those two gorgeous-backed men-servants. How invitingly the nuts nod their brown faces at me from the hedge! I should be happier walking in the road with Jack, free to pick them, than perched up here with nothing to do. I wonder if I dare ask one of those men to gather me some? I cannot call them, for I do not know their names; so I uplift my voice in a "hem !" which I delivered point blank at the middle of the footman's back.

"Did you speak, miss ?" he asked, touching his hat and turning. "A—not exactly," I say; "but I want some of those nuts, can you pick them for me?"

66

Certainly, miss," and in another minute he is in the road, and scrambling up the hedge; his long coat hampers his legs, the powder flies from his hair to his shoulders, but he is a man "for a' that ;" and finally, he brings me my nuts with an unruffled countenance. I fancy I hear him saying later in the servants' hall, "She's low, she is; she ate nuts out in the carriage, and cracked them with her own teeth, she did."

And now we have passed through the lodge gates, and are rolling along between the avenue of tall trees that mark the approach to Flytton. It is a beautiful old place, and a footman ushers me through stately passages and ante-rooms to the drawing-room, in which I have some difficulty in discovering Lady Flytton-so little, so wizen, so shrunken is she. I make her out at last in a far corner. I think she is asleep, but she opens her eyes suddenly, and bids me welcome very kindly, desiring the footman to bring white wine and grapes; while I eat the latter she chatters away, with the garrulity of old age, of mother, who was, she says, beautiful young woman ;" of everything, in short, that her wandering thoughts hit upon. Presently she leans back in her chair, and without the smallest sign or word, goes soundly to sleep. I am just wondering what I am going to do with myself, and thinking how lively it will be here, when the glass-door leading to the garden

a

swings back, and Silvia Fleming comes into the room, and, without looking about her, sits down with her back to me in a low chair. Her hair is hanging down her back in thick curls; she wears a plain white wrapper, that by its severity makes her beauty more than ever conspicuous.

There is a listless droop about the whole figure as she leans back with her arms clasped under her head. She has not been seated there twenty seconds, when the door opens, and 'Captain Chichester" is announced: he is tall, languid, blasé, but his steps and face quicken as he spies the recumbent figure in the red velvet chair.

"How do you do?" he says, stooping over her and holding out his hand; but she does not put out hers; she only looks up at him with a lazy look of welcome, provocation, which is it?

"Too hot!" she says; "would not one think it August instead of September ?"

He sits down beside her, and they talk in low voices. They do not seem to know any one is present; however, as I cannot hear what they are saying, it is somewhat unnecessary for me to announce myself, though indeed I am not anxious to play the degrading part of eavesdropper again, as I did a week ago.

Is yonder coquette the passionate, despairing woman that Paul Vasher kissed a while ago so hotly? Was it but a fine piece of acting her love and her misery? For surely, surely she is acting her own proper character at this moment? No, she was not acting then, but she was taken out of herself for the time; and Paul's estimate of her is the right one, the taint of infidelity in her nature is too deep to permit her to be either a good or a faithful woman. Admiration is meat and drink to her, flattery the very air she breathes; no man could keep this woman straight any more than a rope can be made of sand. She does not love this man to whom she is talking, does not even admire him, but she will fool him to

the top of his bent. A woman's vanity takes many lives to feed it. So much I guess randomly as I sit and watch her.

"Little devil!" says Lady Flytton, softly. On turning to look at the old woman, I find that she has come out of her sleep as suddenly as she entered it, and is surveying the couple yonder with an expression of countenance, that is, to say the least of it, vicious. "Good afternoon, Captain Chichester!" she remarks austerely. The young man looks round with an astonishment that is ludicrous, rises and comes toward the old lady. Silvia, I observe, does not move an inch.

"I did not know any one was here," he says, holding out a hand that Lady Flytton altogether overlooks.

"I dare say you did not," she says, frostily; and he goes back to his charmer, looking somewhat red, and decidedly snubbed Tea is brought in and we partake of it apart. Oh, it is dull! If the little woman does not like her company, why does she not leave it? Anon Captain Chichester takes his departure, and it being near the dinner hour, I am shown to my room, where I array myself in my little all, and modestly habited in the same, descend to the drawing-room. Silvia Fleming is there, and she speaks some half-words of greeting, giving me the contemptuous, indifferent regard that apparently she always bestows on her own

sex.

Mrs. Fleming comes in, fat and kind (I like her better than her daughter) and last of all, Lady Flytton. We go in to dinner, where there is next to no conversation, for the hostess devotes herself to her knife and fork with the assiduity of a woman who knows her time for wielding the same is short, and the other two have little conversation. In the drawing-room later the two elders sit together, knitting and talking, while Silvia's restless figure paces up and down, up and down, the terraced walk outside, and I sit at a table, turning over a photograph book, and pitying myself from the very bottom of my soul.

"It is too ridiculous," says Mrs. Fleming's vexed voice, rising in her excitement, "and the offers and the admiration she has had too."

"She is a bad little cat," says Lady Flytton, shaking her ungodly, Madeira-warmed old head, "and she'll never come to any good, never! As to Paul Vasher, he won't marry her; he knows her too well for that!"

I move quickly away before I hear more, and marvel for the ninety-ninth time why I was ever invited to Flytton.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Give me that man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core; ay, in my heart of hearts."

A TAP at the door. "Come in," I say, pausing in my wrestle with my bonnet strings-which I am trying to settle in a bow that will not disgrace Lady Flytton's smart chariot-and enter Silvia. Apparently she is not going to church, for although we start in five minutes' time, she wears a white morning gown and slippers.

"Will you do something for me?" she asks, sitting down. "Tell me what it is first," I say, cautiously.

"You know Mr. Vasher ?"

"Yes!"

"Will you give him this note after church ?"

I look at the held-out billet, and for a moment hesitate. I love to help lovers; but I like him, and I do not like her; shall I hurt him by taking it? He is strong enough to take care of himself. "Yes, I will give it him," I say, and put it in my pocket.

"You are a good child," she says, and goes away.

I wonder if he will be in church? Yes, he is there, as I discover twenty minutes later, and he gives me a friendly look as I go up the aisle behind Mrs. Fleming. That old heathen Lady Flytton never goes to church. The Buffs give me a smile or two, and I wink affectionately at Mary Burns at a favourable opportunity. In the porch outside, when the service is over, I find Mr. Vasher, which is lucky; for supposing I had been obliged to run after him?

"And when are you coming back, little one?" he asks.

"Soon! To-morrow! Some time !" I say, flounderingly, then I thrust the note into his hand and flee.

"Did you give it him?" asks Silvia, as we are walking in the garden after luncheon.

"Yes."

"How hot it is!" she says, shrugging her shoulders, "there is a storm brewing!"

She speaks truth, the morning was sultry, the afternoon is worse, the air is charged and heavy with heat, the skies are closing in, black as night, the very birds have ceased singing: all creation seems to be holding its breath, awaiting one of nature's fierce convulsions. With the same instinct that has sent all the animals to their hiding-places, I go in, leaving Silvia pacing up and down, with clasped hands, and an intent look of listening upon her face. I am not ashamed to confess it, I am horribly, terribly afraid of a thunderstorm; the dread crack of the awful, invisible hosts above always makes me shiver, and through my eyelids the lightning seems to strike and blind me. After all, I must be a coward, for Jack does not mind it at all; he opens his eyes wide, and never puts his fingers in his ears. The sisters are fast asleep in a remote corner of the queer-shaped, many-angled room; every now and then a gentle snore attests to their happy unconsciousness. When