companied Mr. Vane to the hall-door; pointed out to him where were the pleasantest walks in the grounds, how best to reach the spots from whence the favourite views were to be obtained, and handed him the keys of the conservatory and the gates opening into the home park. Mr. Vane received all this politeness very coolly, inwardly determining to take the first opportunity of revenging himself on Mr. Delabole for the unceremonious treatment received at that gentleman's hands.

Left to himself, Mr. Vane strolled idly about the grounds switching the heads off the flowers with his cane, and cursing Delabole's impudence for having relegated him to the duties of the second fiddle.

"Make the best of your time, my good friend," said he, stretching himself upon a bench shaded by the overhanging branches | of a large tree, "make the best of your time, to swagger and give yourself airs, and show that you are the head of the concern; while I am, or am supposed to be, only one of its paid officers; for within a week, or ten days at the outside, I shall be my own master, and if you attempt anything of that kind with me then, I shall be in a position to tell you my opinion of you in the very plainest language. Don't think I have not noticed of late how very tightly you have drawn the rope which binds me to you! Telegraphed for when I am away, told to go here and there, to find out this and that, brought down here and shunted on one side, as though I were a mere clerk, whose business it is to make memoranda of what may pass between their excellencies! Oh, my good friend Delabole, you may take your oath I will not forget this. When once my marriage with Mrs. Bendixen is an accomplished fact, and I have the knowledge that I am beyond any harm which you could do me, then you shall taste the leek which you have compelled me so frequently of late to swallow. I will put my foot on your neck, as you have put yours on mine, I will- Hallo, who's this coming this way? One of the gardeners, I suppose. No, by Jove! the parson who was at the station, and who seemed to take such interest in us and our movements. What can he want? He must be a friend of Sir Geoffry's, and makes his way through the grounds as a short cut from one part of his parish to the other. He will see I am a friend of the general's, and will want to enter into conversation. I hate parsons, and shan't take any notice of him.'

With this amiable resolve, Mr. Vane

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"I knew it before I was dodging about the station, as you are politely pleased to say," said Mr. Drage; "I know a great deal more about you, as you will find out, before this interview is at an end!"

"The deuce you do!" said Philip Vane, with a cynical smile; "I did not know my fame had extended to these parts. And what do you know about me, pray, Mr.I forget your name.'

"My name, I repeat, is Drage!" "Drage-Drage," muttered Vane. "Any relation of Drage, of Abchurch-lane?" "His son."

"A most respectable man, holding a leading position in the City. My dear Mr. Drage, I am delighted to make your acquaintance." And he held out his hand.

"I do not think," said Mr. Drage, taking no notice of the movement; "I do not think that you will be quite so pleased to make my acquaintance when you have heard all I have to say!"

Philip Vane looked hard at his companion, and noted with astonishment the hectic flush in his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes, the mobile working of his mouth.

"You may say what you please," he said, shortly. "It is a matter of perfect indifference to me. If you were in the City, your father or your father's clerks could tell you what position I hold there. City men are careful of what they say of each other; but you are a parson, and are privileged, I suppose ?"

"I am a parson. It was in that capacity I became acquainted with the circumstances, the knowledge of which has induced me to seek you out. You are about to be married, Mr. Vane ?"

"The dullest of laymen could have told

"And it is

"It is that you are married already!" As Mr. Drage pronounced these words, a chill crept over Philip Vane, and for an instant he felt stupefied. But he speedily recovered himself, and looking his companion straight in the face, said:

"Either you have been befooled yourself, or you are trying to make a fool of me. In the latter case a hopeless and dangerous experiment."

"I should not attempt to put my wits in antagonism to yours," said the rector, quietly, "but facts have been said to be stubborn things, and the marriage register of Chepstow Church, with the signature of Philip Vane and Margaret Pierrepoint in one of its pages, is still extant !"

"Who told you of this ?" asked Vane, breathing hard and speaking low.

"Your injured and deserted wife !" "Is the woman who once passed under that name still alive ?" inquired Vane, anxiously.

"The lady who has the terrible misfortune to hold that position," said the rector, drawing himself up and looking at his companion with disgust, "is alive and well."

"And you come from her ?"

"No, I am here on her behalf, but not with her knowledge."

There was a momentary silence, broken by Vane, who said: "And what is your object in seeking this interview with me?"

