This was the state of affairs when Fanny Dale's blunt speech, and her denunciation of Jack Clifford's unworthiness, had fallen upon poor Nell's ear, and caused that growing inward pain, which a week's silent endurance had fostered, to find its first vent in a sudden burst of tears.

CHAPTER XVI.

HOSTILE INFLUENCES.

THE next morning Nell, holding a neat black-leather bag in her hand, sallied forth to make such purchases as were required by the simple household. Her chief busiHer chief business was at the grocer's. John Hall himself always attended to the butcher's department. He brought home small joints or chops and steaks loosely wrapped in sheets of newspaper during the week; but he always took care to provide a good wholesome piece of beef for the Sunday dinner. This he would carry to, and fetch from, the bakehouse round the corner, and set before his lady-wife with a very contented smile and an expressive sniff of anticipatory enjoyment. To her, these undignified proceedings on Mr. Hall's part were extremely annoying; but he had long ago taught himself not to heed her remonstrant ohs! and ahs! and shoulder-shrugging in the least.

Mens conscia recti was sufficient for him. And who would procure a dinner for them if he refused to lend a helping hand?

Mrs. Hall, had she been appealed to, would have said, 'Send for it, of course,' calmly ignoring the fact that there was no one to send.

The morning was bright, sunny, and warm, and Nell, stepping forth into Alpha-street, felt tempted to walk down upon the Embankment; thus she could get a glimpse of the river, and further enjoy a stroll

through the prettily planted enclosures near the Temple, before she proceeded on her errands.

She had had a sleepless night, poor child; an ordeal which all lovers are doomed, sooner or later, to endure. Fanny Dale's vehement words, and her own latent sense of Jack's shortcomings, had tormented her with irrepressible anxiety and apprehension.

She was thankful to be out in the pure summer air; there is nothing like sunlight to dispel the cruel fancies of the night. She longed for a sight of the flowing, shimmering river now; she felt as if its strong swift current could carry away the sense of crushing pain which had numbed her faculties and dulled her spirits of late.

She crossed the drive and the broad pavement beyond, and leaning upon the stone parapet gazed eagerly into the moving mystery

below.

She was wearing her white dress again, and the hat with the primroses; but a small black cape was thrown over her shoulders to sober down a tout ensemble which Mrs. Hall considered too gay for the London streets.

As it was, the pretty outline and dainty colouring of her figure made her the living centre of a picture for which the bold blues and grays of sky and stones and river made a most appropriate background.

So thought an attentive observer who was rapidly approaching in a mail-phaeton, drawn by a pair of trim high-stepping black-brown horses. The body of the carriage was canary-coloured, and the points were picked out with black. The master, who was driving, wore a white hat with a narrow black band around it. He sat on the high box as though it were a throne, and his keen glance and erect bearing proclaimed him as one born and accustomed to command.

ing somewhat at random, impelled to utter the thought which possessed him as he marked the pained look in her face. He was by no means prone to view life with much gravity; nor were his ideas of the world tinged in any sense with asceticism; but as he spoke he felt himself much impressed by the profound wisdom of his utterances.

Nell listened to him with astonishment, almost with awe. His random interpretation of the reasons urging her to desire more engrossing work was absolutely correct. But what could have taught him this truth? Did he know anything of Jack's private life? Had Jack consulted or confided in him? No; not that. She smiled at her own thought. At present she felt sure she played too unimportant a part in Jack's life for him to trouble any outsider in the matter at all. We love one another,' she thought, 'and some day we shall be married and happy and always together; but now, until Jack has told our secret to father and mother, it hardly seems real either to him or to me. Once they know, I can speak to him always, and tell him all I think and feel and want; but now it is all so new and strange it seems almost wrong to be thinking of him at all.'

She had turned to the river again now. Its troubled surface seemed to embody her passing thoughts; for the moment she had actually forgotten the presence of Sir Hercules.

'I hope you have arrived at some very satisfactory conclusion after that profound meditation of yours?' he said, smiling. He had been watching the delicate outline of her profile as intently as she had watched the swiftly-flowing water; but his observation was conscious, and hers was not.

I am forgetting my errands,' she said, pointing to the black-leather bag.

'Let me drive you to the shops,' he pleaded, since I have delayed you here.'

She hesitated, but her eager glance at the impatiently pawing horses betrayed her strong inclination to accept his offer. He saw his advantage.

'We will take a turn as far as Westminster first,' said he. 'You will get some air as we drive along; standing here is hot and wearying.'

Why should she not avail herself of his charming invitation?

Her foot was already on the step of the phaeton, her hand on his eagerly extended arm, when Mrs. Blenkinsop and her sister Araminta' accosted 'Miss Trevor' with a peal of laughter and a loud goodmorning. They had crossed the road from the Strand side, and watched the little pantomime of hesitation and acceptance, played by unconscious Nell, with considerable interest and not a little malice. Before she could take up her position in the carriage, however, they determined that she and her stately companion should be submitted to a closer investigation. Both these women were envious, and both elated by this evidence that the daughter of Mrs. Airs-and-Graces (so they nicknamed Mrs. Hall) was not above making clandestine appointments with rich old gentlemen, and going for tête-à-tête drives while she was no doubt ostensibly engaged in the theatre.

They hurriedly whispered these good-natured comments to one another as they crossed the road, and the elation they felt lent a special shrillness to their voices, and a most unusual empressement to their smiling salutations.

A novel and very embarrassing feeling possessed Nell; she was thoroughly ashamed of the friends (?) who so noisily greeted her, and wished Sir Hercules had not witnessed her rencontre with these

showily-dressed, loud-voiced wo

men.

