hung round her neck, meandering over the wide extent of her bosom, and ending in two little shiny rivulets at that part of her dress called by courtesy the waist. She clutched her parasol with a grip that betokened strength, if not grace. The lady who bore her company was her sister, Mrs. Kennedy, and was not less gorgeously attired.

Mary,' said Mrs. Casey, 'is young Farrell among them gents at Fry's door?'

Mrs. Kennedy balanced her parasol carefully between her eyes and the sun, and took a glance in the direction mentioned. Her sister stared straight before her, as if her dignity forbade her to ascertain for herself the information she desired.