"I have not been into the room, sir. I don't generally go in till a Monday morning."

"I must find it,” he resumed, looking about. "I had got some prime cabanas in it, ready for to-day; and the shops that keep anything worth smoking shut themselves up on a Sunday, and be hanged to them! You needn't wait. I can let myself out."

"Shall I look in the rooms up-stairs, sir ?"

"No, it's not there. It's here, if it's anywhere."

Mrs. May retreated aloft, and the gentleman, after an unsuccessful search, marched up-stairs himself, whistling some bars from the last night's opera. But his tune came to an abrupt close; for on opening the door of his father's room, he found himself, to his extreme astonishment, face to face with a lady.

She had risen at his entrance. A handsome girl with confident manners, whose fair hair was braided round her head in elaborate twists and turnings. Young men are not very competent judges of attire: the eyes of this one only took in the general effect of the lady's dress, and that was splendid. He hastily snatched off his hat and dropped his glass.

eye

Who in the world was she? As to her having any connexion with Mrs. May, her dirty shawl and her black petticoat, such an incongruity never would have occurred to him. How should it? Though not usually wanting in confidence, it rather failed him now, for he was at a loss how to address her.

"I beg your pardon," he was beginning, but she spoke at the same moment.

"Pardon, monsieur."

Oh, she was French, then! Had she crossed the Channel in a balloon, and been dropped into the offices of Lyvett, Castlerosse, and Lyvett by mistake? How else had she come? and what did she want there? He began to recal his French, not a word of which had his tongue ever uttered since leaving school.

Madame, voulez-vous excuser moi-je suis-je trouve," and there he came to a stand-still-what the dickens was "cigar-case" in French? Fortunately she helped him out.

"I beg to ask your pardon, a thousand pardons, for addressing you in French. I have been so long accustomed to speak only French, and having but since a day or two returned to England, that I forget myself à chaque instant. I fear I am in your way. Shall I retire ?"

66

By no means. I will not disturb you for a moment. I am in search of a-a parcel-which I mislaid yesterday."

As he spoke, his eyes fell on the "parcel." It was on the corner of the mantelpiece. At the same moment some vehicle came rattling down the street, turned round, and drew up at the door.

He took a step to the other window and looked from it. Not the one she was at. It was as he expected, his own cab. He had walked from the chambers of a barrister close by, where he had been lounging away an hour, and had ordered his groom to follow him. With an elaborate bow (and certainly a respectful one) to the lady, he quitted her presence and descended the staircase. Again she peeped from the window. She saw him open the "parcel," light a cigar, puff away at it, and step into

the cab, which bore the Lyvett crest. The groom ascended to his place, and the smoke went puffing up the street. Then she extended her head further, and looked after it. Nearly at the top of the street the cab stopped; it was pulled up so suddenly that the horse's head and fore-legs were jerked into the air. Mr. May and his sister-in-law were just passing it.

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Hallo, May! Here."

Mr. May touched his hat, and, leaving Miss Foxaby on the pavement, approached the cab, and touched his hat again.

"May! who the deuce is that down yonder ?"

"Sir?" cried Mr. May.

"Who's that lady in the governor's private room?"

"I don't know who's there, sir," answered Mr. May. For it really did not occur to him that the gentleman present would not know his daugh"You don't mean my wife, or my—

ter.

ask me you

if

"Your wife !" impetuously interrupted the young man, giving an admonishing touch to his impatient horse. "Who next will I know? There's a lady there, I tell

I saw.

Reflection dawned upon the porter.

you. As handsome a girl as ever

"With light hair, sir, and coral

beads in it, and a green-and-gold-looking dress on?"

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Green-and-gold for all I know. Something dazzling. She speaks

French."

"It is Sophiar, sir."

"Eh? Who?"

"Our daughter, sir. She came home last Thursday. She has been a finishing her edication in France at a French school."

The gentleman stared for a few moments at Mr. May, as if unable to understand him. Then returned his cigar to his lips, slightly shook the reins, and was whirled round the corner on his way to the West-end, where he dwelt at his father's residence.

"Oh my goodness heart, Sophia! how beautiful you do look! Well, if ever I saw anybody so much improved in all my life."

"I am grown, am I not, Aunt Foxaby?"

"Grown lovely, child. Ah, and somebody else thinks so. Somebody we met in this street with his cab and groom, a smoking of his cigar, all so stylish!"

