arrivals from the hockey ground, who, as a rule, always drop into tea at the Dower House. "I'm certain he has a penchant for Carry."

"Poor Carry!" says Lady Maria, who has not yet come back to her usual kindly indifferent air.

"What a criticism," said Mrs. Verschoyle; "but I can't help crying yea and amen to it. Carry is too good for curates. Still, it makes two distinct love affairs in our dull neighbourhood, and that means something."

"Two?"

"I'm afraid Aurora Langley-or else her dreadful mother -has fallen in love with poor dear Richie."

Lady Maria leans back in her lounge. Her fingers knit faster than ever. Her brows knit, too.

"What a gossip you are, Jane," says she.

CHAPTER II.

So well she's masked under this fair pretence,

An infidel would swear she's made of perfect innocence.

MRS. VERSCHOYLE, as if tickled by some inward thought, laughs softly.

"That is why you love me," says she, a little audaciously. "For that reason."

"Like cleaves to like, you know."

66

Tut, Jane! Poor! very poor! I'll quote you as good as that, and better. 'Extremes meet.' How's that, now?" "When they meet they are one," says Mrs. Verschoyle, triumphantly.

"Your wits were never made for the good of your soul," says Lady Maria, contemptuously. "Let us try your fingers. Give me a cup of tea."

Mrs. Verschoyle rises, pours out the tea, and gives it to her, with one of the tiny hot cakes in which her soul delights. Passing back again to her seat her eyes glance through the far window that overlooks the drive.

"Here comes Mrs. Langley-Binks," said she, "and her fair Aurora, rosier than the rosiest morn."

"A boisterous morn would describe her better. Is she driving?"

"Yes. The brand-new carriage, and the brand-new horses. They are all frightfully new. Richie has just come up with them, and now Mr. Popkin and Carry. How boyish that girl is."

"Hoydenish is the word."

"Oh no.

The last word.

"Or a spoiled boy."

A boy spoiled, that is all."

"I never know whether Carry is pretty or not, but I always know I love to look at her."

"That's fascination. A far better thing than mere beauty. Yes, I too like that child. She is youth itself, and there is something so strong and sweet about her."

"Ah, that sounds intoxicating indeed!" says Mrs. Verschoyle, whereat both the women laugh.

"Now what can Mrs. Langley-Binks mean by coming here again to-day," says Lady Maria, the wheels of the coming chariot now sounding louder on the gravel. "She was here

only last Thursday."

"I told you a moment ago that she and Aurora are anxious to annex our 'Poor Richard.' He is dreadfully poor, dear fellow, but he is your cousin, and his uncle"-laughing is a real live lord,' and when one has been boiling soap for half a lifetime

Mrs. Verschoyle shrugs her shoulders with meaning.

"One should be clean," supplements Lady Maria drily. "And soap is an excellent thing" (she nearly says creature). "But these people are really very pushing their methods, I fear, are not as clean as their soap.'

"No? Oh, I think they are honest enough. People hanging on the outskirts of Society will always sacrifice a good deal to get into the inner circle, and I really think Mrs. Langley-Binks is quite open in her desire to give Aurora and her fortune for Richie and his connections."

"I begin to pity myself even more than Richie," says Lady Maria, "I am one of the connections! Still, really, Jane, I hardly see how the poor boy can do better. I pity him, but the old place must go soon if no fresh grist is brought to the mill. And yet-Dick Amyot's son, and that dreadful girl! And the Amyots were always so fastidious. . . If there wasn't so much of Aurora, one might . . . or, if her mother

could be translated, or cremated, or something. Still, I can see plainly that Richie must either take this chance or let himself go altogether."

"Where?" asks Mrs. Verschoyle, with a frivolity she is far from feeling; and then, as if ashamed of herself, "Oh! poor old Richie."

"It will mean ruin to him. He is getting into debt as fast as he can in a vain effort to make the place pay. I can see nothing before him but Australia, or' . . . She pauses significantly.

...

"Ah, no," hastily, "Richie is not made like that. He is quite good, and so honest, and healthy, and handsome. I suppose," regretfully, "you are right, and it will have to be Miss Langley-Binks.'

"Her mother is even more objectionable, that she is; she is perfectly terrible, and such a size, my dear Jane.

as she is long, and

As broad

Here the door is thrown open. "Oh, how d'ye do, Mrs. Langley-Binks? Very cold, is it not? Come nearer to the fire.'

She motions daintily with her slender patrician, heavilyringed hand, that time has failed to deprive of its original charm, to the large woman who has just entered-and pushes a lounging chair a little forward. Mrs. Langley, after a slight hesitation that might reasonably be laid down to an uncertainty on her part as to whether the seat in question is capable of upholding her, drops into it with an elephantine grace, and an assumption of ease that is plainly far from her. She is followed by her daughter, a generous replica of herself, a girl of about twenty-three, with a truly Wellingtonian nose and a voice like a Gatling gun.

