presently returned attired in a large white hat, turned up at one side with a large pale-blue feather, and a bunch (also large) of blush roses. Over her pale-gray dress she had flung a buffcolored dolman of so gorgeous a show at the first glance as to belie its very moderate cost. This garment was richly braided, and further, adorned with large buttons and a narrow bordering of a fur which, with the best intentions, did not quite succeed in matching the color of the cloak it was supposed to trim. Gathering up the cataract of little frills which hung behind her, Miss Vane announced herself ready, and after giving a critical glance at Bernard, and rather mournfully remarking that she "supposed he must do," they set out together; presently found an omnibus, and in it went down to the town again, and descended at the entrance of one of the Irkford theatres. As may be supposed, the more select and expensive seats were beyond their means; they occupied places in the upper circle, and being very early, secured seats in the front row of the same, forming one of innumerable couples in similar circumstances who that evening chose that means of amusing themselves. They were, perhaps, a noticeable pair, certainly a contrasted one. His sombre face, with its gleaming eyes and occasional smile; his careless dress, and nonchalant, unconventional attitudes, might have struck some eyes. Any one who had cared to observe him so far, would also have remarked that, underlying all the carelessness of dress and mien, there was a pride which could not be concealed—a certain imperious hauteur in the glance, which scarcely agreed with his ostensible station, occupation, and surroundings. His heart was not in the place, or the play, or the scene at all; he went to please her, and for nothing else. She was an almost startling contrast to her lover fair, delicate-looking, and pretty to admiration, despite her ridiculous dress, and absurdly vulgar and affected airs and graces. She could not, and did not fail to attract attention. Aglionby never noticed that people looked at her. Miss Vane was, however, fully conscious of the fact. This evening, after they had sat waiting for some time, she drew his attention to it, saying plaintively: "Bernard, that odious man on the other side has never taken his eyes off my face. It is so disagreeable. What am I to do?" "Oh, "A-what?" he asked abstractedly. that man is staring at you? don't look at him, and then you can't see him.” Brutal retort, thought Lizzie, in despair. Mr. Golding had more than once wondered at some "fellow's" impudence in staring at her, and expressed a wish to knock her offender down; a style of argument which appealed, as it seemed to her, to more elevated, chivalric feelings than that used by Bernard. "Well, you might try to enliven me a bit!" she exclaimed, rather impatiently. "What am I to do but sit and look at people, if you never open your lips?" The fact is, "I beg your pardon, I'm sure. this seems rather flat after this afternoon. I wish you could have seen the ovation they gave to It was grand; and he was grand too! He smashed the government all to atoms." "Dear me! The government is always being smashed to atoms, according to what you say; but it seems to me to keep on governing all the same," observed Lizzie, unconsciously touching a sore spot. "Of course it does," he growled; "and will do, unless it is kicked out." "I wish political meetings didn't make people so awfully grumpy," observed the young lady, rather ruefully. "You do seem to think of nothing but politics." "There's nothing else much worth thinking of. When a fellow's like me, Liz———” "I wish you wouldn't call me ‘Liz.'' "No? What then?" "Lilian is what I like to be called." "But if Lilian is not your name-which it "Never mind, I shall never get you to understand. When a fellow's like you, well what happens?" "A slave in a warehouse, and with absolutely no prospects except to sell gray shirtings till he's superannuated, he's apt, if he has not something to take his mind outside his daily drudgery, to get either despondent or dissipated. Now politics takes me out of myself, and-holloa! Why, there she is!" "She? who?" asked Miss Vane, forgetting her superfine manners and craning forward as eagerly as he did. "Why, she-the girl I was telling you about. They must have got home safely, then." "The same. Look at her, going into that box with the old gentleman; and tell me, if you dare, that she isn't a fine-looking girl." "I can see nothing fine-looking about her," said Miss Vane, crushingly, and not altogether truthfully, as a dismal suspicion began to form itself in her mind that there was something more admirable about the perfect simplicity of the lady in question, than in even her own truly recherché toilette. "Come, come, Liz! you're jealous!" "Jealous, Bernard! Why, she has on one of those plain washing silks that look no better than a brown holland. And nothing in her hair, and no color, no eyes, no go!" said Lizzie, becoming energetic in her contempt. "My dear child, she has far more than what you call 'go'! Look at the way in which she moves. Look at the glance of her eyes-how she measures everything so calmly and deliberately! I tell you that woman would look just the same, only rather cooler, if every soul in this theatre was one of a mob thirsting for her blood." "Well, to be sure! What next? A quiet, plain-looking girl like that! I am better-looking than she is, and I'm no beauty." This was one of Miss Vane's favorite remarks, and was always made in the firm conviction that since there was not a word of truth in it, it must be