"Who was that gentleman, father?" inquired Sophia. "I forgot myself as usual, and addressed him in French."

"That was young Mr. Lyvett."

"That it was not," echoed Sophia. "I remember young Lyvett well. A haughty fellow with black eyebrows and a hooked nose, who looked down upon everybody."

He was

"Sophiar's thinking of the eldest son," interposed Mrs. May, who was now attired for the afternoon. "This one is Mr. Fred. articled to a firm in the country, Sophiar, some house in a different branch of law business, and was never here till lately. But he is twentyone now, and has come back for good. They do say he's to have a share in the business, like his eldest brother."

"What did he want down here to-day ?" exclaimed the porter. "I don't think I ever knew any of 'em to have troubled us on a Sunday."

"He came after his cigars," said Mrs. May. "He said he left 'em behind him yesterday."

"Sophia had better look out," cried Mrs. Foxaby, with a knowing nod. Stranger things have happened. My dear, he said you were the handsomest girl he ever saw, and he took you for a real lady." "Who said it ?" asked Sophia, quickly.

"Mr. Fred Lyvett."

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"I could see he was struck with me without their telling it," murmured Sophia to herself. Well, come, this is a beginning. But he looks half a fool. Never mind; perhaps that's all the better."

Now, whether the fault was Mr. Frederick Lyvett's, or whether it was Miss May's, whether it arose by accident, or whether by design, certain it is, that in the course of the next week they met and conversed together three times once in the street, and twice on the stairs, "after hours." By the end of the week they had become tolerably intimate, so that it probably did not surprise Sophia, though it did her father and mother, when, on the following Sunday, early in the afternoon, Mr. Fred appeared, and said he was come to escort Miss May to Westminster Abbey, which he had heard her express a wish to see, that she "might compare its architecture with that of the Roman Catholic churches she had been accustomed to admire in France."

Had Mr. Frederick Lyvett come and offered to take her to inspect a Roman Catholic purgatory in the fiery regions, it is certain Mr. and Mrs. May would never have dared to offer an objection, so impressed were they with the honour done her in going anywhere with a Lyvett. Accordingly, they started.

"Now, shall we ride or walk?" began Mr. Fred, offering his arm. Sophia replied that she would prefer to walk.

"You don't know

how pleased I am that you consented to come with me.”

"Did you think I should not ?" asked Miss May.

"Well-our acquaintance has been so short that I thought you might object on that score. Still, I knew you were a sensible girl, without any stupid nonsense about you. Otherwise I should not have asked."

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Perhaps it is not quite comme il faut my coming out like this, but it is so grateful to me to get, even for an hour, into congenial society, that I forget appearances. You must be aware that in my home (as I must perforce call it) there is no society for me."

"Certainly, old May and his- I mean Mr. and Mrs. May are very different from you. When he told me last Sunday that you were his daughter, I could not believe it.”

"I am different," answered Sophia. "And how I shall manage to drag through my days in a place and position so unsuited to me, I cannot tell. I have been miserable ever since I returned. As a child, my social unhappiness did not strike me, but now I feel it deeply. I require refinement, Mr. Lyvett; it is as necessary to my nature as air; therefore you may judge what my home is to me. I believe, if I have to stop in it, I shall die with chagrin."

"I am sure I wish I could provide you with a better," said Mr. Lyvett, in an impulse of generous pity, which had really nothing covert in it.

"It is impossible for any one to do that," answered Sophia, coldly. “I must submit to my fate."

What with talking, and walking slowly, and looking at the fountains at Charing-cross, at the Horse Guards, and other points of interest, all of which Sophia professed to have forgotten, they arrived at Westminster Abbey just as the gates were closing after service. So all they had to do was to find their way back again, which they did with rather more speed; for Mr. Lyvett called a cab, the best-looking he could see on the stand, and escorted Sophia home in it.

Thus the acquaintance had begun, and thus it continued. Continued until the infatuated young man was really and truly in deep love with Sophia May, and had formed a resolve that when his time for marrying came, no other should be his wife.

