The tears were in Ethel's eyes. "She terrified me from the first time I saw her; but your mother and Barbara always insisted she was an admirable servant, only she took advantage of my being young and inexperienced. I am very glad she is gone;" and she breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"Well," Philip said, "Ann proposed our having Edwards back. And as she knows our ways, and will relieve you of so much care and responsibility, we sent to her; and you will find her at home when we get there."

Poor Ethie, she hardly knew whether to be most pleased or angry at this interference in her household. Sore as her heart was at the abduction of her child, no wonder she did not feel quite so grateful as she otherwise would have been.

While dressing for dinner, Ethelind learnt from Valerie the increased comfort of the servants' hall, under the quiet, careful, and yet stricter discipline which Mrs. Edwards had at once established. One glance at the arrangements of the table, as she took her seat at dinner, convinced her that, as regarded Mrs. Edwards, Ann Leigh had rendered her an inestimable benefit.

To Barbara's tirades against her sister's marriage, Ethelind turned a deaf ear. She was obliged to listen to Mrs. Leigh's long lectures on the folly of mixed marriages,-lectures so personal and so bitter, that even Ethel's gentle spirit rose within her. She did not wonder at Diana's availing herself of peace and quiet under Ann's roof.

There was a happy unrestrained light-heartedness pervading Diana's reply to Ethelind's letter of congratulation, strangely contrasting with her former cold reserve. It seemed as if the acceptance of Arthur Langton's love had awakened her sympathies, and opened the floodgates of her heart, and given her a new sense of the responsibilities of life.

"Poor Di," Lord Redcar exclaimed, as he and Lady Redenham sat chatting in Ethel's opera-box, "she seems to have found out at last there really is something in the world worth living for. It does one good to see her face wear such a much happier expression."

"I have not seen her since it all came about," Ethelind replied; "I only fear it will be at a cost she has not calculated. No one but those who have tried it know how hard it is to give up your own family."

"You mean that it is all 'couleur de rose' with Di now, but that by and by, when she is a parson's wife, and the tug of war begins, she will repent her bargain."

"No, you mistake me," she said. "I was thinking of another day, when a longing comes over her for her mother and sister's love. Not even a husband's entirely compensates for that loss. Mrs. Leigh and Barbara declare they will never acknowledge Mr. Langton and his family. But at Redenham or Leigh Court it will be impossible to avoid a collision, and then it will be Diana who will suffer."

"What a lot of humbug there is in the world! it is the only thing

Redenham and I quarrel over. As if we were not all flesh and blood, subject to the same laws, human and divine! Now, I take it, every man has some absurd crotchet or other, which he nurses and treasures until he believes it is a virtue,-and this, I maintain, is his. As if one man's blood was not as thick as another's! As if it could make an atom of difference to any of us at the last what was the length of our genealogical tree!"

Ethelind laughed.

"Ah, I see how it is," Lord Redcar said; "you are getting inoculated with the Leigh doctrine, Lady Redenham, and setting me down for a Chartist. I do grow angry sometimes when I see sensible men like Redenham setting up some idol, and then running a tilt against the world, who won't worship it as they do. Now I would not like to see a girl like Diana Leigh throw herself away on an adventurer; but they have known Langton for years. He was at Eton and Oxford, and is as gentlemanly and right-principled a fellow as I know. Then he is by no means badly off; he can afford her all reasonable comforts. More than that, his family, in spite of Barbara's tirades, are sensible, straightfor ward people, not at all pretending. His father is, or was, a merchant or some such thing; looked up to, they tell me, as a pattern of honesty and uprightness. And really, if she likes him,-and she has proved it by her constancy, I for one can't see why she may not please herself.""Nor I; but I suppose they think they are right."

“Well, she has Ann Leigh on her side. Ann can do more for her than any one else. Her opinion is law with them all." Then he said, rather suddenly, "Lady Redenham, I think sometimes of doing something desperate myself. Do you think I look stout enough to outlive the storm I should raise about my ears?"

Ethelind caught the expression of his merry mischievous don't understand you," she said.

eyes.