magnanimous. "And I declare, Bernard, she's looking at you. She is! And she is pointing you out to her pa. Oh, and you are blushing! He's blushing, for the first time in his life! Eh-h-h! what fun!" There was certainly a heightened color in his face, as he turned to her, with a curling lip, and, in a voice which was new to her in its coolness and disdain, observed that she was behaving like a child. Lizzie's mirth was checked for the moment. At that tone she experienced the same constrained sensation, the same quickened breath and beating heart, though in a lesser degree, as when he had one night suddenly upset all her calculations, and claimed her love and her life, in a manner which had subdued her. She became silent, and her lip quivered for a moment. This great clumsy Bernard, at whose gaucheries she many a time laughed, had sometimes a way of looking at her and speaking to her which sent her heart into her mouth. He leaned back in his seat, and studied the playbill until the curtain went up, and then he looked toward the box before he looked at the stage. They were not looking at him now; they were intently watching the first scene of "Diplomacy" with the absorbed interest of country folk, who do not often get the chance of seeing a play. The curtain went down on the end of the first act. "Oh, my! What lovely dresses that Mrs. Kendal has, to be sure! I wish I'd had this made a long plain princess robe, like that gray and gold one she has. Don't you think it would have suited me better, Bernard ?" "It might have suited you; the question is, how would the passages and the size of the rooms at your mother's house have suited it ?" he answered, honestly endeavoring to go deeply and conscientiously into the subject. "Tsh!" she replied impatiently. During the remainder of the performance she was sulky and silent. Aglionby did not perceive it. He was interested in his late neighbors at the Liberal Demonstration. He could not help seeing that they looked at him more than once, and exchanged remarks about him. It was the old gentleman who looked at him oftenest, and who even once leveled his opera-glass, and looked long and intently through it in his direction. The young lady, as Bernard saw, Bernard saw, looked exceedingly grave, when her features were not animated during the play; but her face was one on which a grave expression sits well, though her smile, when she did smile now and then, was a sweet one. There was something in her countenance which indefinably attracted him, and led him to wonder what she would be like to talk to. He admired the old man too-his huge stature, and the proud carriage of his head; and the conclusion he came to was still that they lived in the country, and were most likely people of consequence, wherever their home might be. When the play was over, he made his way, with Liz on his arm, down the stairs. In the large entrance-hall was a great crowd of people going away. Close to the door Bernard jogged elbows with some one, and looking round, saw the old gentleman with the young lady on his arm. This time it was she who was next to him-so near that their elbows touched, and he could look into her very eyes. He saw that she had one of those marble-pale countenances whose pallor by no means betokens ill-health. How calm and composed the deep, steady gray eye! How steadfast the meeting of her lips one upon the other steadfast, yet sweet! And what a store of intellectual strength was betokened by that smooth, expansive white brow, which had the unmistakable arch that denotes power of thought! He saw that her eyes were fixed upon Lizzie, who happened also to look round at that moment, flushed with excitement, and a little, perhaps, with vexation-brilliantly, dazzlingly pretty, with that beauty which by gaslight looks ethereal and almost transparent. When she saw the steady eyes of the strange girl fixed upon her, she bridled, tossed back her head, hung upon Aglionby's arm, and said, in an affected and audible voice: "Do let us get out, Bernard, dear! I'm almost stifled." "Bern- broke suddenly from the old gentleman's lips. He made a lunge forward; he stretched out his hand toward Aglionby's coatsleeve; he cried, "Sir! sir! Mr.-a-!" But in vain. The crowd closed in between them. The elderly gentleman and his companion were left to await their conveyance; Aglionby and Miss Vane to make their way through the crowd: she to grumble bitterly as they waited for an ombibus, and to wish ardently that cabs were not so ruinously expensive. It was Bernard's only clear holiday throughout the week, as he had only the half of Saturday. He had got into a groove, as we all get into grooves, and his mode of spending the day seldom varied. The morning he usually disposed of in walking if it were fine; or in reading, writing, or smoking if it were wet-in either case, alone. Miss Vane was not much to be seen during those morning hours. Bernard usually dined at the timely hour of a quarter past one on this day with Lizzie and Mrs. Vane. In the afternoon he was supposed to be at the service of his betrothed— generally, in the evenings also, on which occasions he would accompany her to a church in some outlying fields, which church was a favorite walk in summer for hundreds of persons who attended the service and afterward walked home in the evening freshness and coolness. It was the nearest approach to a "summer Sunday evening" in the country which was to be had. Bernard and Lizzie generally strolled back by some roundabout route, leading at last into the gas lighted thoroughfare, and so quietly and peacefully home to supper, and, when Miss Vane had retired, to a pipe, a book, and bed. There were occasional Sunday evenings on which his fiancée was deprived of his society; occasions on which he devoted his attention to the furtherance of the Liberal cause in politics, and the secular one in religious and philosophical matters, at a meeting composed of himself and a The second meeting had brought them no nearer body of kindred spirits, or rather, of spirits as than the first. CHAPTER III.