The wily girl saw her ends gained, or in a fair way to be so. Whether she loved him or not, is of no consequence here. The ruling passion of her heart was ambition: a craving for social position, an intense, eager longing to be lifted out of the low rank she was born to, and to live at ease. This she coveted, and this she determined to attain; whether by fair means or unfair, attain it she would. As the wife of Frederick Lyvett all this would be hers, and from that first day when they met in his father's room, she laid her plans and played her cards with no other hope. Had Frederick Lyvett breathed a dishonourable word to her, she would have sent him flying: not that her principles were of the first water, but she knew that she must keep them so, if she would rise to a good position in the world. She was gifted by nature with craft and cunning, and though young in years, was versed in worldly wisdom, and could take good care of herself. She had not read French novels and English Caterpillar productions for nothing.

It may be a matter of marvel to the reader that Mr. Frederick Lyvett, who had been reared in the prejudices of his rank, should lower himself to make one in the house of his father's servants as (may we say it!) an equal; it was almost a marvel to Sophia. But that he did so, there was no disputing. The unfortunate fruits which these matters were to bear in after years, caused their particulars to be well known. It was a fact, proved afterwards, that Frederick Lyvett would sit in that kitchen of theirs, and join in their meals, tea or supper, as the case might be. Not at first. Sophia was more wary than to introduce him where his tastes could be violently shocked, and the distance between them rendered too glaring, until she believed her influence over him had taken firm root. In the early stage of their acquaintance, she was his companion only out of doors, as on that expedition to Westminster Abbey, or in Mr. Lyvett's room on a Sunday afternoon. But later, when the affair was further advanced, the parties altogether more familiar, and he more infatuated, then Mr. Frederick condescended to overleap all barriers, and became, as it may be said, one of the family. Old May and his wife never forgot their respect they were humble as ever, and would sit at the very far corner of the kitchen when Mr. Frederick was in it, and hand him his tea-if he chose any-at a table different from theirs. Sophia had persuaded her parents to part with the instrument which had so offended her nerves the night of her return, and to hire a better-she might not want

one long there, she said-and Mr. Frederick Lyvett, who was passionately fond of music, would lean over her, enraptured, when she used it. She played and sang very well now: a thousand times better, Fred declared, than either of his sisters.

How long this might have gone on, and what would really have been the upshot, it is impossible to say; but, to Sophia's dismay and misfortune-yes, her deep, terrible misfortune-it was brought to an abrupt termination.

One day Mr. Rowley, a white-haired man of sixty, who had been a confidential clerk in the house for five-and-twenty years, and whom the clerks in general styled Old Row, left his own desk in the front office, gathered up some papers in his hand, and proceeded up-stairs to Mr. Lyvett's room, who was alone. We are not speaking now of old Mr. Lyvett, but of Frederick's father.

"What papers are those, Rowley? Canton's case? Anything arisen ?"

"No, sir. I only took them off the long desk, that some, down stairs, might not suspect I came up for anything else. I want to say a few words to you, sir, apart from business."

"What about?" asked Mr. Lyvett, in a quick tone. He was a stout man, with a pleasant eye and ready smile.

"And of course, sir, you will not hint to Mr. Frederick that you obtained your information from me. It would set him against me in a way that would be unpleasant. But I regard him and Mr. James more like my own sons, and if I do open my mouth now, it is because I think his interests demand that I should."

"Why, what is it?" inquired Mr. Lyvett, in surprise. "Has Fred been up to anything?"

What if he has ?"

"You know that May has got his daughter come home, sir?" "May? Down stairs? I know nothing about it. "She is a woman grown now, and a very sings like a professional, they say, and

66

handsome one. Plays and

Plays and sings " echoed Mr. Lyvett, bursting into a laugh. "May's girl?"

"She does, sir, and that's not half. They have clubbed together, May and his wife and that Aunt Foxaby, and given her a boardingschool education, and finished her off with French airs and graces."

"More fools they. But what has this to do with Frederick ?" "Why, he has made acquaintance in that quarter, sir, and I believe is over head and brains in love: otherwise he would never stand by her at that piano, by the hour together, as he does."

"Stands by her where ?" asked the lawyer, in doubt. piano?"

"What

"Their piano, sir. They have got one here, down in the kitchen." "A piano here!" repeated Mr. Lyvett, growing more astonished with each disclosure. 66

May?"

"It is true. And there's where Mr. Frederick spends his spare time."

"I'll piano him. But if May and his wife bring up their girl in this absurd way, what can they expect? Still, May is our servant, faithful