his professional ears. 'You never told me a word of that, Hugh.'

Sir Richard smiled grimly, and flicked the ash away from his cigar. What the smile meant his wife well understood.

Hugh possessed the virtue of not interfering in his friends' affairs, rather in excess; that is, he took no sort of interest in their likes or dislikes whatever.

'Then we are not to go over the house at all this afternoon?' he inquired sullenly of his mother. When he did not have his way, he resented it in her case, notwithstanding her devotion to him, quite as much as in that of another, and she could not bear to see him disappointed.

'I have no objection I am sure, my dear, if Miss Thorne has not?'

'If you care to make one of the party, Lady Trevor, I shall be very pleased to make another,' murmured Clara.

'Then let us all four go together,' said Hugh, with the air of one who has sacrificed his wishes for those of others. along."

Come

'I suppose all lawn-tennis, Wood, is over for to-day,' muttered Charles; just as we were game-and-game, too.'

'I am afraid so,' sighed the young doctor. It was much harder on him, he thought to himself, than it was on Charles, who could play tennis with the Rector's daughters at any time.

'It's all owing to that infernal English system of primogeniture,' continued Charles; 'the eldest son always gets his own way.' 'No doubt,' responded the other gloomily. His sympathy, which was quite genuine, was the more valuable, since Mr. Wood himself happened to be an elder son, without, however, having derived much benefit from the circumstance. 'It is no use being the eldest of six-or even a son and heir-if your father has nothing to leave you.'

As the expedition of four took their way to the house, Sir Richard laid his hand upon the shoulder of his younger son. 'Come along, Charles, and have a cigar,' he said kindly; 'I want a few words with you.'

This left Mr. Wood and Lucy alone together, by no means to that young lady's satisfaction. She did not believe that Mr. Wood had any serious intentions with regard to her, but ever since Ciara had put the idea into her head, she felt a certain embarrassment in his proximity. His little quips and quirks rather amused her and she respected him as an honest and hard-working young fellow, but she did not at all like the grave expression which his handsome face had suddenly assumed.

:

'While Sir Richard speaks to his son, perhaps you will be so good as to let me say a very few words to you, Miss Lucy,' he murmured softly.

'To me? By all means,' she answered with a little nervous laugh. It struck her that his voice had a professional tone, such as he used when warning his more delicate patients against an imprudence, and this humorous idea sustained her under what she felt were very trying circumstances.

'You have been always very good and kind to me, Miss Lucy, ver he began.

Sh did not like this exordium at all, and said 'Really!' in a tone of indifference that expressed her dissatisfaction with it. Pray forgive me; I dare say you did not know it yourself, because it is your nature to be kind to everyone; but so it has been indeed. On the present occasion, all that I have to ask of you is a little patience.'

She bowed her head assentingly. She could not refuse to hear him, but very much wished that his mode of expression was less tortuous. If he had thrown himself on his knees-for they were now quite alone-and had done with it, it would have been on the whole a relief to her. She could then have given him his answer at once, and he must have got up again and gone away. Still she was not cruel. No woman deserving of the name can help feeling a little tenderness-though it be a pity that is not akin to love--towards an honest man who is offering his all to her; and her face showed it.

'Thank you,' he said humbly, 'I was sure you would grant me that much; and now I only ask one thing more, that, however you may disapprove of what I am about to say, you will not be angry with me.'

You may take that for granted, Mr. Wood, I think ; I cannot imagine you saying anything that would give me just cause for anger.'

That is so like you. "That is Miss Lucy all over," as the poor people say in the village, when they speak of some good you have been doing. I am but a poor man myself, Miss Lucy. Well born, indeed, and I hope not ill bred, but not endowed with any gifts of fortune. I need hardly speak of my possessions, indeed, they are so insignificant; but my income, though small, is an increasing one, and if I may say so without vanity, I am getting to be known in my own profession.'

'I have always heard you spoken of very highly,' said Lucy, filling up an awkward pause.

'Still, praise is not pudding (if I may use so vulgar an expression, Miss Lucy), and I am well aware that it would be the height of imprudence-indeed, a mere impertinence-to mention to anyone except yourself, who are so kind and patient, the ambition that consumes me. From the first moment that your dear mother did me the honour of calling me in to the Rectory -I forget under what circumstances; I think the housemaid

had a whitlow-my thoughts have never strayed from her since.'

'From the housemaid?'

'Good heavens! do not mock me, Miss Lucy-from your adorable sister.'

The relief to Lucy was intense; but she could not utter one word. She felt herself on the very verge of hysterics. For the moment all her pity for the poor man, notwithstanding his passionate, pleading face and earnest tone, was lost in the excessive humour of the situation. No spark of jealousy interfered with it, albeit she at once understood that all the young doctor's marked attentions to her had been paid, as it were by proxy, to her sister. The idea of what Clara would think of it when she came to tell her-if she should ever dare to do it filled her mind with inextinguishable mirth.

'You know what your dear sister is,' continued the young fellow plaintively, as beautiful as Venus, but haughty as Minerva; I dared not, for the life of me, approach her, as it were, directly; but I hoped, through your gracious intercession, in time-though it were after long years-to get her to listen to me. But something has happened to-day-I dare say you did not observe it-that made me speak to you on this matter in spite of myself. Weeks ago, when the Court was being put in order for the reception of Sir Richard and his family, I ventured to ask your sister to let me show her over the picture-gallery, the contents of which I had got up for her special edification; her reply was-I remember the very words, and the cutting tone with which they were accompanied-" Certainly not, sir!" Yet no sooner does Mr. Hugh Trevor make his appearance and ask her to do the very same thing, than she consents at once.'

