"You are right," said he, with a short laugh; "but at least I am not playing

Here he stopped in some trepidation; and she said "Yes?" in a tone of voice which suggested danger.

"It's no business of mine," said he.

'Irvine," she said, with a delightful assumption of gravity, "I think that you give yourself too much to solitude. You should go out more into society, and learn to make yourself agreeable." "Perhaps you will teach me."

"Certainly. I shall begin by telling Ned where you ought to go; but" (she had kept her keenest shaft for him) "London must be very dull after Italy."

Irvine flushed hotly. It was peculiarly distasteful to him to hear an allusion to Italy from her lips. He shifted himself about in an impatient

manner.

"Do sit down," said the young lady, blandly. "It's fatiguing to see you jumping about; and it's too hot to dance."

He sat down, and wondered why he did not go away. Nevertheless he remained, answered questions, and gave a lame explanation of his disappearance since the end of term. Miss Adare was

unlike herself. Her tongue was flippant, but her heart was full of sorrow for the brave youth who had gone, and troubled by the sudden appearance of his eccentric successor.

"Who is the new swain?" whispered Mrs Midelmass Duff, as she twirled her long gown after her on to the balcony, and allowed her large darkrimmed eyes to rest for a moment on Mr Dale.

"I can tell you," said little Tom Peepin, eagerly, at her ear; and his information was rewarded by that silvery laugh which was the lady's greatest charm.

Irvine, who fancied that he caught the word "prig," glared at the amiable Mr Peepin in a bloodthirsty manner. He walked home that evening feverish but interested. Life was an exciting matter, though somewhat stuffy, and moving on to waltz-tunes.

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CHAPTER XVII.

ON THE TERRACE.

PEOPLE were more or less interested by the fact that the beautiful Miss Adare had a new admirer. Captain Loyd disappeared, and his friend Tom Peepin imparted the reason to everybody in the strictest confidence.

"What can the girl be waiting for?" asked the Duchess of Ruffborough; "surely not for this jerky young man?"

Jerky!" cried Mr Hubert Hanley Smart Hanley -"that is good, my dear duchess-that is very good." He had a great appreciation of the duchess's jokes.

66

'They say that he is enormously rich," murmured old Lady Dunduffy, with a sigh, and a pathetic glance at her Amelia, whose shoulders were really not bad.

"He has sobthick," said Leonard Grunenhausen, with the strongest wink which Society allows. "Sobthick; a pagatelle."

"Confound the fellow!

Who cares what he

has?" said the Honourable Cadby Dare. And, in truth, Society did not care much about the matter. The interest felt by Irvine's relations was naturally keener. Morning after morning, Miss Susan Harefel slipped out, and just stepped round the corner to have a talk with her dear Mrs Adare, her Adeline, who understood her so well. She went down the street in a modest and deprecating manner, seeming to apologise to the crossingsweeper for being out without her maid, and to explain by a glance to the policeman that a gentlewoman is everywhere safe from persecution. She glided into Adeline's bower, dropped a light kiss upon her cheek, patted and smoothed her cushions with long taper fingers, arranged the light shawl about her feet, and asked tenderly about her health. Mrs Adare had always a smile for a visitor, especially in the morning, when Miss Katharine was apt to be engaged in a conscientious effort to improve her mind. She laid aside her 'Morning Post,' and resigned herself to the care of her friend. The conversation began with a few scraps of news,

a marriage, an illness, an elopement, a pending divorce, rumours and their contradictions. Thence every morning it glided to Katharine and Irvie. Every morning there were the same observations, the same arguments, the same conclusions, almost the same words; and yet these ladies enjoyed them none the less. Again and again had Mrs Adare confided to Miss Harefel that her daughter was exactly like her poor dear father. "Frankness

itself," she would say, softly, shaking her head; "but if she won't talk about a thing, you might as well try to move Mahomet."

To such sentences as this Miss Susan would return a smile full of intelligence, although she never clearly understood her Adeline's favourite allusion to the prophet. She carried on the greater part of the conversation, explaining many times the interesting character of her nephew, and eloquent on the ideal marriage, the completion of two imperfect lives. Always with the same delicacy she approached the particular wedding for which she longed. Sometimes Mrs Adare, in her absent mood, murmured the reasons for and against. She never failed to say, Katharine has the sweetest temper, but on certain subjects she flies out at a word. I tried to ask her about her feeling for you