"Oh, Mr. Grey, do not ask me to write."

"Listen to me.

Should there be any on either side,

there shall be no idea of any wrong done."

"But I have done you wrong;-great wrong." "No, Alice; I will not have it so. When I asked you to accept my hand,-begging the greatest boon which it could ever come to my lot to ask from a fellow-mortal, I knew well how great was your goodness to me when you told me that it should be mine. Now, that you refuse it, I know also that you are good, thinking that in doing so you are acting for my welfare, thinking more of my welfare than of your own."

66

"Oh yes, yes; it is so, Mr. Grey; indeed it is so." 'Believing that, how can I talk of wrong? That you are wrong in your thinking on this subject,-that your mind has become twisted by false impressions,— that I believe. But I cannot therefore love you less, -nor, so believing, can I consider myself to be injured. Nor am I even so little selfish as you are. I think if you were my wife that I could make you happy; but I feel sure that my happiness depends on your being my wife."

She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in all its manly beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed it at once in his eyes,-in his mouth, in the whole visage of his countenance. He glared in his anger, and was impassioned in his love. But Mr. Grey when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, when confessing that it was now at stake with a decision against him that would be ruinous to it, spoke without a quiver in his voice,

and had no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his gardener to move a rose-tree.

"I hope and believe that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr. Grey."

"Well; we can but differ, Alice. In that we do differ. And now I will say one word to explain why I have come here. If I were to write to you against your will, it would seem that I were persecuting you. I cannot bring myself to do that, even though I had the right. But if I were to let you go from me, taking what you have said to me and doing nothing, it would seem that I had accepted your decision as final. do not do so. I will not do so. I come simply to tell you that I am still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early in January, as soon as you have returned to town. You will hardly refuse to

see me."

"No," she said; "I cannot refuse to see you."

I

Then it shall be so," he said, "and I will not trouble you with letters, nor will I trouble you longer now with words. Tell your aunt that I have said what I came to say, and that I give her my kindest thanks." Then he took her hand and pressed it,—not as George Vavasor had pressed it, and was gone. When Lady Macleod returned, she found that the question of the evening's tea arrangements had settled itself.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ROEBURY CLUB.

Not

Ir has been said that George Vavasor had a little establishment at Roebury, down in Oxfordshire, and thither he betook himself about the middle of November. He had been long known in this county, and whether or no men spoke well of him as a man of business in London, men spoke well of him down there, as one who knew how to ride to hounds. that Vavasor was popular among fellow-sportsmen. It was quite otherwise. He was not a man that made himself really popular in any social meetings of men. He did not himself care for the loose little talkings, half flat and half sharp, of men when they meet together in idleness. He was not open enough in his nature for such popularity. Some men were afraid of him, and some suspected him. There were others who made up to him, seeking his intimacy, but these he usually snubbed, and always kept at a distance. Though he had indulged in all the ordinary pleasures of young men, he had never been a jovial man. his conversations with men he always seemed to think that he should use his time towards serving some purpose of business. With women he was quite the reWith women he could be happy. With women he could really associate. A woman he could really love;-but I doubt whether for all that he could treat a woman well.

verse.

In

But he was known in the Oxfordshire country as a man who knew what he was about, and such men are always welcome. It is the man who does not know how to ride that is made uncomfortable in the hunting field by cold looks or expressed censure. And yet it is very rarely that such men do any real harm. Such a one may now and then get among the hounds or override the hunt, but it is not often so. Many such complaints are made; but in truth the too forward man, who presses the dogs, is generally one who can ride, but is too eager or too selfish to keep in his proper place. The bad rider, like the bad whist player, pays highly for what he does not enjoy, and should be thanked. But at both games he gets cruelly snubbed. At both games George Vavasor was great and he never got snubbed.

There were men who lived together at Roebury in a kind of club,-four or five of them, who came thither from London, running backwards and forwards as hunting arrangements enabled them to do so,-a brewer or two and a banker, with a would-be fast attorney, a sporting literary gentleman, and a young unmarried Member of Parliament who had no particular home of his own in the country. These men formed the Roebury Club, and a jolly life they had of it. They had their own wine closet at the King's Head,-or Roebury Inn, as the house had come to be popularly called, --and supplied their own game. The landlord found everything else; and as they were not very particular about their bills, they were allowed to do pretty much as they liked in the house. They were rather imperious, very late in their hours, sometimes, though not often, noisy, and once there had been a hasty quarrel

which had made the landlord in his anger say that the club should be turned out of his house. But they paid well, chaffed the servants much oftener than they bullied them; and on the whole were very popular.

To this club Vavasor did not belong, alleging that he could not afford to live at their pace, and alleging, also, that his stays at Roebury were not long enough to make him a desirable member. The invitation to him was not repeated and he lodged elsewhere in the little town. But he occasionally went in of an evening, and would make up with the members a table at whist.

He had come down to Roebury by mail train, ready for hunting the next morning, and walked into the club-room just at midnight. There he found Maxwell the banker, Grindley the would-be fast attorney, and Calder Jones the Member of Parliament, playing dummy. Neither of the brewers was there, nor was the sporting literary gentleman.

"Here 's Vavasor," said Maxwell, "and now we won't play this blackguard game any longer. Somebody told me, Vavasor, that you were gone away." "Gone away;-what, like a fox?"

"I don't know what it was; that something had happened to you since last season; that you were married, or dead, or gone abroad. By George, I 've lost the trick after all! I hate dummy like the devil. I never hold a card in dummy's hand. Yes, I know; that 's seven points on each side. Vavasor, come and cut. Upon my word if any one had asked me, I should have said you were dead."

"But you see, nobody ever does think of asking you anything."

"What you probably mean," said Grindley, "is that