possibly the root of it, which lies in the self-conserving instinct, and is fostered by the struggle for existence, can never be wholly eradi cated so long as the present order and environment of being continues. But to find cruelty, or any shadow of that ruthless and brutish quality, in the bosom of a fair young girl! What could be more incongruous ?

Nevertheless, abhorrent as the truth may seem, it still was the truth that a triumphant satisfaction on her own account mingled in Mrs. Douglas Awdry's mind with a subtle pleasure in the disappointment and pain of this other woman. Her treasure grew all the more valuable through the notion that it was coveted. Her success appeared the sweeter in that another had longed for, but failed to attain it. Secure in the possession of her handsome husband, of the advantages which his wealth imparted to her, of the importance which her position as his wife communicated, she hugged her good fortune with an access of secret exultant appreciation in presence of one whom she believed envied her. And yet there was no absolute malevolence in this feeling, any more than there is in the experience, familiar, more or less, to all of us, when gathered round our warm firesides we listen to the howling of the wind and the beating of the rain outside, and congratulate ourselves all the more fervently on our own snugness, as we picture to ourselves some unsheltered wretch battling, in cold and weariness, with that fierce tempest. Claudia's hardness of heart, so far as it went, was the result of self-love and exaggerated egoism, not of any natural malice or inhumanity of temper. She did not dislike this new acquaintance. Far from it; she felt impelled by a variety of motives, which she did not trouble herself to analyse, to wish for her closer association.

Miss Ashmead,” she "When your sisters

"I hope I shall see a great deal of you, observed before they separated this afternoon. are married, you will feel a little lonely yourself, will you not? And I shall be grateful if fellow-feeling leads you to take pity on my forlorn condition as a stranger in a strange land."

"Thank you. It will make me very happy if we become friends," rejoined Olivia quietly, but with perfect sincerity. Poor Olivia! she had fought a hard fight with herself during the past week; but the issue of the battle had been victory, and the proof of the victory this early call upon Douglas Awdry's bride.

CHAPTER XVII.

WIFE AND FRIEND.

It is often very difficult, and not always very profitable, to try to disentangle the varied and complicated motives which form, like wheels within wheels, the springs of human desire and human action.

Sometimes, however, the motives are simple enough-just one or two big wheels to make up the governing machinery of conduct. Such was the case with the impulse which had driven Miss Ashmead to call upon Mrs. Douglas Awdry, and which had prompted the expression of her honest desire that they might grow to be friends.

After the first shock of agony and despair on finding that her love had been forgotten by the object of it-turned out into the biting cold of neglect-Olivia had gathered the poor shivering wanderer back into her own bosom, sick and in pain, but she had not let it die. Why, indeed, should she let it die, even if she couldthat love which had sweetened and enriched her whole life, which, in its purity and unselfishness, delighted rather to give than to receive? No, she need not cease to love Douglas Awdry (she smiled at the thought of how impossible such a feat would be), but she must take his wife now as a part of himself-she must try to love her too. In this way the aching pain in her heart might be stilled, the sickening void filled. So she hoped; and whether the hope was to find realisation or not, it was a nobly generous one. The inspiration could have occurred only to a fine nature. And from Claudia that inspiration received no check. The young wife proved quite as willing to make friends with her husband's old fiancée as the latter did with her. There was no one in the whole neighbourhood, so Mrs. Douglas decided, when she had made acquaintance with all the families whose status entitled them to associate with the Awdrys of Clavermere, whom she liked so much as Olivia Ashmead; and Olivia, accordingly, she set herself very assiduously to cultivate.

There are some women to whom a female friend is almost a necessity of existence, and Claudia was one of those women. The masculine mind-even that of her husband-was, to a certain extent, incomprehensible to her. Claudia had nothing in her nature of the flirt, and she had always been fond of her own sex. Not that that fondness was of a very deep or discriminative character, or that it clung tenaciously to any special object. It is true that, in her own opinion, she had been very faithful to Ella Thorne, and, without uestion, Ella had been very faithful to her. But, separated as they

now were by so great a distance, Claudia felt sure that their friendship must soon die out. For her own part, she hated letter-writing; and, beside, of what use were letters towards supplying her need of companionship? Already she had made up her mind to drop the correspondence as quickly as she could with any decency; and, probably, the reflection that, in loosing her tie to Ella, she would cut herself more completely adrift from her past life, stimulated this resolution.

Be that as it may, she resolved to elect Miss Ashmead to the vacant place of her bosom friend; and as that young lady met her overtures with unfeigned readiness, the arrangement appeared perfectly satisfactory. As often as her husband would permit-oftener, indeed, than he at first liked-Claudia would call for Olivia to drive or to ride in their company, whilst she was constantly inviting her to the house. And as the days and the weeks went on, Olivia accepted those invitations with more and more frank alacrity. For one thing, she found the pain of meeting Douglas in his new relations of marriage a happily diminishing quantity, so far as she was personally concerned; for another, and more important one, she believed that her society was of serious benefit to the pair. Very early indeed in the history of their acquaintance, it dawned upon Olivia that there was something missing from the perfection of a wife in the woman whom Douglas had chosen. And this perception subsequent experience only served to confirm. With her husband's best and truest life aspirations and tastes Claudia was totally out of sympathy. Long before the shadow of this discovery had fallen upon the young man himself, it was clear, in all its blank truth, to poor Olivia's eyes; and, eager to spare him sorrow or disappointment, she threw herself into the breach and tried to ward off from him such discovery.

