before the glass, and pat on her daintiest hat, of which she had as many as there are in a stage-wardrobe. Then she went down to speak to the gardener about the fruit for dinner.

Having performed that offce-perhaps a little to the surprise of the gardener-she went her way towards the house, bright and cheerful with the little daty she had undertaken, and thinking to herself, "Poor Disk! I have been so cross to him and inattentive; I must make it up to him a little to-night. What a pity, though, he's not clever! But I must make it up to him." And then she thought how they would have such fun that night; and she would dance with him, just a little more than with Robert Bligh; thus carrying out that arbitrary raising or levelling the little scale she was holding in her fingers; and yet at that moment, while she laid out these plans of delight, with life seeming to spread itself out indistinctly in delightful paysages, delicious prairies abounding in soft streams and colours and sweet waters, so secure in their exquisiteness that it was not worth while to pause to estimate them in detail,-at this very moment, alas, there was a great crowd of stooping figures and faces at Shepherd's Mill. There was the company-the butterfly-child full of hopes, and the father passing, if not already passed, beyond the region of earthly hopes !

"It so surprises me, Richard," she said, with her eyes on the ground, as if she was surprised, “that you are not gone with them.”

"I am sick of it," he said impatiently. "Horses are not everything in the world, as one might fancy from the way men talk. We must live for something else, I hope. I saw them go off, and then came back here.”

"To go and walk about the garden, and hit at the poor flowers with that stick."

“Then you saw me?" he said eagerly. "You were looking out at me, and take an interest in me?"

"I take an interest in my flowers, of course, and in Mr. Richard too, I hope."

"O, yes, you say that in the usual conventional way; just as you'd tell the curate and the doctor you were anxious about their wives and brats. O Diana, if you only knew—”

At this moment they heard a light step. He stopped, and Mr. Lugard senior, with his cigar and Times, suddenly emerged from a side walk. Dick coloured, and gave an impatient stamp.

"Just a moment, Dick," said his father sweetly.-"Talking over the race, eh, Miss Diana? Over by this time!-No, a letter, my dear boy," he said, putting his arm softly into his son's.

"I can't go now, father. A letter will keep without turning sour." "See how they treat us poor fathers, Miss Diana.-See here, Richard, a moment;" and he opened a letter, and drawing it aside, seemed to be reading it, and with his eyes down demurely on the writing. Dick,

though, heard him say, "For God's sake, are you going to make a fool of yourself? I saw you from my window. It's too soon-"

"And see here, again, what he writes," went on Mr. Lugard in the same sweet tone. "I tell you you're a fool, and don't know your ground."

Dick set himself a little haughtily. Diana, bending over her flowers, was not a little mystified.

"Very well," said Mr. Lugard, "with all my heart. I won't interfere; and I have all my Times to get through."

"What was that great secret," said Diana, "if I might ask?"

"O, nothing," said he; "something absurd. My father makes myssteries of everything, because he was once an attaché."

"There was a secret, but I'm not worth telling anything to."

"I would tell you anything, do anything for you," said he impetuously; "though I daresay you don't think so. I will prove it to you in any way you wish. I would do more for you, in my way, than those cold, wise creatures who profess such a deal, and are so good and virtuous."

There was a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

"Yet these are the people we are told to like and imitate, are they not?" "Not hypocrites, I suppose, or scheming fellows, whom I could expose-"

"Who on earth can you mean?" she said, with the same air of pretended wonder. "Where are all these wicked people?"

"You don't see their plans; but I do. If I chose, I could upset them in a second. Listen to me, Diana, one moment," he added, suddenly stopping before her. "You know how long we have known each other; from before I was at that school. All that time, even when I was a child, your face, your image used to be before me. I was always thinking of you, and looking forward to one day-like this-when-"

Diana had grown a little restless during this speech; indeed, his eyes and flushed cheeks seemed to have spoken already what he was going on to say. She looked round uneasily.

"I am afraid," she said, "Mrs. Bligh will be looking for me."

“Just a moment, Diana. I must speak out now."

"No, no, no," said she, in alarm; "don't, Richard, please."

"I must go away soon to that regiment which I hate, and which

I have a presentiment I shall not stay long in. Why should I stay here, perhaps to be mortified more and more every day?”

"Indeed, no," said she earnestly. "O, no, Richard, none of us here would do that-not for the world."

"Perhaps not; I am sure not you. But you don't know what I feel looking on, and what I suffer. O Diana, you know what my faults are how warm, and ungovernable even, I am. Yet still I am

VOL. V.

I

sure I could become better, if you, Diana, would only think me worthy -let me finish. You should do what you liked with me; I would be your slave for the rest of my life. I should live only for you. You should do with me whatever-”

Diana turned away a little impatiently. "Ah, what made you do this? how foolish, how unkind!"

"Unkind?"

"Yes, you have spoiled everything, and made us all uncomfortable. I did not think you would have done this. No, indeed."

"Spoiled everything?” he repeated aghast.

"So unkind, so cruel!" said she. "We shall all break up here. You will have to go away; I could not think of that. I am very sorry, dear Richard, to give you pain, I am indeed; but it was very foolish of you. We were all going to be so pleasant, and have such fun, and you must turn it into this sort of serious thing.”

He looked at her seriously—his eyes moving angrily, his lips curling; then he tossed back his head.

"Of course, you can do as you like in that. But if it be for any other reason, I warn you about that. Dick Lugard can reckon with any man, and always has done so. I am not accustomed to be circumvented by cunning fellows without setting myself right."

The young girl drew herself up haughtily, as she could do; she came of a haughty stock.