"I

"Don't you?" he replied. "Well, I am getting tired of a bachelorlife. I start next week with Woodmancote in his yacht for the Mediterranean. I shall leave him at Venice, and return overland. If I pick up some pretty young wife whose beauty outweighs her pedigree, do you think Redenham will condescend to acknowledge us? I should never dare show myself in Barbara's presence again."

A vision of Grace rushed across her. Barbara's bitter disappointment! Mrs. Leigh's anger! It almost took away her breath. She knew Lord Redcar had never proposed to Barbara-had never said a word which could be construed into an intention of doing so. She knew that he and Barbara kept up a warfare of tastes and opinions on every imaginable subject, which, with a less good temper than Lord Redcar's, might have ended as many other of her friendships had done. She knew hat he rather enjoyed the fun and excitement of their squabbles and reconciliations; whether he would equally enjoy them if ever they be came "squabbles matrimonial" was very doubtful. The world said such

flirtations could only end in a proposal. Ethel believed that Barbara hoped so, even if it were only to show her power in rejecting him. Ethel felt she had no right to speak of Barbara as if it would in any way concern her whatever he might choose to do. So she asked if he would trust her with the name of the lady.

"You shall hear it, Lady Redenham, as soon as I have committed myself. I shall have to trust to your interest to make my peace with Redenham and the Leighs."

"You forget; I may not approve any more than they," she replied. "I think you would; at least I hope so. I may even need your good word with the lady herself."

"Lord Redcar," she said,

A colour came into Ethelind's cheeks. almost nervously, "will you listen to a word of advice?"

"I am quite open to any advice you can give me; and, moreover, I engage to think well of it before I commit myself. What is it, Lady Redenham ?"

"That you will assure yourself your family and all your friends approve; that you do nothing hastily. And now, if you please," she added, "I will trouble you to find my carriage."

CHAPTER XXX.

THE 12th of August came at last. Mrs. Leigh and Barbara had already joined Ann's party at Bonchurch; and Philip, at Ann's request, had consented to give away the bride. Ethelind had striven to banish thought about the ordeal in store for her. To think would have been simply to have rendered the effort impossible. She and Philip to be together under Ann's roof-Ann's guest! For Diana's sake-for the sake of doing as she would be done by-it was necessary she should be there; and trying to stifle thought by active exertion, she had kept herself for the last fortnight in a perpetual whirl of excitement, such as she had never indulged in before. Perhaps she could hardly have taken a surer method of counteracting her good intentions. Caught in a thunder-shower while driving in the Park, she had become wet through; but worn out, bodily and mentally, she could not resist the effects of the chill, or shake off the inflammatory symptoms which threatened even more serious ills. And, to Philip's infinite annoyance and Ethel's secret joy, the medical dictum positively forbade any attempt at leaving town for a fortnight, and then only for the most perfect rest, either at Redenham or by the sea-side. So serious was Philip's discomposure, Ethelind felt positively thankful no wilfulness of her own had produced this untoward result. At first he declared he would not go; Diana might get whom she pleased for a substitute; he would have nothing at all to do with it. But when Ann wrote urging it, if Ethel was at all well enough to be left, Philip reluctantly promised to be with them the night before the wedding.

Poor Ethie, well for her jealous heart no magic mirror presented

to her gaze the gathering of that little procession as it mustered in the chancel of the small picturesque church which stands facing the wide blue sea beneath the frowning cliffs of St. Boniface.

Ann trembled visibly. It was an unusual effort for her; and besides this, on her rested the entire responsibility of the marriage, against which had been arrayed all the prejudices of a proud family. It was very far from being a merry wedding. Perhaps the really happiest faces were those of the bride and bridegroom. Tears were in Mrs. Leigh's eyes, which it seemed her studious endeavour to hide or repress. Barbara was short and undemonstrative; Philip, quiet and preoccupied, thinking, perhaps, of his own wedding, not altogether dissimilar, a short while ago, and wondering whether it would be Diana's fate, equally with himself, to find how unsatisfactorily unequal marriages turn out. Maternal love had at last vanquished pride, and Mrs. Leigh, drowned in tears, was straining her child to her bosom. It was to be their first separation; for she and Barbara were to start the next day on a long tour abroad. Barbara had persuaded her mother that it would be better to let the world's wonder over Diana's marriage die out before they personally braved its opinion.