"To warn you that I am cognisant of the position in which you stand; to warn you against the commission of the crime which you contemplate"

"And to ask for a round sum to buy off the opposition of yourself and your interesting accomplice. Is not that it, Mr. Drage?" "You scoundrel !" said Mr. Drage. “Do you dare to address such language to mea clergyman ?"

"If it comes to a question of language," said Vane, with a laugh, "I believe that ' scoundrel' is scarcely a term much bandied about in clerical society. As a matter of fact, I have found many gentlemen of your cloth not less open to a bribe than the rest of the world."

"And I warn you that if you interfere in my business, I will kill you!" said Philip Vane, savagely.

"Such a threat has no terrors for me," said the rector.

"Perhaps not," said Vane, with a contemptuous glance at his companion's feeble frame; however, I will find some means of bringing you and your client to reason." "Stay," cried Mr. Drage, "I did not come here to bandy threats, but simply to discharge a duty. I will take no answer from you now, irritated as you are by the discovery that your position is known to me. Think over what I have said, and save yourself from the commission of this great sin. If you have occasion to write to me you know where I am to be found."

Philip Vane hesitated, then bowing his head, he said in a low tone:

"You are right. Do not think any more of the wild words I uttered in my rage; leave me to think over the circumstances in which I am placed, and the manner in which I can best extricate myself from the danger into which I was about to plunge. Leave me and-Heaven bless you for your kindness."

Mr. Drage looked at him with brimming eyes, and lifting his hat slowly walked off.

"That was the best way of settling him," said Philip Vane to himself, as he watched the rector down the path. "I must push this marriage on at once, and make some excuse for its being perfectly quiet."

JUST PUBLISHED, THE

EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER FOR CHRISTMAS, 1871,

ENTITLED

SLAVES OF THE LAMP.

Now ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in green cloth,
THE SIXTH VOLUME
OF THE NEW SERIES OF

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

To be had of all Booksellers.

VOL. VII.

101

She was divided between her admiration of Paul's prowess and her fears for his safety. "I'd much rather not make any disturb ance," said she.

"We shall see," said Paul, mischievously. The shops were found to be open. Never was there such an expedition of wonder and excitement. Paul led his enchanted companion first into a large boot and shoe shop, and asked for woollen caps with strings for protecting the ears of fools. He next introduced her to a millinery establish ment, festooned with bonnets and headdresses, feathers and flowers, satins and tinsels, the like of which May could not have imagined. And here Paul politely asked for rosary beads "fit for the pious use of old women in the country." May thought it very odd that it should be so difficult to get the things she wanted. After this they went to picture-shops for cap-ribbons, and to a jeweller's for sugarstick. In the end, however, and after much perseverance, they succeeded in get ting all they had been seeking for-and something more besides. For Paul, happening to have, by accident, the price of a pair of new boots in his pocket, recklessly expended half the sum on a cross of bog oak for May. It was handsomely carved, and hung round her neck by a pretty black chain. May was so absorbed and transfixed by gratitude and surprise, that he had almost to carry her over the next two crossings to save her from being run down by the jaunting-cars. And as his mind was rather uneasy about the money, he soothed his conscience by laying out the other half on a pretty new Bible for his mother. He resolved to wear his boots for another half-year. He would send them to the cobbler, and entreat the sullen servant in St. Audrey's-street to give them a little extra blacking every morning for the future. And if all that did not make things right, why then that disagreeable future must e'en take care of itself.

Meantime the two friends in the high room had been occupied in dividing the mother's trouble, share and share alike, between two faithful hearts.

It was nothing very new that Miss Martha had to hear; only the old, old story, with the slight variation of Mrs. Finiston's fears about her boy. The little bit of novelty being a vivid expectation of her own approaching death.

"I know you won't laugh at me, Martha," she said, "though, of course, I do not insist that this may not be a fancy. But you know I have been tolerably brave all my

life. For a sick, lonely woman I have had very few whims. But now I believe that I am soon going to die."

Miss Martha cleared her throat twice before her voice was ready to answer.

"Of course I am not going to laugh at you, Elizabeth. It may, as you say, be a fancy. Very likely. But then, as we have all got to die, it may happen to come true. And you would like to arrange for it, just as if it were going to come true. I approve of that. Be ready for a thing, and it is nothing when it comes. If this appears coming, send for me without the delay of an instant, and I have no doubt at all that we shall help each other. There, now, we have faced it. And that being over, let me remind you that I am older than you, and shall probably die first."

