"No, my dear; I know that. But long engagements never are good. And I can't think why young people should want so many things, now, that they used to do without very well when I was married. When I went into housekeeping, we only had one girl of fifteen to do everything; and we hadn't a nursemaid regular till Theodore was born; and there were three before him."

to her. When her mother told her, shaking | pressing her to name an early day for their her head rather sorrowfully as she heard marriage. These letters were written, I Florence talk, that she did not like long en- think, after certain evenings spent under gagements, Florence would shake hers too, favourable circumstances in Onslow Crein playful derision, and tell her mother not scent, when he was full of the merits of doto be so suspicious. "It is not you that are mestic comfort, and perhaps also owed some going to marry him, mamma." of their inspiration to the fact that Lady Ongar had left London without seeing him. He had called repeatedly in Bolton Street, having been specially pressed to do so by Lady Ongar, but he had only once found her at home, and then a third person had been present. This third person had been a lady who was not introduced to him, but he had learned from her speech that she was a foreigner. On that occasion Lady Ongar had made herself gracious and pleasant, but nothing had passed which interested him, and, most unreasonably, he had felt himself to be provoked. When next he went to Bolton Street he found that Lady Ongar had left London. She had gone down to Ongar Park, and, as far as the woman at the house knew, intended to remain there till after Easter. Harry had some undefined idea that she should not have taken such a step without telling him. Had she not declared to him that he was her only friend? When a friend is going out of town, leaving an only friend behind, that friend ought to tell her only friend what she is going to do, otherwise such a declaration of only-friendship means nothing. Such was Harry Clavering's reasoning, and having so reasoned, he declared to himself that it did mean nothing, and was very pressing to Florence Burton to name an early day. He had been with Cecilia, he told her, he had learned to call Mrs. Burton Cecilia in his letters, and she quite agreed with him that their income would be enough. He was to have two-hundred a year from his father, having brought himself to abandon that high-toned resolve which he had made some time since that he would never draw any part of his income from the parental coffers. His father had again offered it, and he had accepted it. Old Mr. Burton was to add a hundred, and Harry was of opinion that they could do very well. Cecilia thought the same, he said, and therefore Florence surely would not refuse.

Florence could not say how many maidservants Harry might wish to have under similar circumstances, but she was very confident that he would want much more attendance than her father and mother had done, or even than some of her brothers and sisters. Her father, when he first married, would not have objected, on returning home, to find his wife in the kitchen, looking after the progress of the dinner; nor even would her brother Theodore have been made unhappy by such a circumstance. But Harry, she knew, would not like it; and therefore Harry must wait. "It will do him good, mamma," said Florence. "You can't think that I mean to find fault with him; but I know that he is young in his ways. He is one of those men who should not marry till they are twenty-eight, or thereabouts."

"You mean that he is unsteady?"

"No, not unsteady. I don't think him a bit unsteady; but he will be happier single for a year or two. He hasn't settled down to like his tea and toast when he is tired of his work, as a married man should do. Do you know that I am not sure that a little flirtation would not be very good for him?"

"Oh, my dear!"

"It should be very moderate, you know." "But then, suppose it wasn't moderate. I don't like to see engaged young men going on in that way. I suppose I am very old-fashioned; but I think when a young man is engaged, he ought to remember it and to show it. It ought to make him a little serious, and he shouldn't be going about like a butterfly, that may do just as it pleases in the sunshine."

During the three months which Henry remained in town before the Easter holidays he wrote more than once to Florence,

But Florence received, direct from Onslow Crescent, Cecilia's own version of her thoughts, and did refuse. It may be surmised that she would have refused even without assistance from Cecilia, for she was a a young lady not of a fickle or changing disposition. So she wrote to Harry with much care, and as her letter

had some influence on the story to be told, the reader shall read it,-if the reader so pleases.

DEAR HARRY,

Stratton, March, 186-.

I RECEIVED your letter this morning, and answer it at once, because I know you will be impatient for an answer. You are impatient about things,- are you not? But it was a kind, sweet, dear, generous letter, and I need not tell you now that I love the writer of it with all my heart. I am so glad you like Cecilia. I think she is the perfection of a woman. And Theodore is every bit as good as Cecilia, though I know you don't think so, because you don't say so. I am always happy when I am in Onslow Crescent. I should have been there this spring, only that a certain person who chooses to think that his claims on me are stronger than those of any other person wishes me to go elsewhere. Mamma wishes me to go to London also for a week, but I don't want to be away from the old house too much before the final parting comes at last.

angry with me for saying this, for I am quite as anxious to be with you as you can possibly be to be with me; only I can bear to look forward, and have a pleasure in feeling that all my happiness is to come. I know I am right in this. Do write me one little line to say that you are not angry with your little girl.

