what we know of them they were not exactly models of sound discipline or serious behaviour."

And in the heat of argument Sir Hugh rose, drew his chair near his antagonist, and clear of the obstacle presented to his vision by the lamp-shade.

"There is your work," interrupted Fanny; "you know you promised that should be ready to-morrow: """that" was a banner-screen of beads and silk, and each section of the pattern was to be begun, in order to save the fair purchaser from too severe exercise of brain.

"Thank you, Fan," and Mrs. Temple proceeded quickly and diligently to thread needles and sew on beads, glancing up every now and then with eyes that sparkled and deepened, and laughed and grew dim with a slight suffusion if she was very earnest. Fanny placed a large work-basket before her as she took her seat opposite their guest, who felt wonderfully interested and at home.

"Oh! the people you mean would not be called gentlemen now; they were only polished barbarians, incapable of self-control; any tolerably educated shopboy would conduct himself better than the de's and vons of those days," said

Kate.

By Jove! men were better bred, more high-bred, then. I never heard that doubted before," cried Galbraith.

High-bred that is, they took off their hats and bowed more gracefully, and treated their inferiors with insolence none the less brutal, because it had a certain steely glitter, and were more ferocious about their honour; but they were mere dangerous, mischievous, unmanageable children compared to what men ought to be."

"You are a formidable opponent, Mrs. Temple. Still I will not renounce my ancestors; they were gallant fellows, if they had a dash of brutality here and there. And you will grant that without a regard for honour they would have been still more brutal."

"I do. Nor do I by any means undervalue the good that was in them, only it seems so stupid either to want to go back to them, or to stand still."

"And what good does progress do? It only makes the lower classes dissatisfied and restless, and wanting to be as well off as their betters. There is nothing they

don't aim at."

"Oh, Sir Hugh Galbraith! you have

ism in those words. That is exactly what progress does; it makes people strive to be better. I have no doubt the first of our British ancestors (if they were our ancestors) who suggested making garments instead of dyeing the human skin, was looked upon by the orthodox Druids as a dangerous innovator."

"That has been said too often to be worthy of such an original thinker as you are," returned Galbraith, leaning forward and taking up some of the bright-coloured silks which lay between them."

"It cannot be said too often," observed Mrs. Temple, stoutly, "for it contains the whole gist of the matter. I will trouble you for that skein of blue silk. Thank you.” Their hands touched for a moment, and Galbraith felt an unreasonable, but decided, inclination to hold hers, just to keep her eyes and attention from being too much taken up with that confounded stitchery.

"But," he resumed, "you cannot suppose men born to a certain position like to feel those of a lower sphere intruding upon them, and treading on their heels ?"

"Step out then! Put a pace between you and them, and keep the wonderful start ahead that circumstance has given you," she returned with great animation.

"You are too ferocious a democrat," said Galbraith, laughing; "and to look at you, who could believe you had ever been, even for a day, behind a counter? There!" he exclaimed, "I am the clumsiest fellow alive. I have made a horribly rude speech."

"I quite absolve you," said Mrs. Temple, frankly, and looking at him with a sweet half-smile. "A counter has not hitherto been the best training-school to form a gentlewoman; but the days are rapidly passing when women could afford to be merely graceful ornaments. must in the future take our share of the burden and heat of the day. God grant us still something of charm and grace! It would be hard lines for us both if you

could not love us."

We

"Not love you," repeated Galbraith almost unconsciously; he had hitherto been thinking the young widow rather too strong-minded a description of character he utterly abhorred. "I imagine your ideal woman will seldom be realized, unless, indeed, in yourself."

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Fanny, "I have run the needle into my finger, and it is so painful."

"Do not imagine I am such a narrow idiot," said Galbraith, drawing his chair a trifle closer, "as not to respect a man who fights his way up to fortune from a humble origin, but then he ought always to remember the origin.”

"Yes; you of the upper ten,'" said Mrs. Temple, smiling, while she hunted with her needle an erratic white bead round an inverted box-cover, "are decently inclined to recognize the merits of such a man when he has achieved success in the end, but you do your best to knock him on the head at the beginning."

"How do you mean?"

"By creating difficulties of all sorts. Mountains of barriers for him to climb over: barriers of ignorance—it is unwise to educate the masses; barriers of caste -none but gentlemen must officer army or navy; barriers of opinion; social_barriers oh, I talk too much! and I am sure so do you. Dr. Slade told me just now you were to be kept as quiet as possible and undisturbed; and here am I contradicting you most virulently. Do go away and read a sermon or something, or you will never be able to go to London next week."

"Next week! Does that confounded old humbug say I am to go away next week? I intend nothing of the kind."

