Although I had at parting, hastily written my, address on a card, and given it to Lord Tarragon, I did not, as I fondly anticipated, receive a letter from him. And a new source of distress had arisen since this meeting. Benvolere's health, broken and shattered, now threatened to reduce him altogether to an entirely invalid condition. If I lost him, where should I find protection? Madame Theresa would probably not long survive her brother, and I should be shut out, not merely from my proper station, but from what was worse-love, companionship, and friendship. For my dear master's sake I was content to put up with those airs of patronage which people, especially people of mediocre position, think it necessary to bestow on those less fortunate beings who stand in the relation of teachers. I frankly confess, that the conditions which were attached to the work I should else have valued for its own sake, were greatly opposed to that failing of pride which had become strangely and wonderfully developed in my new sphere of existence. Humility was easy enough to the unloved daughter of Mr. De Trevor Castlebrook, but the pride of the sensitive teacher rebelled hourly and daily. I had many petty trials to undergo, such as appertain indeed, to every woman who dares venture forth single-handed in that great battlefield the world, and who must perforce engage in some of its strifes. Well for those who can don the armour of gentleness and patience, that has been well assayed in the fiery furnace; but I was still very young, of a hasty temperament, and possessed of a nature too impulsive to be very prudent. When, therefore, I was sometimes regarded scornfully by vulgar young ladies, or domineered over by their mammas, I was extremely apt to express my contempt, not in words, but in a mode significant enough, even for the perception of common-place and arrogant minds. I became suspiciously susceptible about my dignity, and even fancied good Mrs. Candy made a distinction between Miss Castlebrook and Mdlle. Montafauconi. I wronged the kind-hearted but fidgetty lady; she had her own troubles, and keeping a "select" school, with the expenses inevitable to gentility, was not among the least of them.

I was teaching at her house one afternoon, when

DAUGHTER.

a visitor was shown into the apartment which, having in it the best piano, did duty as a musicroom as well as show-parlour. The lady talked so loud to a small and particularly youthfullooking male companion who was with her, that I was compelled to suspend my labours. She turned round-perhaps to apologise—and I instantly, to my great dismay, recognized Miss Jukes. She knew me in an instant. "My!" she exclaimed, with her old transatlantic intonation exaggerated, "I reckon I hardly knew you; you air grown quite tall and spry-you air that now, I tell you. Hav'n't left school yet! well, I guess British females are like British oaks-they take a long time to reach maturity; they just do now. American young ladies spring into perfection all at once. 'Ain't I right, Theophilus P. Spriggins?" The individual so addressed, and who wore spectacles, was absorbed in Mr. Candy's lastpublished volume of sermons: he uttered some response, in a thin, querulous voice. The lady went on: "Of course you have heard that I am no longer Miss Jukes, but Mrs. Theophilus Prince Spriggins? Oh yes, it's a genuine factthis gentleman is my better half!"

If he were so, he decidedly did himself injustice by his looks, which proclaimed him not only his lady's inferior in size, but also in age by a good dozen years-not that I presume to infer that Mrs. Theophilus was stout, but there was a certain lanky amplitude, a large, though bony development of person, which obscured her insignificant partner's appearance, quite as much as if she had been obese.

I congratulated the late Miss Jukes, as evidently I was expected to do, on her change of condition. Luckily she was so busy in talking about her own fortunes, that she forgot to inquire about mine. In her own delightful mode of expression, she told me she had given up conducting the education of young females; that Theophilus P. Spriggins was the editor of a thriving New York journal, under the resonant title of "The Consolidated American Ladies' Emporium!" and that Mrs. Spriggins assisted the learned Theophilus in his editorial labours. They visited, she informed me, in the first circles of New York, and she was just giving me an invitation to the United States, as it would seem,

Y