birds to recall it. For the first time in his life he wished he was a smoker, that he might hide himself—a chaste Ixion-in a cloud. Fortunately it was only a few of the elder guests who recognised the excessive inopportuneness of this reference to the brother of the lady who had caused the Baronet's exit from the country; and Sir Richard only murmured 'Indeed!' and puffed away at his cigar as though nothing had been said to wound his ear. It was noticed, however, that Hugh's already frowning brow grew darker at the allusion, a circumstance which distressed good Mr. Lascelles considerably. He was a thorough gentleman, and, except for offenders against the game-laws, had a tender heart, and the idea of having recalled the Baronet's early peccadillo to his memory in the hearing of his sons made him miserable for the evening. As it happened, he had much overrated the sensitiveness of Mr. Hugh Trevor, the cause of whose annoyance was something quite different from what he supposed it to be; while as for Charlie, his thoughts were engaged upon a very different matter. He was 'crooning' to himself (as the Ettrick Shepherd calls it) one of the most charming poems in the language, which has for its subject the superiority of true love over riches. The sly allusions to Miss Kilmansegg and her golden leg, which he heard about him, prevented, indeed, his forgetting the existence of Miss Mumchance, but he only remembered it in association with that of another young lady:

'Have you seen an heiress in her jewels mounted,

That her wealth and she seemed one, and she could be counted?
Have you seen a bosom with one white rose betwixt it,

And did you mark the grateful blush with which the bridegroom fixed it?'

Through the open windows he presently caught the sound of gentle voices and soft laughter on the terrace, whereby he knew that Mrs. Westrop had carried out her programme, and procured the escape of at least some of the ladies into the garden. It was no grave breach of good manners-though if it had been I fear he would have risked it-to step over the sill of the window and join them, an example which was followed at once by half a dozen of the younger guests. It was the first time that the bonds of etiquette, which at Catesby Hall were as the laws of the Medes and Persians, had been so broken through there; but, as the Chief Baroness afterwards observed, the Trevors had Bohemianism in their blood, and their long residence in foreign parts seemed to have absolutely unfitted them for the rules and regulations of civilized life.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AS OTHERS SEE US.

ALTHOUGH the quarter of an hour before dinner is the most trying time to people in general, who pass it in feeble attempts at conversation, and secret anathemas at their fellow-creatures who are keeping them waiting for their food, the quarter of an hour after dinner is for some folks a still worse ordeal. The ladies who have pushed themselves into society superior to their own-or worse, have been helped into it by its males, despite the efforts of its females-regard that terrible period with wellgrounded fear. Deprived of their natural protectors-the men -they are thrown among their own sex, like victims into the arena, to suffer from tooth and claw till tardy help comes to them. They think themselves happy if, through generosity or contempt, their adversaries permit them to retire into some curtained corner and pretend to be immersed in a photographbook or other drawing-room literature. No such retreat, as Lady Trevor was well aware, would have been afforded to her at Catesby Hall if she had been known there for what she really was. She pictured to herself as she sailed into its great drawing-room, the first of the glittering argosy of dames, what a different fate would have been hers had Sir Richard, as some men would have done, 'made a clean breast of it,' and introduced her to the county in her proper person. If it had not been for Hugh-but what an 'if' was that!-it was probable he would have done so. Secrecy was hateful to him, from the worry it involved, and concealment of all kinds foreign to his character. He was the last man in the world for the carrying out of plots and strategies, and, moreover, so far as himself was concerned, he cared nothing at all for the opinion of the world. He never had had much regard for what is called Society, which had always bored him, and he had now become as indifferent to it as a saint. He had arrived, though by a short cut, at that period of existence when life is emptied of its social joys-when the city is strewn with the ashes of extinct pleasures, and the country is haunted by the pale memories of the dead-and it was only for his wife's sake, as she was well aware, that he gave himself the trouble to dissemble.

She could trust to him implicitly, she knew; yet it seemed strange that the whole conditions of her being should depend upon one man's silence. That he had sometimes thought of speaking out was certain-he had hinted at it, indeed, quite lately, in their conversation in the garden at home; but fortunately for all of us, there is an immense gulf between thought and action. (I say 'all of us,' but I suppose there are degrees and differences even in our thoughts: a Bishop, for example,

has a little more control over his audacious speculations, and does not roll the sweet morsel of voluptuous recollection under his tongue, as laymen do). Sir Richard, she felt, would never betray her designedly; but if he did so by accident, or if she herself by some imprudence should reveal the truth, how frightful would be the catastrophe! While she thought of these things, with a smiling face and careless brow, her hostess came up with extended hand.

'My dear Lady Trevor,' she exclaimed effusively, 'I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you here in your proper place amongst us; I was so sorry you were from home when I called ; do let us have two minutes' talk together before the gentlemen come in and tear you away from me.'

This little hit at her new friend's popularity with the male sex she could not forego, but her manner was genuinely hospitable, and, motioning her guest to a conversation-chair, the two ladies took their seats in it, each looking into the other's eyes.

'It seems only yesterday,' continued the hostess, that the late Lady Trevor and I had a confidential talk together in this very room-with only one other person present.'

'Indeed; and who was she?'

The question was superfluous, as the 'person' had happened to be the speaker herself, and the moment she had uttered it she repented of having done so that 'surplusage is no error' may be true in commerce, but is certainly not so in conversation.

'You take it for granted, I see, that it was a lady; and yet you are not quite right,' said Lady Joddrell, with an acid smile. Lady Trevor had her "companion" with her-Letitia Beeton.'