"He said you wished to leave for town; so I warn you to give me due and proper notice, or I shall charge accordingly."

Mrs. Temple glanced up as she spoke to see the effect of her words; but no answering smile was on his lip. He looked grave and stern, and was pulling his moustaches as if in deep thought. There was a moment's silence, and then Galbraith exclaimed, in his harshest tones, with an injured accent, "You never let one forget the shop."

"The fact is," returned Galbraith, with a tinge of bitterness, "I have never had much care in my life, and I am, therefore, especially grateful when I find any, or fancy I have any."

"Grateful people deserve to be cared for," said Kate, laying her pattern on the table and gravely regarding it.

66

I

"And you have been very good to write my letters," continued Galbraith. never knew the luxury of a private secretary before, and as I believe the appetite grows with what it feeds upon,' I shall miss your assistance greatly. I never found my correspondence so easy as since you were good enough to write for me."

"A private secretary would not be a serious addition to your suite," returned Mrs. Temple without looking up. "There are many intelligent, well-educated young men would be glad of such an appointment."

66

"I

"Pooh!" exclaimed Galbraith. never thought of a man secretary." Indeed," said Mrs. Temple. "No; men are so unsympathetic and slow to comprehend."

"I always thought so," replied Mrs. Temple frankly; "but I didn't think a man would."

Sir Hugh's face cleared up as he looked at her, and laughed. "We are agreed then," he said; "and I don't think you put a much higher value on Slade than I do."

"I do not know what your value is; I like him, because he has always been a friend to me from the first."

"And that is how long?" asked Galbraith shrewdly.

"Oh! if you want gossip you must apply to himself."

"I shall never put a question to him, you may be sure," said Galbraith gravely. "But I confess I should like to know how it happens that you are keeping a shop here. Nothing will ever persuade me that you are to the manner born.""

"It's incredible!" said Galbraith emnly.

sol

"Nevertheless true," she continued. "Don't allow your imagination to create a romance for my pretty partner and my self, though we are weird women, and keep a Berlin Bazaar."

As she spoke Fanny entered. "It is all right now," she said. "Sir Hugh, if you ever run a needle into your finger, plunge it into hot water immediately, and you will find instantaneous relief."

"I shall make a note of it," replied Galbraith; "and in the mean time must say good-night."

"How fortunate you are," cried Fanny. "You are going to London next week and will go to the theatre, I suppose?"

"I scarcely ever go to the theatre," said Galbraith, "but I imagine most young ladies like it."

"I would give a great deal to see 'Reckoning with the Hostess,'" cried Fanny, unable to restrain herself.

"Suppose we all meet at Charing Cross, and go together," exclaimed Galbraith, who felt convalescent and lively.

"It would be perfectly delightful," said the volatile Fanny, while Kate, who felt keenly the absurdity of the proposition, hid her face in her hands while she laughed heartily.

"I must say good-night," repeated Sir Hugh, bowing formally.

"I trust you will not be the worse for our argument," said Mrs. Temple, rising courteously.

"I am not sure," he replied. "I shall tell you to-morrow."

"Well, Kate," cried Fanny when he was gone, "has he proposed? I really thought he was on the verge of it when I ran the needle in my finger. It would be such fun."

"Fanny, you are absolutely maddening! What can put such nonsense into your head? To tell you the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I have permitted Sir Hugh Galbraith the honour of our acquaintance, simply because I wish him to feel, however appearances may be against me, that his cousin married a gentlewoman; for he will yet know who I

an."

"That sounds very grand and mysterious, Kate. I wish you could contrive to make him give you a proper allowance out of the estate. Well, there; I did not mean to make you look like a sibyl and a fury all in one!"

and

Fanny, because there is so much levity and vulgarity in what you say," cried Mrs. Temple warmly. "But we have something else to think of; read this" she drew forth Ford's letter, doubling it down at the passage adverting to herself, as having for sole confidant "a good-looking young vagabond connected with the press."

"I suppose," cried Fanny, "that stupid conceited old duffer means Tom."

"I suppose so; but pray remember it is Hugh Galbraith who is represented as speaking. Now you say Tom is coming down on Saturday; it is most important he should not meet our tenant. I imagine Sir Hugh knows his name."

"Oh yes, very likely; but Sir Hugh has never intruded on us on a Saturday, and we must try to keep them apart. How delightful it will be to see Tom and this is Thursday!"

"Yes; I shall be very glad to have a talk with him. Have you written to him?"

"To be sure I have."

