less compliant; she pushed on with Lance, and they never slackened rein until they had traversed the whole extent of the ride.

'The Indian mail will be in next week,' said Dorothy, after looking intently into Kensington Gardens. The spring had been rainy, and the trees still retained something of their first freshness.

'Yes,' said Lance; and you are wondering, as I was, whether I shall see these trees in all their beauty another year. These letters must determine.'

They rode on in silence for a few paces, and then Dorothy said, abruptly, 'In your place, Lance, I should like very well to go out into the world to seek my fortune. But being what you are, I wonder that you did not tell your father that you have no vocation for the army.'

Being what I am,' repeated Lance, bitterly; 'there is the very thing. If I had energy or cleverness,—if I could even rely on physical strength, I might choose my own profession. But I have none of these things, and so I have been idling away my time, while most of my contemporaries have made their start in life.'

6

'You blame yourself for circumstances over which you had no control,' said Dorothy. You know it was quite settled that you should go to Oxford, when you took that long rheumatic fever, and then came Mr. Clifford's letter, putting the advantages of India, and his hopes of getting a cadetship, so strongly, that papa was doubtful what to do; and so there is no one to blame but fate.'

'I blame no one,—and fate, as you call it, least of all;—but that does not alter the question. Your

father and mine incline to the Indian army. You want me to be a man of the world, and I wish to go to the bar, and while we vibrate between these alternatives without coming to a decision, I am losing the best years of my life.'

'Not entirely, Lance. One would imagine that you were absolutely idle, whereas I consider you a dungeon of learning,—dipping into Sanscrit and all the Eastern tongues one day, and classics and mathematics another,—not to mention the light literature you durchblättern in the drawing-room.'

'And much good all this desultory reading does ine,' said Lance. 'People cannot work properly without some definite aim: at least, I cannot ;-I have done nothing to my satisfaction since I left Eton.'

'You need not make out a case worse than it really is, however, for you have not been utterly useless in your generation. You have been a great interest to papa, and never worried him by getting into scrapes. Only imagine our discomfiture if an unmannerly cub, as Robert Selby was in those days, had been billeted upon us, instead of the tame home boy you were, and still continue to be.'

"While Robert Selby has gone through college creditably, and is now eating his terms and reading hard at the bar. He will be earning a competency before I have determined in which particular form to remain a burden on my father, and there are scarcely two years between us.'

This passes all!' irritated and amused; to find that it is the

exclaimed Dorothy, at once after all my careful nurture, object of your ambition to

become a second Robert Selby. Oh sordid soul!'

'Do not go off at a tangent, Dorothy,' said Lance, too much in earnest to be diverted by her light-hearted raillery; 'you know well enough that I only instanced Robert Selby as an illustration of a self-evident truth-that a man's profession ought to be adopted by the time he is one-and-twenty, and that those who put off the decision too long are in danger of passing through life desultory and idle.'

That is the point from which we started,' said Dorothy. 'I am sorry that you left the decision to Mr. Clifford, who will most likely refer it back to I wished, and urged at the time you wrote, you. that you should honestly tell him that the bent of your mind was towards a learned profession. Why should you not take orders, if you are afraid you will make nothing of the law?'

'Because, Dorothy, I do not choose to fall back on that calling simply for the reason that I am fit for nothing else.'

Dorothy looked up quickly.

If you are not worthy, Lance, I do not know who is.'

In that case,' replied Lance, 'I am afraid that you are not happy in your clerical acquaintance. And at all events, you do not know Arthur Vaughan.'

'That phoenix of a friend,' said Dorothy, with a smile: but her voice was unsteady as she added,— And so, Lance, you have quite determined to go and be shot at for a shilling a day?'

'You a soldier's daughter, Dorothy, and take that view of the profession?'

It is as well to look at it in every point of view,

instead of taking a leap in the dark, as you seem disposed to do.'

'I shall do nothing rashly, Dora; in fact, I have only resolved to abide by my father's decision, or by his inclination, if, as he has hitherto done, he leaves the choice in my power. To tell you the truth, I feel that I am much too happy and comfortable here, and it is time that I should learn to love my own natural home. I do not like to think that my father and mother are growing old without my knowing anything of them.'

You are more likely to make their acquaintance by remaining in this country,' said Dorothy. By the time you get out, the health of one or other will have failed, or your father will have received some disappointment which will induce him to throw up the service in disgust, as he ought to have done as soon as he had served his time. Even if he has not saved much, they may live very comfortably on his pension, and make a home for you, independent of Grosvenor-square, which seems to be your chief object.'

Lance bit his lip, and said quickly-' You must see, Dorothy, that it is impossible to go on as we do at present.'

'It is difficult, certainly, for you are fretting your horse in a way which Sultan cannot understand, and I can hardly hold him in. It will not look well to start off on another scamper just as we meet papa and the General.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Lance; and when Dorothy rallied him on his politeness, his countenance only assumed an expression of more settled gravity.

'What now?' the Colonel said, with a smile, 'you do not look like congenial companions.'

'Indeed, papa,' said Dorothy, we have been on most amiable terms, but now I am rather tired of · being sensible, and so I shall unbend my mind by some cheerful conversation with you and the General.' Lance rode on in abstracted silence, and went straight to his room on their return, though not before Dorothy had succeeded in winning an involuntary smile, by asking whether he meant to study Sanscrit or conic sections to-day.

Dorothy went to the drawing-room, and sat down on the arm of the sofa on which her sister was languidly reclining, turning over the leaves of a novel. I declare, Blanche,' she said, 'you don't look more than half awake now.'

'I

'It is so hot,' said Blanche, and I cannot open the windows because of the noise.'

'It is getting hot now, but there was a pleasant freshness in the air when we first went out, and we had a good ride. You lose a great deal by not liking to ride. But now, Blanche, you must turn your mind to this dinner, for I want to see the notes written before I take off my habit.'

Blanche obediently sat up, and opened her portfolio, but she balanced her pen on the letter-weight while she asked, with deepening colour, 'Then papa sees no harm in it?'

'Why, I did not ask his sanction on high moral grounds,' said Dorothy; 'I told him we were to have a course of partner-dinners, and he acquiesced with his usual equanimity. Lance demurred and lamented-but that is quite en règle.'

C