"You are earlier than usual this evening, Richie," says Mrs. Verschoyle, standing between a tall, fair young man, with handsome, clear-cut features, blue eyes, and an athletic figure, and two girls. One is Miss Langley-Binks, already described, the other Carry Desmond, a girl of nineteen, a child at heart, and as sweet a creature (as Lady Maria would have said) as one might care to look for; she is very slender, very beautifully made, with the figure of an Atalanta, whom, indeed, she might have run close in many ways, and with a small shapely head covered with closely cropped curls. Carry Desmond, if very far from beauty, has still that charm that creates its own beauty and lives long after the more classical types lie dead.

1

She has for one thing vitality in her looks and every action, that essence of perpetual youth that carries one through and above and beyond all things, and is the most precious gift of all. Hardly the girl to be thrown away on Mr. Popkin, thinks Jane Verschoyle, looking at the curate who has come in; and yet, so poor is she-living with her old aunt in that torn-down old place, that her improvident Irish father had taken with a view to making a third fortune out of it (he was always going to make a fresh fortune), that perhaps even to marry Mr. Popkin might be better than to live as she is now living -better certainly than to have to go out into the world and earn her bread,

Mr. Popkin has gone over to the fireplace, where the blaze runs merrily up the chimney, in spite of the fact that we are well into the heart of May-cold-hearted May, as a rule—and Mrs. Verschoyle, with Richie and the two girls, are left for the moment alone.

"Half an hour or so, not more," says Amyot. "The other side had it all its own way, which, of course, shortened it. They got two goals to our one."

"How dreadful," says Mrs. Verschoyle, laughing. "And you, Richie, to be so defeated, and with Carry on your side, too!"

"Oh, it wasn't his fault! He played beautifully!" declares Miss Langley-Binks, in her high scream.

"He didn't play a screw," says Carry Desmond, with the quick decision that belongs to her. "I must say, Richie, I sha'n't care to be on your side again if you can't do better than you did to day. You lost us that last goal, beyond doubt."

"You can put it on me if you like," says Mr. Amyot. "But if it hadn't been for that ass, Popkin, I might have saved it. All on earth he is good for is to get in everybody's way and kill the game."

Yes. Yes, really-that is quite so. I saw it," says Miss Langley Binks, her red cheeks growing rosier.

"For all that, Richie," persists Miss Desmond, with a calm condemnation in her eyes, "I think if you had not made that sudden last rush quite so soon we might have pushed the ball a little more forward-gradually, as it were (you know that Mr. Stokes is of no use at all)-and-anyway it's fatal to make a rush too soon."

"Quite a sermon !" says Miss Langley-Binks, with an hys

terical laughter. "Ought to be addressed to Mr. Popkins, you know. He," with a deliberate glance at Carry, "would be delighted to hear it from you! Ha ha! Better sermons than he can deliver as a rule, poor little man."

on.

Miss Desmond stares at her for a moment only, then goes

"If you had held back when Jim Drew made that first charge and caught the ball, then things would have been very different. But instead of that you ran your stick actually between Sidney's legs and upset him."

I

"Oh! You are full of theories," said Richie, grievously. "This New Woman movement has got on your nerves. wonder all you girls don't get up a hockey club of your own, and leave us dull fellows out in the cold."

Oh, if you're going to be cross!" says Carry, lifting her charming brows.

"I am sure Mr. Amyot could never be cross!" says Miss Langley-Binks, breaking into the discussion, with the heavy air inherited from her mother, and a little amorous air, too, that belongs to herself alone, and sits most sadly on her. "And really, dear Miss Desmond, if you do think Mr. Amyot a little out of temper, surely,"-with a fatuous look at Amyot, who, for his part, is looking the other way-"it is you who have led him to it."

Here Mrs. Verschoyle makes a movement.

"Richie is never cross," says she, gaily. "Are you, Richie ? Come and help me to pour out tea. By the bye," as Amyot accompanies her across the room, "I thought I saw Miss Royce and Jinnie coming down the hill just now with Sidney and Anthony."

"I dare say. They started before we did."

"They are very late, then." Mrs. Verschoyle is conscious of a faint feeling of annoyance. Surely Miss Royce might have hurried herself a little to help Lady Maria with her guests to superintend the other little tea-table over there, where Carry is now busy with the dainty cups and saucers, and beautiful old Queen Anne teapot. She had never quite liked Miss Royce, without exactly knowing why, and this is, perhaps, the reason why she is so specially kind to her.

"Oh, I don't know." Amyot is a little absent in manner. "Anthony said something about having to go to see Horrocks