a charge. Elizabeth's eyes sparkled: a race-course was still an unknown pleasure, one of the many mysteries of that brilliant world which she desired to know by heart before she bade her long goodbye to it.

So after a little discussion, it was settled that Miss Luttrell was to go to Epsom in the drag with Mrs. Cinqmars.

'But I must see you between this and to-morrow week,' exclaimed that lady, who, perceiving in which quarter the wind lay, was resolved to make the best of the situation, and establish herself in the good graces of the future Viscountess. I have a carpet-dance on Friday evening; you really must come to me, Mrs. Chevenix. Now pray don't say you are full of engagements for Friday night.'

'We are to dine in the Boltons,' hesitated Mrs. Chevenix; 'we might possibly-'

'Drive on here afterwards,' cried Mrs. Cinqmars; 'of course you could. Remember you are to be with me on Friday, Lord Paulyn.' 'I shall certainly come, if-'

'If Miss Luttrell comes. It's really too bad of you to make me feel how little weight my influence has. Good-bye, if you positively won't stay to dinner. I must go and say good-bye to those blueand-white young ladies yonder.'

And with a sweeping continental curtsey, Mrs. Cinqmars flitted away in her befrilled-muslin draperies, and wonderful cherry-coloured satin petticoat with its organ-pipe flutings, and flying ebon tressesa figure out of a fashion plate.

'I've told Captain Callender to drive the drag home,' said the Viscount; I thought perhaps you'd be charitable enough to give me a seat in your brougham, Mrs. Chevenix.'

The third seat in Mrs. Chevenix's brougham was entirely at his disposal, not a very roomy seat; he was carried back to town half smothered in silk and muslin, but very well contented with his position nevertheless.

'Are you going to some very tremendous set-out this evening?' asked Lord Paulyn as they drove homewards.

We are not going out at all, only I didn't feel inclined to accept Mrs. Cinqmars' invitation, so I had recourse to a polite fiction,' answered Mrs. Chevenix.

And I am particularly engaged to finish that novel in which you interrupted me so ruthlessly this morning,' said Elizabeth.

But the novel need not prevent your dining with us this evening, if you have no better engagement,' rejoined Mrs. Chevenix. If I have no better engagement! As if I could have a better engagement.'

You might have a better dinner, at any rate. I can only promise you our everyday fare,' answered the matron, secure in the possession of a good cook. She had made a mental review of her dinner before

hazarding the invitation: spring soup, a salmon-trout, an infantine shoulder of lamb, a sweetbread, a gooseberry tart, and a parmesan omelette. He would hardly get a better dinner at his club; and had doubtless seen many a worse at Ashcombe.

6

'I should like to come of all things,' said the Viscount. And if you'd like to hear Patti this evening, I'll send my man to Bow-street for a box while we dine,' he added to Elizabeth.

To that young lady the Italian Opera-house was still a scene of enchantment.

'I cannot hear Patti too often,' she said; 'I should like to carry away the memory of her voice when I turn my back upon the world.' Turn your back upon the world!' echoed Lord Paulyn.

What

do you mean by that? You're not thinking of going into a convent, ?'

are you

She is thinking of nothing so foolish,' said Mrs. Chevenix hastily.

'No; but the world and I will part company when I go back to Devonshire.'

'O, but you're not going back in a hurry. You must stop for Goodwood, you know. She must stop for Goodwood, mustn't she,

Mrs. Chevenix ?'

'I should certainly like to take her down to Brighton for the Goodwood week.'

'Yes, and I would have the drag down, and drive you backwards and forwards.'

'My holiday must come to an end before July,' said Elizabeth; and then turning to her aunt, she said almost sternly, 'You know, aunt, there is a reason for my going back soon.'

I know of no reason, but your own whims and follies,' exclaimed Mrs. Chevenix impatiently; and I know that I made all my arrangements for taking you back to Devonshire early in the autumn, and not before that time.'

Elizabeth's smooth young brow darkened a little, and she was silent for the rest of the drive; but this was not the first indication of a temper of her own with which the damsel had favoured Lord Paulyn, and it by no means disenchanted him. Indeed, by a strange perversity, he liked her all the better for such evidences of high spirit. 'I shall find out the way to break her in when once she belongs to me,' he thought coolly.

The little dinner in Eaton-place-south went off very gaily. Elizabeth had recovered her serenity, and was elated by the idea of a night with Patti and Mozart. She went to the piano and sang some of the airs from Don Giovanni while they were waiting for dinner; her fresh young mezzo-soprano sounding rich and full as the voices. of the thrushes and blackbirds in the grounds of the Rancho. She was full of talk during dinner; criticised Mrs. Cinqmars and the SECOND SERIES, VOL. X. F.S. VOL. XX.

с

Rancho with a little dash of cynicism; was eager for information upon the probabilities of the Derby, and ready to accept any bets which Lord Paulyn proposed to her; and she seemed to have forgotten the very existence of such a place as Hawleigh.

Yet after the opera that night there was a little recrimination between the aunt and niece; there had been no time for it before.

'I hope you have enjoyed your day and evening, Lizzie,' said Mrs. Chevenix as the girl flung off her cloak, and seated herself upon a sofa in her aunt's dressing-room with a weary air. I'm sure you have had attention and adulation enough this day to satisfy the most exacting young woman.'

'I hardly know what you understand by attention and adulation. If I have had anything of the kind, it has all been from one person. Lord Paulyn has not allowed me to say half-a-dozen words to any one but himself; and as his ideas are rather limited, it has been extremely monotonous.'

'I should have supposed Lord Paulyn's attentions would have been sufficient for any reasonable young woman.'