-AN INTERLUDE. "But for loving, why, you would not, sweet, Though we prayed you, Paid you, brayed you ,, In a mortar, for you conld not, sweet.' SUNDAY at Irkford is a day which may or may not be dull, according to the habits of those who have to spend it there, by which I would intimate that the place is so large as to allow of Sunday being spent there in divers and various ways without any scandal accruing therefrom. Some kind of provision is made for the spiritual (or otherwise) entertainment of all, from Christians and secularists, through every denomination of the Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics who form no inconsiderable item of its population. nearly akin to his own as he could find-and that was not very near, for his was a caustic, lonely, and somewhat bitter nature. This knot of menchiefly young, as may be supposed from their proceedings-called themselves by the somewhat ambiguous and misleading title of "The Agnostics." It was very much of a misnomer, since their confession of agnosticism certainly went no further than matters religious; on all other topics— social, moral, and political-they professed to have the newest lights, and to be capable of taking the lead at any moment. These "Agnostics" were all ardent, hard-working fellows; Bernard Aglionby was the one cynic in their ranks. They talked as pessimists of the most terrible and gloomy school. They acted, hoped, and enjoyed themselves as optimists of the brightest cheerfulness, again, always with the exception of Bernard, and with him a tinge of pessimistic melancholy was consti tutional. It needed a corrective, which neither his life, his companions, nor his surroundings had yet supplied. Mr. Percy Golding, it need hardly be mentioned, did not belong to the aspiring body of "Agnostics" just spoken of. On the day in question the club did not meet, therefore Aglionby was at liberty to dispose of his time as seemed good in his own eyes. He got his breakfast, and just as the piously-disposed were wending their way to their different temples, he put on his hat, ran up-stairs, and knocking at the closed door of the beloved of his soul, said: "I'm going out, Lizzie. Shan't be back again till dinner-time." It was a fine, crisp October morning, as he set out, turning his face toward the south, and quickly threading the mazes of streets, till he came to a great highroad, full of persons dressed in their best, with their prayer-books in their hands, and with their Sunday gloves, umbrellas, and expressions in full force. On either side of the road were large houses, residences of rich merchants, fashionable doctors, men of law in large practice, bank directors, and other favored ones of fortune. There were trees, too, in the gardens, waving over the road, and an occasional Sunday omnibus taking a load of passengers out into the country. He pursued his way until the last houses were left behind, and those which did now and then appear were really mansions in the country, in grounds or parks of their own. The air was pleasant, and blew with an agreeable freshness upod his face. Far away he could see the soft "All right!" cried Miss Vane, and Aglionby, whistling, set off. He did not miss Lizzie in these Sunday morning walks. In the first place, they extended so far that certainly no town-bred girl could have joined in them, however good her will. Next, they were always devoted to meditations-outlines of blue Derbyshire hills, while to the sometimes when he got quite out into the country right extended a flat, smooth, highly-cultivated to reading-in which she had no part nor lot. plain. He met very few persons when he had His Lizzie was a dear girl; he never thought of advanced so far on his way. With his hands in her without a smile and a softened look; but, his pockets, and his face occasionally turned equally, there were long hours during which he upward to look into the deep field of liquid blue never thought of her at all. He did not want above, he marched on and on, thinking busily of feminine influence in his deeper thoughts, so he many things-chiefly of the meeting yesterday, often told himself. What a bewildering thing it and, naturally enough, of those two strangers with would be if Lizzie ever were to take it into her whom he had been twice in one day brought into head to pretend that she felt an interest in poli- | collision. tics, for instance. What a hopeless muddle would "I suppose she took an interest in it all," he result! Fortunately, she had better sense. She reflected. "I wonder what she thought of it, and knew what she was equal to, and with wisdom whether she agreed or disagreed. She must have confined herself to doing it. He never said within come because she was interested, or perhaps the himself that she knew what she liked, and never old boy made her come, I shouldn't wonder. troubled her head about any person or thing out- He looked as if he were one who wouldn't let any side the sphere of her little, little world. He He one out of his sight whom he imagined ought to would have liked dearly to marry her out of hand, be in attendance upon him." give her a carriage, a fine house, a cheque-book, and