doing those moments Alle wa mming up her courage to speak. The palpitation at her heart was already gute, and she was determined that she would speak.

Though I am very glad to see you,' she said, at last, · I am sorry that my letter should have given you the trouble of this journey.' 'Troube" he said. Nay, you ought to know that it is no trouble. I have not enough to do down at Netherccats to make the running up to you at any time an unpleasant excitement. So your Swiss journey went off pleasantly?;

'Yes; it went off very pleasantly? This she said in that tone of voice which clearly implies that the speaker is not thinking of the words spoken.

And Kate has now left you?

'Yes; she is with her aunt, at the sea-side.'

So I understand;-and your cousin George?

'I never know much of George's movements. He may be in Town, but I have not seen him since I came back.'

Ah! that is the way with friends living in London. Unless circumstances bring them together, they are in fact further apart than if they lived fifty miles asunder in the country. And he managed to get through all the trouble without losing your luggage for you very often?

If you were to say that we did not lose his, that would be nearer the mark. But, John, you have come up to London in this sudden way to speak to me about my letter to you. Is it not so?'

Certainly it is so. Certainly I have.'

'I have thought much, since, of what I then wrote, very much,— very much, indeed; and I have learned to feel sure that we had better

Stop, Alice; stop a moment, love. Do not speak hurriedly. Shall I tell you what I learned from your letter?'

'Yes; tell me, if you think it better that you should do so.' Perhaps it may be better. I learned, love, that something had been said or done during your journey,-or perhaps only something thought, that had made you melancholy, and filled your mind for a while with those unsubstantial and indefinable regrets for the past which we are all apt to feel at certain moments of our life. There are few of us who do not encounter, now and again, some of that irrational spirit of sadness which, when over-indulged, drives men to madness and self-destruction. I used to know well what it was before I knew you; but since I have had the hope of having you in my house, I have banished it utterly. In that I think I have been stronger than you. Do not speak under the influence of that spirit till you have thought whether you, too, cannot banish it.'

I have tried, and it will not be banished.'

Try again, Alice. It is a damned spirit, and belongs neither to

you give me?

heaven nor to earth. Do not say to me the words that you were about to say till you have wrestled with it manfully. I think I know what those words were to be. If you love me, those words should not be spoken. If you do not——'

If I do not love you, I love no one upon earth.'

I believe it. I believe it as I believe in my own love for you. I trust your love implicitly, Alice. I know that you love me. I think I can read your mind. Tell me that I may return to Cambridgeshire, and again plead my cause for an early marriage from thence. I will not take such speech from you to mean more than it says !'

She sat quiet, looking at him-looking full into his face. She had in nowise changed her mind, but after such words from him, she did not know how to declare to him her resolution. There was something in his manner that awed her, and something also that softened her.

Tell me,' said he, 'that I may see you again to-morrow morning in our usual quiet, loving way, and that I may return home tomorrow evening. Pronounce a yea to that speech from me, and I will ask for nothing further.'

No; I cannot do so,' she said. And the tone of her voice, as she spoke, was different to any tone that he had heard before from her mouth.

'Is that melancholy fiend too strong for you? He smiled as he said this, and as he smiled, he took her hand. She did not attempt to withdraw it, but sat by him in a strange calmness, looking straight before her into the middle of the room. 'You have not struggled with it. You know, as I do, that it is a bad fiend and a wicked one,— a fiend that is prompting you to the worst cruelty in the world. Alice! Alice! Alice! Try to think of all this as though some other person were concerned. If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?'

'I would bid her tell the man who had loved her, that is, if he were noble, good, and great,-that she found herself to be unfit to be his wife; and then I would bid her ask his pardon humbly on her knees.' As she said this, she sank before him on to the floor, and looked up into his face with an expression of sad contrition which almost drew him from his purposed firmness.

He had purposed to be firm,-to yield to her in nothing, resolving to treat all that she might say as the hallucination of a sickened imagination, as the effect of absolute want of health, for which some change in her mode of life would be the best cure. She might bid him begone in what language she would. He knew well that such was her intention. But he would not allow a word coming from her in such a way to disturb arrangements made for the happiness of their joint lives. As a loving husband would treat a wife, who, in some exceptionable moment of a melancholy malady, should

God bless you, dearest, dearest Alice!' Then he went, and she sat there on the sofa without moving, till she heard her father's feet as he came up the stairs.

'And so John Grey has been here. He has left his stick in the hall. I should know it among a thousand.'

'Yes; he has been here.'

'Is anything the matter, Alice?'

No, papa, nothing is the matter.'

'He has not made himself disagreeable, has he?'

Not in the least. He never does anything wrong. He may defy man or woman to find fault with him.'

'So that is it, is it? He is just a shade too good. Well, I have always thought that myself. But it's a fault on the right side.' 'It's no fault, papa. If there be any fault, it is not with him. But I am yawning and tired, and I will go to bed.'

'Is he to be here to-morrow?'

'No; he returns to Nethercoats early. Good-night, papa.'

Mr. Vavasor, as he went up to his bedroom, felt sure that there had been something wrong between his daughter and her lover. 'I don't know how she'll ever put up with him,' he said to himself, 'he is so terribly conceited. I shall never forget how he went on about Charles Kemble, and what a fool he made of himself.'

Alice, before she went to bed, sat down and wrote a letter to her cousin Kate.

CHAPTER XII.

MR. GEORGE VAVASOR AT HOME.

Ir cannot perhaps fairly be said that George Vavasor was an unhospitable man, seeing that it was his custom to entertain his friends occasionally at Greenwich, Richmond, or such places; and he would now and again have a friend to dine with him at his club. But he never gave breakfasts, dinners, or suppers under his own