'I have heard of her,' observed Lady Trevor drily.

'I took that for granted, otherwise I should not have ventured to speak of her. In doing so, indeed, even as it is, perhaps I arrogate to myself too much; but as an old friend of the family'

'No apology is necessary,' put in Lady Trevor sweetly: 'I am sure your allusion must be dictated by kindness, or it would be unintelligible.'

'I hope so; yet my motive, I must admit, is partly a selfish one. I wish to show you on what intimate terms of friendship I was with your predecessor

'You mean the late Lady Trevor ?' interrupted her companion quickly.

Yes, of course. Good Heavens, who else could I mean? And then, as regards that other person, I wish to remove from your mind certain impressions of her which it may have received from people well meaning, perhaps, but misled as to her real character. You must not suppose that Sir Richard was so very much to blame.'

Now

'I do not suppose so,' was the grave response. The speaker's face was as calm as marble, yet her tone was full of feeling as well as conviction. Her eyes never left the other's face for a single instant; whereas those of Lady Joddrell drooped beneath their earnest gaze, and sought the fringe of her gown. She had expected to play the part of Mentor, and notwithstanding her statement to the contrary, to an ignorant Telemachus. that gives me the most sincere pleasure,' she continued. Her words, however, lacked the ring of enjoyment, and were uttered less with intention than the want of something to say the wind, in fact, had been taken out of her sails. What I feared was that at Mirbridge, where the girl had many friends-for she was a miracle of cunning and duplicity-you might have heard things to her advantage. Sir Richard's mother, poor thing, was utterly mistaken in her from the first.'

'I have every reason to believe it.'

"Then that makes what I thought it my duty to say quite easy, though not perhaps superfluous. There is a faction, I know, who have always persuaded themselves that the girl was a victim-a simple, innocent creature, redolent of catechism and bread and butter; and, of course, if you had taken that view of the case, the truth would have given you pain. It was Sir Richard, my dear friend, who was the victim. I don't mean to say, indeed, that he had ever any intention of marrying her; but it was not her fault that he did not do so. As I told poor Lady Trevor in this very room-with the girl sitting yonder, only just out of earshot-"In my opinion, you are doing a very dangerous thing in taking that young person out of her proper sphere, and throwing your son in the way of temptation;" for, for one of her class, she was undeniably attractive, and had a certain innocence of manner-though, of course, it was only mannercalculated to deceive almost anyone. It never hoodwinked me, however, for one instant. I am a believer in race, and the sort of family she came from would have been enough to put me on my guard against her. I am afraid some of them are living in your neighbourhood still, but that can't be helped. In old times they would have been rooted out; but in these days of democratic license nothing can be done in that way, I fear. Most fortunately, indeed, as we know, the unhappy girl died, and her offspring with her; otherwise there is no knowing what would have happened, for poor Lady Trevor was so Quixotic in her views, and Sir Marmaduke-though in quite another way-so very queer, that it is impossible to say what they might not have done from a mistaken notion of reparation. Only conceive the position in which it would have placed us all, if Sir Richard had married the girl!'

'It would have been very embarrassing, no doubt.'

'Embarrassing! Embarrassing is no word for it! Such old friends as the Trevors and ourselves have ever been; and the impossibility of continuing our mutual relations! Imagine, too, if the child had grown up! With Royalty, and among very great families indeed, the thing, to be sure, is somehow found practicable; but among the ordinary aristocracy-if I may venture so to speak of you people at the Court the existence of a nobody among somebodies could not have been tolerated. However, all's well that ends well. I should not, as I have said, have alluded to this painful subject but for the idea that I might have been useful to you in dispelling an illusion, but I am thankful to find it is not necessary to do so. You have discovered for yourself, it seems, what sort of person this girl really was.' 'I think so-yes.'

'And you are not annoyed with me for my plain speaking?' " Not at all.'

'That is nice of you. Some people would have been offended. Good gracious! what is that dreadful woman going to do? Mrs. Westrop, you are surely not going out of doors?"

'Why not?' responded that lady coolly, stepping through the open window and beckoning to Miss Mumchance to follow her. 'There's a delicious smell of tobacco outside, and I am anxious to know where it comes from.'

'Tobacco exclaimed Lady Joddrell. She could not have been more shocked if she had been told the house was on fire. 'It must be the coachmen in the stables-no one can be so mad as to go out on the damp grass.'

But the natural desire to exchange the atmosphere of the drawing-room for that of the summer night had been awakened in many a fair bosom by the audacious widow's example, and one by one the ladies stepped out of the nearest window and joined the two deserters. It was like a stampede-though among highly-trained and pampered steeds indeed-in an Australian cattle-yard. Notwithstanding the feverish clutch with which Society hugs its gilded chains, its slavery is really hateful, except to the very dullest. How hateful it is, may be gathered from the eagerness with which anything in the way of naturalness-if it be but a Buffalo Bill-is welcomed. If fine folk had only a little more courage they would find life much more pleasant; but the few of them who have pluck are too often utterly reckless, and frighten the rest by their wild ways.

To Lady Trevor herself, stifled by the terrible restraint she had been under during the last ten minutes, the prospect of freedom and fresh air was like a glimpse of Heaven. She stole out alone, and crossed the terrace on to the lawn which lay beyond the reach of the lights from the house, so swiftly and so suddenly, that if anyone saw her, none followed. The coolness