I shall be quite ready for you by the 29th. I got such a dear little note from Fanny the other day. She says that you never write to them, and she supposes that I have the advantold her that I do get a good deal. My broth tage of all your energy in that way. I have er writes to me very seldom, I know; and I get twenty letters from Cecilia for one scrap that Theodore ever sends me. Perhaps some of these days I shall be the chief correspondent dresses, and I have my own quite ready. I've with the rectory. Fanny told me all about the been bridesmaid to four of my own sisters, so I bridesmaid to anybody again, after Fanny; but ought to know what I'm about. I'll never be whom on earth shall I have for myself? I think we must wait till Cissy and Sophy are ready. Cissy wrote me word that you were a darling man.

I don't know how much of that

came directly from Cissy, or how much from

Cecilia.

And now about the final parting; for I may as well rush at it at once. I need hardly tell you that no care for father or mother shall make me put off my marriage. Of course I owe everything to you now; and as they have have one letter before you come to fetch me, God bless you, dear, dearest Harry. Let me approved it, I have no right to think of them and acknowledge that I am right, even if you in opposition to you. And you must not suppose that they ask me to stay. On the contrasay that I am disagreeable. Of course ry, mamma is always telling me that early mar- have me; but, you see, one has to pay the I like to think that you want to

riages are best. She has sent all the birds out

of the nest but one; and is impatient to see penalty of being civilized. - Ever and always that one fly away, that she may be sure that your own affectionate FLORENCE BURTON.

there is no lame one in the brood. You must not therefore think that it is mamma; nor is it papa, as regards himself,- though papa agrees with me in thinking that we ought to wait a

little.

Dear Harry, you must not be angry, but I am sure that we ought to wait. We are, both of us, young, and why should we be in a hurry? I know what you will say, and of course I love you the more because you love me so well; but I fancy that I can be quite happy if I can see you two or three times in the year, and hear from you constantly. It is so good of you to write such nice letters, and the longer they are the better I like them. Whatever you put in them, I like them to be full. I know I can't write nice letters myself, and it makes me unhappy. Unless I have got something

special to say, I am dumb.

Harry Clavering was very angry when he got this letter. The primary cause of his anger was the fact that Florence should than he knew himself. If he was willing to pretend to know what was better for him encounter life in London on less than four hundred a year, surely she might be contented to try the same experiment. He did not for a moment suspect that she feared for herself, but he was indignant with her because of her fear for him. What right had she to accuse him of wanting to be comfortable? consented to be very uncomfortable at that Had he not for her sake old house at Stratton? Was he not will

ing to give up his fellowship, and the society But now I have something special to say. of Lady Ongar, and everything else, for In spite of all that you tell me about Cecilia, I her sake? Had he not shown himself to be do not think it would do for us to venture up- such a lover as there is not one in a hunon marrying yet. I know that you are willing dred? And yet she wrote and told him to sacrifice everything, but I ought not on that that it wouldn't do for him to be poor and account to accept a sacrifice. I could not bear uncomfortable! After all that he had done to see you poor and uncomfortable; and we in the world, after all that he had gone should be very poor in London now-a-days with such an income as we should have. If through, it would be odd if, at this time of we were going to live here at Stratton perhaps day, he did not know what was good for we might manage, but I feel sure that it would himself! It was in that way that he rebe imprudent in London. You ought not to be garded Florence's pertinacity.

He was rather unhappy at this period. I that decision. If it be altered, it shall be It seemed to him that he was somewhat altered by her." slighted on both sides, or, if I may say so, less thought of on both sides than he deserved. Had Lady Ongar remained in town, as she ought to have done, he would have solaced himself, and at the same time have revenged himself upon Florence, by devoting some of his spare hours to that lady. It was Lady Ongar's sudden departure that had made him feel that he ought to rush at once into marriage. Now he had no consolation, except that of complaining to Mrs. Burton, and going frequently to the theatre. To Mrs. Burton he did complain a great deal, pulling her worsteds and threads about the while, sitting in idleness while she was working, just as Theodore Burton had predicted that he would do.