"You talk very oddly and strangely. I'll never forgive you for this, for treating me so unkindly and rudely.”

A look of triumph came into Richard's face. He knew his offhand manly style was irresistible.

“Unkind!” he said eagerly, and catching her hand. "Not for all the world; not if I were to die, dearest, dearest Di! as I used to call you. I see you have forgiven me, and you do not quite hate me."

66

"O don't, pray don't,” said Diana, trying to set herself free. "0, you should not, you should not indeed! Let me go; please do. I am very angry! Ah, there is Robert Bligh coming!"

Dick started, and gave a stamp of anger. Bligh had not seen them, but was hurrying across the garden and making for the house. As he passed the corner of this walk he stopped a moment irresolute, took a step or two towards them, then stopped. He seemed very pale.

"Ah, I thought so,” said Dick, with triumph; "he had better not interfere with me!"

Diana had now quite recovered her old manner; her eyes were dancing-she was calling and beckoning to him eagerly. Still he stayed irresolute, then advanced slowly.

"Why doesn't he come quicker? Tell me tell me about the race."

He answered hurriedly, "I did not see it all. I was coming to the house to look for-with a message, that is-for my mother."

"Didn't wait to see the finish? There's a fellow!" said Lugard with scorn.

Of this Bligh took not the least notice. He was never more

collected.

"I must find her at once; and I am told poor D'Orsay has been hurt, and will never run again. Forgive me, but I must go. I can't stay." And he was gone.

Had they been listening attentively, they might both have heard a faint, very faint report, like a child's popgun-for the air was very still and clear. At that moment some of the charitable who had been standing round the hapless D'Orsay-lying there on his flank, with eyes fast glazing, "his back was broken," they had said-went and got a gun, and "put the poor beast out of his pain." The hapless riderdulled, unconscious-had been removed gently to the windmill. But there was no putting him out of pain, for by this time he knew nothing and felt nothing.

Bligh, though he said frantically to himself, as he rushed away, "How could I tell her? how are we to tell her?" had really taken the best way in the world of breaking it. There was something of a coming mystery in his manner, the shadow of a calamity.

She looked a little wildly at Lugard.

"Let us go in; let us follow him. O, dear! what does all this mean?" And she fluttered away, leaving Lugard far behind.

"Some of his pompous exaggeration," he said impatiently.

She was gone, lost to his sight, that poor orphan. She had a sense of that awful care already at her heart. At the open glass-doors she came on a tall, dark figure.

"O," she said, "what is this? Some dreadful thing has happened. Tell me, tell me!"

The stiff arms were opened to her. "My poor, poor child! would to God I could give you good news! It is a cruel blow to fall on one so young!"

Book the Second.

CHAPTER I.

DESERTED DIANA,

WHEN a well-known owner of some old place, like Mr. Gay-a man whom neighbours have grown accustomed to for years, and whom they look on as they do the market-cross; known at cover-side, along the high-road, at board and at meeting-when such a familiar figure is known to have gone, and gone suddenly, the place which he once dwelt in seems to lie there "in state," very much as the beloved remains had

done during the dismal days that preceded the funeral. As we pass the gateway, going along the road, it is like looking at what divines call the "earthly tenement," and the noble demesne seems itself to be stretched out there-blank, lifeless, solemn, and without a spirit.

What a loss Squire Gay was! everyone said. The hunting men felt it more acutely than any of the rest. The hounds had been, it was well known, “very shaky." Now and again the men had not come forward as they ought. When money-pressure and debt were hindering their sport, how splendidly he had "stepped into the breach”—and a very wide one it was-and saved the hounds for that part of the county! There were rueful faces among the top-boot community when that sad news got abroad, with many a “Th' 'ounds will go now, sure !”— though indeed it must be said that honest face, and kindly offices, and greetings were regretted for themselves.

Even Mr. Pratt could have wished he had been wrong about D'Orsay's legs. "Poor Squire !" "No better man!" "Fine English gentleman!" "True sportsman!"-these changes were rung as vigorously as the parish bell that jangled on the procession to the graveyard. At that sad pageant (conducted, said the Mercury, by Messrs. Debenham of London, the eminent undertakers, in "their own unsurpassed style" -the relatives of the late Duke of R— had owned themselves more than satisfied by the way they had treated him) there were no more unselfish mourners than Mr. Pratt and his friends of the hunt.

Mr. Bowman had been left an executor with-much to his surprise -Robert Bligh. The Mercury was lavish in its praises of the forethought, "delicate consideration," and true liberality of those gentlemen. The reporter had indeed been entertained handsomely. Messrs. Debenham's people owned that since the duke's obsequies they had met nothing more gentlemanly or handsome. On Robert Bligh's shoulders all the trouble and management fell. Mr. Bowman took up the official position, and went through the dismal formality of his function with success.

Well might there be many inquiries at the door for Miss Diana. She had been, as it were, struck down, and was lying upstairs in a sort of dull stupefaction. She had heard death preached about in the churches, and could believe that it was a very awful and disagreeable thing-she could feel heartily and tenderly for those so cruelly afflicted; but she never dreamed for a moment that those terrors were to come into their house, any more than hunger, or poverty, or want of clothes. She had literally not known suffering of any sort, beyond once or twice-when, after much putting off, her dear father had at last forced himself to be stern, and brought her to a dentist's. That day of torture marked an era. It does seem a little hard, that those who have never suffered should thus suffer doubly from want of preparation: but this is the penalty of that impunity. She seemed to be numbed, cowed, and shrinking. So does the victim who has been