Mrs. Finiston choked back a little flutter of the heart. "I could wish to live," she said, "and I will send for you if there is time. In the mean time, I like to have things settled. There is Paul! Suppose I left him now, he has not a penny nor a friend in the world."

"He is the heir of Tobereevil," said Miss Martha, boldly.

"Martha!" almost shrieked Mrs. Finiston, letting her friend's hand drop in dismay.

'Now, Elizabeth, be quiet. There has been a great deal of nonsense talked about that curse, and I believe that it has worked all the harm. If Simon Finiston had not known that he was cursed he would probably never have been the miser that he is. Weak-minded people will submit to fate. The fascination of being marked out and prophesied over is strong for little souls. They like the eccentricity, and fall in with it, and pander to their morbid expectations. Simon Finiston had as good a chance as any man in the world, and his ruin is upon his own head."

Mrs. Finiston was aghast at this speech. She was so utterly surprised that for a moment she forgot her Own troubles. Never before had Martha Mourne been heard to condemn Simon Finiston. But the explanation of this outburst was easy, though poor Mrs. Finiston was too preoccupied to see it at the time. Miss Martha had a fine little morsel of sublimity at the bottom of her simple heart. It may be that at this moment the memory of Simon Finiston, as he had been once, was dearer to her than the reality of young Paul in his present state of youthful undevelopment. But Miss Martha saw the drift of her friend's fears, and her handful of dried sentiment was cast out of the way like a sheaf of old

lavender from a drawer. The future of a young man, she acknowledged, was more precious than an old man's past.

The shock of this surprise over, Mrs. Finiston returned to her own affairs. “But, Martha, Martha! what happens to one man may happen to another."

"I see no fears for your lad," said Miss Martha. "Unlike his uncle, he has grown up quite apart from the dangerous influence. He knows the evil, yet he has no morbid dread of it. And I see in his eye that he is no shallow soul. My friend, you must commit him to God and to me. If you go first I will try to be Elizabeth. I am not a mother, but it may be that it is in me to act a motherly part.' Mrs. Finiston sobbed, and squeezed the spinster's fingers.

As Miss Martha was going out to her lawyer's next day, Mrs. Finiston put her a question which it may be thought she might have put to her before.

"And now that I have time to think of it, Martha, what is this business that has brought you up to town ?"

The answer was hard to give, but Miss Martha was honest, and it came out bluntly.

"It is true," said Mrs. Finiston, with many more sobs; "I have sometimes had dreams like this, but the bitterness of my fears always frightened them away.'

"And as I have found you so credulous of prophecies," went on Miss Martha, with increased liveliness of manner, "I will venture to foretell something which the least superstitious may expect to come to pass. One Paul Finiston brought evil into the country. Another Paul shall cast it out. We shall see your boy break this ugly spell upon his race, and begin a reign of peace among our hills!"

Miss Martha wound up this little period with a most unusual note in her matter-offact voice. And Mrs. Finiston, carried away by the eloquence of her friend, flung her arms round her neck and wept all the remnant of the tears she had to weep. But in the course of a few minutes this scene was interrupted by the young people bursting in at the door, May flourishing invisible purchases over her head, and calling upon every one to admire them in the dark.

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Mrs. Finiston knew well who the landlord was. Truly old Simon's disease was progressing.

CHAPTER VII. TRYING TO BE ELIZABETH.

MISS MARTHA was right and wrong when she persuaded Paul's mother that her fears of approaching death were unfounded. Three years passed away, and Mrs. Finiston still lived, still languished on her sofa, and paid her son's college fees, and wrote letters to her friend at Monasterlea. But one morning, while Miss Mourne bustled briskly about her breakfast-room, she got the news that Mrs. Finiston was no longer in the world. The end had been quick; there had been scarcely any warning, and little time for reluctance and regret.

Then Miss Martha, reading her letter with red eyes, had reason to remember that she had said, "I will try to be Elizabeth."

She would have remembered it in any case, but the special reason which suggested it came in the form of a message from the dead. It was simply, "Go to Simon," scrawled feebly upon a morsel of paper. The dying hand had been unable to write more.