"I won't have you so idle, Harry," Mrs. Burton said to him one day. "You know you ought to be at your office now." It must be admitted on behalf of Harry Clavering, that they who liked him, especially women, were able to become intimate with him very easily. He had comfortable, homely ways about him, and did not habitually give himself airs. He had become quite domesticated at the Burtons' house during the ten weeks that he had been in London, and knew his way to Onslow Crescent almost too well. It may, perhaps, be surmised correctly that he would not have gone there so frequently if Mrs. Theodore Burton had been an ugly woman.

"It's all her fault," said he, continuing to snip a piece of worsted with a pair of scissors as he spoke. "She's too prudent by

half."

In the meantime he punished Florence by sending her no special answer to her letter. He wrote to her as usual; but he made no reference to his last proposal, nor to her refusal. She had asked him to tell her that he was not angry, but he would tell her nothing of the kind. He told her when and where and how he would meet her, and convey her from Stratton to Clavering; gave her some account of a play he had seen; described a little dinner-party in Onslow Crescent; and told her a funny story about Mr. Walliker and the office at the Adelphi. But he said no word, even in rebuke, as to her decision about their marriage. He intended that this should be felt to be severe, and took pleasure in the pain that he would be giving. Florence, when she received her letter, knew that he was sore, and understood thoroughly the working of his mind. "I will comfort him when we are together," she said to herself. "I will make him reasonable when I see him." It was not the way in which he expected that his anger would be received.

One day on his return home he found a card on his table which surprised him very much. It contained a name but no address, but over the name there was a pencil memorandum, stating that the owner of the card would call again on his return to London after Easter. The name on the card was that of Count Pateroff. He remembered the name well as soon as he saw it, though he had never thought of it since the solitary occasion on which it had been mentioned to him. Count Pateroff was the man who had been Lord Ongar's friend, and respecting whom Lord Ongar had brought a false charge against his wife. Why should Count Pateroff call on him? Why was he in England? Whence had he learned the address in Bloomsbury Square? To that last question he had no difficulty in finding an answer. Of course he must have heard it from Lady Ongar. Count Pateroff had now left London! Had he gone to Ongar Park? Harry Clavering's mind was instantly filled with suspicion, and he became jealous in spite of Florence Burton. Could it be that Lady Ongar, not yet four months a widow, was receiving at her house in the country this man with whose name her own had been so fatally joined? If so, what could he think of such behaviour? He was very angry. He knew that he was angry, but he did not at all know that he was jealous. Was he not, by her own declaration to him, her only friend; and as such could he en

tertain such a suspicion without anger? week. Such a note! I'll show it you when "Her friend!" he said to himself. "Not if we meet. Of course I declined. she has any dealings whatever with that But I write on purpose to tell you that I have man after what she has told me of him!" begged Count Pateroff to see you. I have not He remembered at last that perhaps the seen him, but I have had to write to him about He has count might not be at Ongar Park; but he things that happened in Florence. must, at any rate, have had some dealing affairs of Lord Ongar. I want you to hear his come to England chiefly with reference to the with Lady Ongar or he would not have story. As far as I have known him he is a known the address in Bloomsbury Square. truth-telling man, though I do not know that I "Count Pateroff!" he said, repeating the am able to say much more in his favour. name, "I shouldn't wonder if I have to quarrel with that man." During the whole of that night he was thinking of Lady Ongar. As regarded himself, he knew that he had nothing to offer to Lady Ongar but a brotherly friendship; but, nevertheless, it was an injury to him that she should be acquainted intimately with any unmarried man but himself.

On the next day he was to go to Stratton, and in the morning a letter was brought to him by the postman; a letter, or rather a very short note. Guildford was the postmark, and he knew at once that it was from Lady Ongar.

DEAR MR. CLAVERING (the note said),—

I was so sorry to leave London without seeing you; I shall be back by the end of April, and am keeping on the same rooms. Come to me, if you can, on the evening of the 30th, after dinner. He at last bade Hermy to write and ask me to go to Clavering for the Easter

Ever yours, J. O.

When he had read this he was quite an altered man. See Count Pateroff! Of course he would see him. What task could

be more fitting for a friend than this, of seeing such a man under such circumstances. Before he left London he wrote a note for the people at the lodgings should he call Count Pateroff, to be given to the count by during Harry's absence from London. In this he explained that he would be at Clavering for a fortnight, but expressed himself ready to come up to London at a day's notice should Count Pateroff be necessitated again to leave London before the day named.

and as he journeyed down to Stratton, he As he went about his business that day, entertained much kinder ideas about Lady Ongar than he had previously done since seeing Count Pateroff's card.