Dropping all his military habits, and even his military title, the new Squire had thrown himself at once into his present position with a conscientious sense of its responsibility. A large landowner, with a numerous tenantry, he found the condition of the latter by no means satisfactory. His brother Julius had been a hard man, and he had grown harder in the latter years of his life, grinding the faces of the poor, exacting heavy rents, and systematically refusing to make necessary alterations and repairs in the houses of his tenants.

All this the new proprietor was eager to set to rights; and when, full of enthusiasm in his subject, he would come with plans for improvements, rebuilding, &c., to lay before his wife, it was his friend who interfered with a demonstrative show of her own interest in his plans, to cover the fact that his wife felt none whatever.

Thus it came to pass that by degrees-without absolutely recognising the truth that his beautiful Claudia found his notions of duty a bore, but quite satisfied that Olivia sympathised with themit became a habit with Douglas to turn first to her for counsel and encouragement in these serious occupations of his life. In this way she grew to be a sort of complement to his union-without which he might presently have found it incomplete. As it was, a vague sense of want at times troubled-though it did not materially disturb-his passionate devotion to his young wife. Yes, she was young, almost a child-that was always his fond excuse for her, whenever the reluctant possibility of her needing any excuse was forced upon him. Claudia had his heart-his whole heart-and she knew it. Therefore she was not the least jealous or disquieted to find that his "cousin Olivia" had been reinstated by her husband in the old place of his friend and confidant. Olivia was quite welcome to take the burden of those tedious uninteresting discussions off her shoulders. She was welcome to the husks of Douglas's esteem and cool fraternal affection, so long as she (Claudia) enjoyed the kernel of his loveand enjoyed it all the more because she guessed that, now and then, poor Olivia's repressed feelings gained the upper hand, and filled her with a vain longing to taste the sweetness of that closer tie herself.

But Olivia was always very kind to her, in a protective eldersisterly sort of way, which, from her, Claudia rather liked-although with other people she stood very much on her dignity as mistress of Clavermere Chase. And by other people her dignity was readily acknowledged. The young bride-the pretty, delicate-looking Mrs. Douglas Awdry-excited quite a furore in local society, and was flattered and courted to the top of her bent. So passed away those early months of her married life. Never had Claudia been happier --never, indeed, she told herself, so happy in the whole course of her existence Rich, prosperous, and beloved, conscious of no unsatisfied need, all her old wretchedness and anxieties seem to have melted away for ever. The sword of Damocles was gone from over her head, and she dwelt in security.

Early in the summer of the following year, there occurred, about the same time, two very important events for the Clavermere household. Douglas, after a rather close and exciting fight for it, was elected a member for his county and obtained a seat in Parliamentand Claudia presented her husband with a son and heir. And now, if ever, the faintest shade of disappointment or disenchantment had made itself felt in the young husband's breast, it was more than atoned for. With a strong unbending will, and a capacity for in

flexible sternness, Douglas Awdry had also a tender, idealistic side to his nature, and this was deeply touched by his wife's weakness and motherhood. In the new glory of her maternity (how little he suspected that maternity was not new to her !), he appeared positively to worship the ground upon which she trod, to use the common but expressive phrase.

It was rather a hard time, that, for the devoted, unselfish friend upon whose companionship, during the period of confinement to the house, Claudia made such demands. Olivia, however, having no excuse to the contrary, answered all those demands. Her sisters, Rose and Edith, had been married, each of them at the appointed dates, and the former was expecting very shortly to follow Claudia's example by becoming a mother. As the distance was not very great, Olivia had paid several short visits to her sister's new home; while Mrs. Ashmead, who found the Vicarage very comfortable, spent a good deal of her time there. One of Olivia's visits to Longenvale had taken place just before the birth of Claudia's boy, and on her return she tried to amuse the young mother by describing the people whom she had met there, and repeating the little gossiping stories which are sure to abound in a country neighbourhood. Amongst other people, she mentioned that she had, on one occasion, encountered Lord Westaxon-the earl about whom, as a future parishioner, Rose had spoken so boastfully. Walking with her brother-in-law at the time, Olivia had met the earl in an invalid carriage-a sort of bathchair-propelled by a footman. Lord Westaxon had stopped to say a few words to the clergyman, and the latter, of course, introduced his sister-in-law. Only, in reality, thirty-two years of age, the earl, Miss Ashmead declared, looked more like fifty. He had a thin, withered, pain-drawn face, and a cynical ill-natured expression. That expression did not, it was said, belie his disposition; but, at the same time, as Olivia explained, there were excuses to be made for the poor fellow's bitter temper. For six years, now, he had been a cripple; and a cripple, it was decreed, he must remain to the end of his days. Moreover, this calamity had befallen him in a very dreadful way. At the time of its occurrence both parents had been alive, and he had borne, by courtesy, his father's second title, Viscount Longenvale. Then, also, there had been two younger sons, known by the family name of Stenhouse; and towards the elder of these-the brother next to him—a bright, amiable young fellow, whom all the rest of the world admired-Viscount Longenvale had always appeared to nourish an unaccountable antipathy.

The two had been always at loggerheads-perpetually quarrelling -though the fault seemed to have rested mainly, if not entirely, with