carte-blanche to amuse herself as she chose, and give what entertainments it pleased her to have; while he would have been very proud of her beauty, would have lived in the utmost harmony with her, and she would never have interfered in the really serious concerns which were outside her sphere in the business, the politics, and the statesmanship of life. In their mutual bark she was metaphorically to recline in the comfortable, cushioned cabin, with a novel and her fancy-work, while he was to be the man at the wheel. A pause in the thoughts, which presently returned to another but a parallel track. "I wonder what the Tories will make of our meeting yesterday; I'm awfully anxious to see to-morrow's papers. By the way, I wonder, will my letter be in to-morrow morning's Daily Chronicle. It should be, and it should touch up those denominational schools a bit. I hope it will draw down a storm of abuse. I like being abusedwhen I know I am in the right of it. I like battle." His eyes gleamed with that light—not a mild one-which oftenest illumined them. "Pity there is so little chance of combat of any sort in candidly. "I like going there; there'll be others an Irkford saleroom.” Of late, these reflections upon that state of life in which his lot was cast had been more numerous and more discontented than usual. "If I could only see my way to something else, not another day would I remain," he thought. "It is slavery, neither more nor less. I should think that father of mine, poor fellow! hardly saw the probable results of his decisive step in life, or he might have looked again before he took it. am one of those results"-he smiled in grim amusement" and some of the others I have to put up with, as a salesman of cotton goods." He laughed again, not mirthfully, and, looking at his watch, wheeled round on his heel, and returned over the same ground as that which he had already traversed. He arrived again in Crane street, and found Miss Vane quite ready to receive him, and dinner almost ready to be eaten. Lizzie was got up regardless of trouble, at least; one trembled to think of the amount of time which must have been devoted to the frizzing and arranging of the frizz of hair which projected, like an excrescence, over her forehead, and hung almost into her eyes; trembled because, if she had little leisure, her work must have suffered direly from the tyranny of fashion, and if she had much leisure she occupied it in a deplorable manner. It did not seem to strike Bernard in that light; probably he had not the faintest idea but that her hair grew ready frizzed as he saw it. His eyes lighted, his face softened as she met his view. "Well, my lass, good morning; you do look bonny!" he exclaimed, kissing her tenderly. "Don't call me 'lass,' Bernard, dear, as if I were a factory girl!" she said plaintively, raising her blue eyes to his face. there as well as we, and I've promised Mr. Golding to sing his favorite song." "Have you? What is that?" asked Bernard, who was never jealous by any chance-a characteristic not perfectly agreeable to Miss Vane's ideas of a model lover. "It's called 'We sat by the river, you and I,' she answered. "Come, dinner's ready; Ma's calling." "All right, we'll leave the river till afterward, though what river you and Percy can imagine yourselves by, at Mrs. Golding's, except one of tea, which there always is there, I can't conceive.” "I shouldn't think you would like to imagine us by any river, unless you were there too," she said, marveling at his utter incapacity to comprehend that other men admired her. He sees "He thinks I'm like him, I suppose. no one but me; and he thinks I can't even see that others see me. I do wonder sometimes that I ever said 'Yes' to him so easily as I did, except that he is so much more of a man than any of the others, and so awfully indifferent to everybody else—and then, Lucy Golding said I never could bring him to book, however much I tried. I'll show her this afternoon whether I haven't brought him to book." They sat down to dinner. Mrs. Vane, Lizzie's mother, was of course present as well. Her aspect might have afforded a timely warning to any man not already in love. She had once been exquisitely pretty in the style of a wax doll or a Dresden shepherdess. She had had eyes of forget-me-not blue: it is a color that does not stand the test of tears and sleeplessness, with both of which ills Mrs. Vane's life had been plentifully troubled. She had had a profusion of flaxen hair, which was now thin, and streaked with gray. She had had a pretty figure and a peach-blossom complexion. Figure and complexion had both vanished like a dream. She had been the essence of the muchbe-praised "womanly woman," in the sense of not taking the most remote or elementary interest in any question outside personal, domestic, or family gossip. Advancing years had not made her more intellectual; the ardent hater of the "strong-minded female" must have hailed Mrs. Vane as his ideal-no one ever had been able to accuse her of strongmindedness. In addition to "I don't want to get out of it," said Lizzie this, she was prone to tell Aglionby, now that he "I won't call you anything that you don't like, my beauty-does that suit you better? What am I to do for you this afternoon? I am at your service." "Oh, we are going to Mrs. Golding's to tea, and then I want you to go to church with me." The light certainly did die out of Aglionby's cyes as this enchanting programme was unfolded for his delight. "Tea at Mrs. Golding's?" he said, trying hard not to speak ruefully. “Have you quite promised? Is there no means of getting out of it?" |