Why they should persist in standing by her side and talking to her at all was most puzzling to Nell, whose intercourse with these particular theatrical stars had always been of the most limited and formal nature.

The conclusion she soon arrived at did not add to her comfort by any means. She felt sure that the unusual attention shown to her at this moment was due entirely to the presence of her companion and his handsome carriage, not to herself at all.

'Will you not introduce us to your friend, Nell dear?' inquired Araminta in a very audible 'aside.' She inclined her head towards Sir Hercules, and indulged him with a smiling display of her large white regular teeth as she spoke.

Sir Hercules had always been distinguished for his gallantry, indeed his chivalrous devotion to the sex had become a byword among his friends.

At this moment his inclination to 'oblige the ladies' placed him in a dilemma. Araminta's insidious glances failed to fascinate their object. His eyes were fixed on Nell, whose discomfort was plainly apparent to him.

Women of the Rogers-Pierrepoint type were only too well known, and had always been scrupulously avoided by the wary old General. Nothing was further from his intention at this moment than to allow his much-admired little friend, Miss Trevor, formally to introduce him to these soi-disant but evidently unwelcome friends of hers. If once they had such a claim on his acquaintanceship he would never feel safe from their attentions in future, and they would embrace every possible opportunity of noisily hailing him as their dear old friend. Then he would be

called upon to subscribe to their various benefits; trinkets, bouquets, stalls at the opera, &c., would be demanded of him with a pertinacious audacity for which such handsome dummies as Miss Pierrepoint are justly famous. And Henrietta Maria, moved by sisterly affection, would always be at hand to support her junior in any proposal or claim she might think fit to make on the General's time, attention, or purse. This was the vista of future 'delights' which swiftly spread itself out before his alarmed mental vision.

Nell's evident uneasiness added to his discomfort. Dear, delicate little lady, he quite understood her embarrassment; and she should certainly and at once be saved from any further infliction. Prompt action was a sine quâ non herethe knot must be cut, and at once.

'You will pardon me for interrupting you, Miss Trevor,' he said, with his pleasantest smile, 'and your friends will no doubt excuse you, as your appointment is a matter of business, and we-yes, indeed, we are already ten minutes after our time.'

He drew forth his watch as he spoke, and before Nell had quite realised the sudden change in the position of affairs, she found herself seated by the side of Sir Hercules, the horses trotting along briskly before her, the soft summer air fanning her cheeks, and so keen a sense of enjoyment possessing her that for the moment she utterly forgot the enraged glances with which those envious noisy women had watched her departure.

Ten minutes later Jack Clifford, Jim Crane, Mr. Blenkinsop, and any others who would choose to listen to Henrietta Maria's voluble and high-pitched account of that brazen hussy Miss Trevor's outrageous conduct, heard very startling details of that young lady's clan

destine meeting and subsequent elopement with a fine-looking old man in a magnificent carriage-andpair. 'You can ask Minnie; Minnie was with me; she saw it all as well as I did,' asseverated Mrs. Blenkinsop, waxing warmer and noisier at each sign of incredulity from the audience assembled around her in the greenroom at the Sphere.

There was no call for rehearsal at this time, and those actors who were present had chanced to 'look in' just to ask after their letters and hear what was going on.

'I must look after my larky old friend, and at once,' thought Jack Clifford. 'My dear little girl's reputation shall not be compromised by any of his fatherly attentions in future. She, too, must be warned against indiscretions of this kind. It will be quite a novelty for me to play the injured neglected man, when I have been forced to keep her at arms' length for the last week or two, poor child. How prettily she will flutter back into my arms again, once they are opened to her! She will be full of penitence, too, and tender and apologetic. I know the bird I've caught so well.'

In this conclusion Jack was to some extent mistaken. His handsome face and caressing manner had certainly fascinated Nell, and taught her to regard him as a 'hero of romance.' And he had the additional advantage of being the first man who had ever spoken a word of love to her; therefore he had aroused a gleam of light from the tenderest sentiments in her maidenly bosom. With care and devotion that spark promised to develop into a powerful and abiding flame; but vacillation, caprice, or neglect on his part would surely extinguish it.

Nell, though very young and inexperienced, was by no means weak; and the reticence he deemed

the height of diplomacy on his part, instead of attracting, was already repelling her.

He left the theatre and walked hastily to the Hamlet Club. Angry impatience was quickening his steps. He must have this matter out, and at once.

The sight of Sir Hercules calmly establishing himself at a luncheontable steadied Jack. Caution was required here, not reckless words provocative of hostile answers.

By the time Jack had taken his place' at the General's side in response to that gentleman's cordial invitation, he had resolved on the most judicious course of action; this was to shift the whole responsibility of what had occurred on to the shoulders of a third and absent person. With this end in view Jack launched forth into an ex parte statement of Mrs. Blenkinsop's illnatured account of her meeting with Nell on the Embankment, &c.

'The vicious old cat!' exclaimed Sir Hercules, commenting on Henrietta Maria's gossip. I was the man who took little Miss Trevor for a turn in my phaeton. There was no appointment, nothing clandestine of any sort; of course not. It is preposterous.' He laughed as he spoke, and Jack joined in the hilarity. The young man was perfectly satisfied. All was as he had anticipated, and Sir Hercules volunteered the details of the drive Nell had enjoyed so innocently and so much; but though he laughed as he spoke, he felt troubled and uneasy. Was it possible that he had acted injudiciously, and perhaps compromised the little lady, whose fair name and fame were at this moment dearer to him than any other?

These were the doubts which assailed him as he listened to Jack's light-hearted chatter, but they were doubts he could not discuss with that very lively young friend of his.