'Perhaps. If she happened to be disengaged, and wished to secure him for her husband. Not otherwise. And that reminds me of something I wanted to say to you, auntie: you must remember my asking you to tell Lord Paulyn of my engagement to Mr. Forde.'

'Yes, I remember something of the kind.'

6 But you have not told him.'

'No, Elizabeth, I have not,' replied the matron, busy taking off the various bracelets in which she was wont to fetter herself as heavily as an apprehended housebreaker, and with her eyes bent upon her work. There are limits even to my forbearance; and that I should introduce you to society, to my friends, with that wretched engagement stamped upon you-labelled, as it were, like one of the pictures in the Academy-is something more than I could brook. I have not told Lord Paulyn, and I tell you frankly that I shall not waste my breath in announcing to any one an engagement which I do not believe will ever be fulfilled.'

'What!' cried Elizabeth, starting from her half-recumbent attitude, and standing tall and straight before the audacious speaker. What! Do you think that I would jilt him, that after having pined and hungered for his love I would wantonly fling it away? Yes, I will speak the truth, however you may ridicule or despise me. I loved him with all my heart and soul for a year before he told me that my love was not all wasted anguish. I was breaking my heart when he came to my rescue, and translated me from the lowest depths of despondency to a heaven of delight. Do you think that after I have suffered so much for his sake I would trifle with the treasure I have won ?'

'Please don't stand looking at me like Miss Bateman in Leah,'

said aunt Chevenix, with an ease of manner which was half-assumed. 'I think you are the most foolish girl it was ever my misfortune to be connected with, and I freely admit that it is hardly safe to speculate upon the conduct of such an irrational being. But I will nevertheless venture to prophecy that you will not marry your curate, and that you will marry some one a great deal better worth having.'

I will never see Lord Paulyn again. I will go back to Hawleigh to-morrow,' said Elizabeth.

Do just as you please,' replied Mrs. Chevenix coolly, knowing that opposition would only inflame the damsel's pride.

'Or, at any rate, I shall tell Lord Paulyn of my engagement.' 'Do, my dear. But as he has never spoken of his regard for you, the information may appear somewhat gratuitous.'

She felt that

Elizabeth stood before her silent, lost in thought. To turn and fly would be the wisest, safest course. her position was a false one; dangerous even, with some small danger; that Lord Paulyn's attentions, commonplace as they might be, were attentions she, Malcolm's plighted wife, had no right to receive. She knew that all these garish pleasures and dissipations which occupied her mind from morning till night were out of harmony with the life she had chosen; the fair calm future which she dreamed of sometimes, after falling asleep worn out by the day's frivolous labours. But to go back suddenly, after it had been arranged that she should remain with her aunt at least a month longer, was not easy. There would be such wonderment on the part of her sisters, so many questions to answer. Even Malcolm himself would be naturally surprised by her impetuosity, for in her very last letter she had carefully explained to him the necessity for her visit being extended until the second week in June.

No, it was not easy to return to the shelter of Hawleigh Vicarage; and, on the other hand, there was her unsatisfied curiosity about the Derby, that one peculiar pleasure of a great race which had been described to her as beyond all other pleasures. Better to drain the cup to satiety, so that there might be no after longings. She would take care to give the Viscount no encouragement during the remainder of her brief career; she would snub him ruthlessly, even though he were a being somewhat difficult to snub. So she resolved to stay, and received her aunt's pacific advances graciously, and went to bed and dreamt of the Commendatore; and the statue that stalked in time to that awful music-music which is the very essence of all things spectral-bore the face of Malcolm Forde.

CHAPTER III.

'Bianca's heart was coldly frosted o'er
With snows unmelting-an eternal sheet;
But his was red within him, like the core
Of old Vesuvius, with perpetual heat;
And oft he long'd internally to pour

His flames and glowing lava at her feet;
But when his burnings he began to spout,

She stopp'd his mouth-and put the crater out.'

THE Derby-day was over; an exceptionally brilliant Derby, run under a summer-like sky; roads gloriously dusty; western breezes blowing; the favourite, a famous French horse, triumphant; everybody, except perhaps the book-men, and sundry other mistaken speculators, elated; Mrs. Cinqmars seeing her way to a twelvemonth's supply of Piver and Jouvin; Elizabeth also a considerable winner of the same species of spoil.

The Viscount was not altogether delighted by the great event of the day. He had withdrawn his own entries two or three months ago, but had backed a Yorkshire horse, from Whitewall, somewhat heavily, sceptical as to the merits of the Frenchman.

'It's all very well while he's among French horses,' he had said, 'winning your Grand Prix, and that kind of thing; but let him come over here and lick a field of genuine English blood and sinew, if he can.'

The Frenchman had accepted the challenge, and had left the pride and glory of many a British stable in the ruck behind his flying heels. 'Couldn't have done it if there wasn't English blood in him,' said the Viscount grimly, as he pushed his way within the sacred precincts to see the jockey weighed. I wish I'd had some money on him.'

Instead of the pleasing idea of that potful of money which he might have secured by backing the Frenchman, Lord Paulyn had a cargo of gloves to provide for the fair speculators-whose eager championship of the stranger he had smiled at somewhat scornfully halfan-hour ago-to say nothing of far-heavier losses which only such estates as the Paulyn domains could bear easily.

'I shall pull up on Ascot,' he thought, and was not sorry to resign the reins to Mr. Cinqmars during the homeward journey, while he abandoned his powerful mind to a close calculation of his chances for the next great meeting. He was a man with whom the turf was a serious business; a man who went as carefully into all the ins and outs of horse-racing, as a great financier into the science of the stock-exchange, and he had so far contrived to make his winnings. cover all his stable expenses, and even at times leave a handsome margin beyond them. Above all things he hated losing, and his meditative brow, as he sat beside Mr. Cinqmars, bore a family re