'But, surely, Mr. Wood, it is a very different thing to comply with Mr. Hugh's request, who is a son of the house.'

'Oh, pardon me, Miss Lucy,' he broke in, but you must understand that I know your sister as well as you do; her character has been my study for years. If Mr. Hugh had been ten Mr. Hughs, or even Sir Richard himself, and she had had no desire to accept such an invitation, she would have declined it point-blank.' Lucy was obliged to confess to herself that there were grave grounds for this conclusion.

'That is as it may be, Mr. Wood, but I fail even now to see in what I can oblige you.'

Simply to find out for me, at once, the worst that I already guess. No, I don't mean that. Of course, I have some hopejust a little scrap; now and then Miss Clara has been almost kind Oh, Miss Lucy, if you knew how I love her!' 'I am very sorry for you, Mr. Wood,' said Lucy. There was genuine compassion in her tone, but it was very firm.

to me.

'You think it would do more harm than good to speak for me?' 'It would do neither harm nor good, so far as the result was concerned; there is not the slightest chance.'

'Not now, of course,' he put in desperately; 'but in course of time, perhaps-if she finds no better man, or is disappointed in him she finds, I could wait and keep silence. Do think, Miss Lucy, how I must love her, since I thus humiliate myself before you.' His face was pale with passion and distorted by despair; his supple, skilful fingers were twisting themselves in and out in a sort of nervous frenzy; the perspiration stood upon his brow. It was a case, as Lucy thought, which required, in the patient's own professional language, the promptest treatment,' nay, even 'the actual cautery,' though she pitied him from the bottom of her heart.

'You have not only not the slightest, but not the remotest chance with Clara, Mr. Wood,' she answered. I am cruel to say so, you may think, but I should be much more cruel to deceive you with false hopes. If you insist upon my speaking to my sister I will do so; but if you have any regard for her friendship, I warn you, it will deprive you of it.'

'Then do not speak,' he murmured hoarsely. 'I ask your pardon for speaking to you. Let everything be as it was before; or indeed as it is,' he added bitterly, for I knew it would be so from the first. Good-bye, good-bye, Miss Lucy!' and the poor doctor sprang up the steps, and sped by a back way to the stables, where his hard-worked horse was passing one happy hour in unaccustomed clover.

CHAPTER XVI.

A DUTIFUL SON.

THE moral duty supposed to be incumbent on parents to love all their children equally is one comparatively easy to fulfil whilst their offspring are very young, but which every year renders more difficult. As the character of each develops there arises more or less of antagonism to the views and opinions, or to the wants and wishes, of the heads of the house; and even if no misconduct is actually committed, such as might seriously affect the scale, it is rare indeed if some sort of prejudice is not created. One excellent mother contesting this theory once observed, 'For my part, if my house was on fire, I should not know which of my six children to save first;' an argument, however, which scarcely meets the case, since the very sense of preference in a catastrophe so extreme might induce the contrary course to that which nature suggested. As a general rule, I think there is and must be some sort of preference, even in what

Mr. Jingle called 'the best regulated families,' and that, unless injudiciously manifested, it is acquiesced in patiently enough. It is probable that the cause is recognised, and even possible that the justice of it is acknowledged; and, moreover, it is by no means uncommon that in course of time (for the force of time can hardly be overrated) the first favourite falls into the second rank, or even lower, and he who seemed to be an outsider' takes his place. It is noteworthy, indeed, that in spite of our acquiescence in the law of duty in this matter, there is a tacit acknowledgment of its frequent failure; the father,' it is proverbially said, 'sticks to his girls, the mother to her boys ;' 'the youngest is always the dearest,' etc., etc. But there are many unhappy cases, arising generally from the conduct of our children themselves, but very often from our own, where there is not even the outward semblance of an equal love. Such was the case with the Trevors and their offspring. Hugh was his mother's ido; while Charles, though by no means an object of worship with his father, was something more than his favourite son. Sir Richard's capacities for affection were not nearly so great as those of his wife; but she had nothing to complain of in his love for herself; it was unstinted and unshared, which hers was not, for he had a rival, and a successful one, in his own

son.

From the very first Lady Trevor had regarded her elder child with the affection a mother ever extends to the more delicate and fragile of her offspring; his weakness, it is true, was not of the physical sort, but it was never absent from her eyes. She had no fear that he would not be reared, but that he would not succeed to the honours and estate of his father. After the birth of his younger brother, her apprehensions on this account were redoubled, and it is not too much to say that she regretted that she had borne him. She foresaw not only an increased danger to which Hugh's future was thereby exposed, but the moral difficulties it opened up, which did not till long afterwards arouse her husband's attention.

Sir Richard, though capable enough of action on occasion, was at heart averse to worry and trouble of all kinds. If his wife's derotion to Hugh, or her indifference to Charles, had been less demonstrative, he would not, perhaps, have so much concerned himself with the wrong that was eventually to be done the latter, by the concealment of his brother's illegitimacy. But as time went on, and the difference of treatment which the two boys received at their mother's hands became more marked, Sir Richard's scruples were aroused from their slumber. He thought it very hard that Charlie should not only be deprived of his rights in the future, but have a bad time of it, through Hugh, even in the present. He did not understand that the behaviour