No more was said; and Mrs. Temple pondered long and deeply before she was successful in composing herself to sleep. What was she doing? was she acting fairly and honestly? was she quite safe in trusting to the spirit, half-defiant, halfmischievous, which seemed to have taken possession of her? Well, at any rate, it could do no harm. In a few days Hugh Galbraith would be removed out of the sphere of her influence, and nothing would remain of their transient acquaintance save the lesson she was so ambitious of teaching him, viz., that whatever her circumstances were, she was a gentlewoman, and that some excuse existed for Mr. Travers's weakness in making her his wife.

CHAPTER XXI.

HUGH GALBRAITH was a very English Englishman. In opinion, as in battle, he was inclined, even when beaten by all the rules of combat, to resist to death. His prejudices would have been rigid to absurdity but for a thin, nevertheless distinct, vein of common sense which streaked the trap-rock of his nature; while here and there, carefully hidden, as he thought, from all observers, and scarcely acknowledged to himself, were sundry softer places"faults," as with unconscious technicality he would have termed them which sometimes troubled him with doubts and hesitations a consistently

hard man would never have known. A vague, instinctive sense of justice-another national characteristic saved him from being a very selfish man, but did not hinder him from an eager seeking of his own ends, so long as they did not visibly trench on the rights of others; and at times, if the upper and harder strata of his character was, by some morally artesian process, pierced through, capable of giving out more of sympathy than his kinsfolk and acquaintance in general would believe. But he possessed very little of the adaptability, the quickness of feeling and perception, which gives the power of putting oneself in another's place; and, therefore, possessing no gauge by which to measure the force of other men's temptations, he had, by a process of unreasoning mental action, accumulated a rather contemptuous estimate of the world in general. Men were generally weak and untrue-not false, habit and opinion prevented that- and women he scarcely considered at all; the few specimens he had known intimately were not calculated to impress him favourably. His sisters, accustomed to the amenities of foreign life, never disguised their opinion that he was a hopeless barbarian, until, indeed, their last few interviews, when they showed a disposition to treat his brusquerie as the eccentricity of a noble sincerity. The younger sister, who had always clung to him, and whom he loved with all the strength of his slow-developing boyish heart, had chilled him with an unspeakable disgust by bestowing herself on an artist, a creature considered by Galbraith in those days, and, with some slight modification, still considered, as a sort of menial as belonging to a class of upper servants who fiddled and painted and danced and sang for the amusement of an idle aristocracy. He would have been more inclined to associate with the village blacksmith, who, at any rate, did real man's work when he forged horseshoes and ploughshares by the strength of his right arm. In short, he was a mediæval man, rather out of place in the nineteenth century.

In politics a Tory, yet not an ignoble one. He would have severely punished the oppressor of the poor. Indeed, he thought it the sacred duty of lords to protect their vassal, even from themselves; but it must be altogether a paternal proceeding given free gratis out of the plenitude of his nobility. Of the grander generosity to our poorer brethren that says, "Take your share of God's world, it is

yours; we owe each other nothing save mutual help and love," he knew nothing; he had never learned even the alphabet of true liberality; and his was a slow though strong intellect, very slow to assimilate a new idea, and by no means ready to range those he already possessed in the battle array of argument.

Nevertheless, he was very little moved by his charming landlady's opinions; they were a pretty woman's vagaries prettily expressed; still, as he thought over every word and look of hers that night while smoking the pipe of peace and meditation before he went to rest, he felt more and more desirous of solving the mystery of her surroundings. That she and her friend were gentlewomen he never for a moment doubted, driven by poverty to keep a shop, though it was an unusual resource for decayed gentility. For poor gentry Galbraith had special sympathy, and had a dim idea that it would be well to tax successful money-grubbers who would persist in lowering the tone of society in general and regiments in particular by thrusting themselves and their luxurious snobbish sons into those sacred ranks — he had, we say, a dim idea that such members of the community ought to be taxed in order to support the helpless descendants of those who had not the ability to keep their estate together. Still, how any woman with the instinct of a gentlewoman could bring herself to keep a shop, to measure out things to insolent customers, perhaps to old market-women, and stretch out that soft white hand to take their greasy pence, he could not conceive. She ought to have adopted some other line of work; yet if she had he would not have known her; and though he put aside the idea, he felt that he would rather have missed far more important things. She was different from all other women he had ever known; the quiet simplicity of her manners was so restful; the controlled animation that would sparkle up to the surface frequently, and gave so much beauty to her mobile face- her smile, sometimes arch, often scornful, occasionally tender; the proud turn of her snowy throat; the outlines of her rounded, pliant figure; the great, earnest, liquid eyes uplifted so frankly and calmly to meet his own Galbraith summoned each and every charm of face and form and bearing that had so roused his wonder and admiration to pass in review order before his mind's eye, and "behold, they were very good." It was the recollection of their first interview, however, more than