As the brougham drove away, the ladies one after another disappeared, and Philip went in search of his child. Miss Leigh, the servants told him, had taken her little ladyship away in her wheel-chair; most likely they were gone down towards the old churchyard. By a side-path Philip came on Ann's chair, and her little page beside it absorbed in “Leonard the Lion-hearted." Farther on, on her camp-stool, Ann sat with a large needle threading an endless chain of daisies, which little Beatrice, with a shout of glee, was tossing into her lap, and every now and then losing her balance, and in her wavering efforts to regain it threatening to upset her companion also.

"You have chosen a strange place for your gambols, Ann. If my little one had been older, you would make her prematurely sad," he said, drawing near to them.

Ann started. "Bee and I were so absorbed in our work we had no time to look about us. There, darling," she said, "go to papa; and let him see there are not many signs of sadness in that merry little face."

Philip took the child in his arms, then put her down gently, and threw himself beside them, on a piece of projecting rock.

"I did wrong in letting you kidnap her, Ann," he said. "But Ethel must thank you when she sees how much good this bright sea air has done her."

"Not more for her than my little 'busy bee's' love has done for me," Ann replied earnestly. "That baby's love is filling up the void in my heart, which I thought nothing in this world could. You must tell Ethel so. Barbara said you heard from her; I hope she is better."

Lord Redenham drew the letter from his pocket. "I have hardly had time to read it myself," he said, "only I knew by its being her own

1

handwriting, she must be so." He ran his eye over it a second time, and then put it back.

"What a lottery marriage is!" Philip said abruptly. "A man stakes his life's happiness on a throw. It is an awful thing if it turns up a blank."

"Your words frighten me," Ann exclaimed nervously. "You forget how I have been labouring to bring it about. But it must be right," she added energetically; "Di is so earnest and good, so anxious to adapt herself to her new life: and Langton is very high-principled, and most grateful for the sacrifices she makes for his sake. Oh, I am sure they cannot be otherwise than happy."

"And will fail, perhaps, at the last, in some unaccountable way, just as utterly as I have done."

"Philip!" Ann turned round suddenly on her cousin. She could see the muscles of his forehead and mouth working nervously.

He got up hastily, as if ashamed of the emotion he could not hide. "Forgive me," he said, "I am the last who should add my burdens to yours. I ought rather to have emulated your heroism, and borne them as you have done." He turned away, and walked to the church. The door of the cold, damp, unused, little edifice was open, and he grazed vacantly on the tall, rough, old wooden cross above the communion-table. Ann sat on, lost in a tumult of sorrow and dismay, unconscious of the child, busily engaged in ruthlessly destroying the long necklace of daisies which Ann had threaded for her. Presently Philip came back, dropping quietly down into his old seat. They neither of them spake at first, but the strong man had conquered. Lord Redenham's face had resumed its usual self-possessed look.

66

Philip," Ann said at last, "I always thought you so happy in Ethel's love; I never even dreamed of this."

"We were," he replied, "at first; even Ethel admits it. But not since our return from abroad. How we have failed, or why, God only knows."

"O Philip," Ann exclaimed earnestly, "Ethel's love is far too precious to be lightly abandoned. Good and true and loving, I am sure she is. Can nothing be done to disperse this dark cloud?"

Philip shook his head. "I thought perhaps it was the sympathy of her own people she pined for," he replied sadly, "and, as you know, I sent her to her mother when you were with us. But it has not remedied it. You can see her unhappiness in her face." "Then you must bring her people to her. She was very young and very timid when she married. You brought her among strangers, and we are all cold and reserved and proud. It was a new world to her, and she could not comprehend us. I feared as much then; I see it all

now.

We should have opened our hearts to the young stranger, and made her one of ourselves. Then, remember, you are so engaged in your public duties it throws her entirely on herself."