this one insight into the inner life she had so carefully shrouded from all other eyes. It would account for those inconsistencies which she felt must strike her sister's quick perception, both in her own and Philip's

manner.

"But your friends-his family?"

"I conclude they attribute it to the mistake he made in his marriage;" and her lip curled scornfully; "to me no allusion has ever been made on the matter. And, after all, it is but an every-day occurrence, I dare say, if we could go into other homes and get a look behind the scenes."

"God help you, Ethel," Margaret exclaimed, as she kissed her sister sorrowfully and went back to her own room.

Her

Ethel stood for a moment after she had dismissed Valerie. bosom heaved, and her eyes were red with weeping; but the feeling that Margaret knew some of her trials, that at least she was sure of her sympathy, softened and subdued the wounded pride which was hourly hardening her against her husband. Valerie had said she believed his Lordship was not quite well, and had gone to bed directly after Miss Leigh had left the drawing-room. Perhaps she ought to go to him. Once she would have done so. She put her hand on the door which separated his dressing-room from hers. She tried to turn the handle; it was bolted. Her good resolutions wavered. In withdrawing it, the lock made a rebound, and the click awoke Philip.

"Holloa! who's there?" he asked, in the tone of a man suddenly awoke out of his first sleep.

"It is I,-Ethel!" she replied nervously, regretting she had been weak enough to try the door at all. The night-bolt suddenly slipped back, and Ethelind opened the door a few inches.

"I am sorry I disturbed you, Philip; I would not have done so had I known the door was fastened," she said meekly. "Stephens told me you were not well,-that you had a headache, and had come home early and gone to bed. Can I get you any thing? Is it better?”

"Stephens is an old fool to have said any thing about it," was the not very civil reply. "How late you are! why I have been asleep these three hours. My head is all right now, thank you; go to bed yourself, -these late hours are enough to kill a horse."

And poor little Ethie closed the door softly, drew the bolt on her side, and sat down to harden her softened and repentant heart by all the miserable suggestions which a half-waking, half-sleeping brain never fails to conjure up.

On the day of the drawing-room, Ethelind took as much pains over Margaret's dress as if she had been a dowager mamma bringing out her first fair child. Barbara was called in to decide if Ethel's opals would not look well in Margaret's dark hair; but Margaret was not to be moved in her resolution against wearing any of her ornaments at all.

"Miss Atherton is right in refusing those opals," Ann Leigh said. "Beautiful as they are, they should be looked at, and not worn. I am

superstitious, perhaps, but I wore them once, at my first and last ball. I warned Ethel of it, when she had them reset. It strikes me she carries deeper lines on her face, and a less careless step and voice, since she used them."

The colour rose instantly over Ethel's cheeks. She snapped down the lid of her jewel-case. "If I only knew how to counteract all other evil influence as readily as I can undertake it with my opals," she added nervously, “I should be the happiest woman alive."

Lord Redenham accompanied Ethelind and her sister to the drawing

room.

While waiting for their carriages, with a bevy of fair girls and fat dowagers around them, Margaret constantly heard the question

"I say, do tell me who that girl is in the white dress and mauvecoloured train, standing with the Redenhams. She is not so pretty as Lady Redenham, but she is uncommonly like her. Do you think she can be a sister?"

Once she heard a reply. The voice came from behind, and made her heart beat.

"That is the eldest daughter of the late Dean of Wylminstre, and sister to Lady Redenham."

"I thought so by the striking family likeness, though she is certainly not so good-looking."

The deep tones reached her again. "You would not have said so if you had known her ten years ago."

"Do

you know them?"

"Lady Redenham, well! her sister I knew once, but we are strangers

now."

Lord Redenham touched Margaret's arm. "Our carriage waits; are you ready?" She started, but rose and followed her sister. At that very moment Horace Chudleigh came up to them.

"I have been trying to get to you for the last half-hour," he said; "but those stupid old women jam up the door-ways, and prevent a fellow from moving hand or foot."

"How well Vyvian looks in his uniform!" Lord Redenham said, as the tall figure of an officer, striding up St. James's Street, caught Margaret's eye just as they turned into Piccadilly. "I told him, Ethie, we should expect him at your dance to-night."

Ethel glanced nervously at Margaret.

"And will he come?" she asked.

"To be sure he will!" and the subject dropped.

CHAPTER XXXV.

MARGARET was standing on the hearth-rug, talking to Ann Leigh. The light shone on her white moiré dress and the three-cornered bit of gold lace which Valerie had fastened into her back hair. Her small foot, in its white slipper, rested on the bright fender. Horace Chudleigh was by her side, amusing Miss Leigh with his humorous account of the adven

tures of the morning, and making them both laugh at the comic view he had taken of the whole proceedings, which, a few hours ago, had worn such a very serious and important aspect.

"You don't mean to sit still all the evening, Miss Atherton?" he asked, a little anxiously. "If you won't acccept me as a partner for old acquaintance' sake, at least you will do so for my uncle's."

"You are ingenious, to say the least of it, Mr. Chudleigh," Margaret replied; "and perhaps by and by, if you ask me for a quadrille, I won't refuse; but now I prefer looking on."

Margaret sat down by Ann's side, where she could see without being seen. She thought she had never seen her sister looking so sweet and bewitching. The opals gleamed in her hair and round her neck, and costly bracelets encircled her wrists; and the gold tissue of her shining gossamer dress gave a "shimmer" as she glanced from this side the room to the other, or stood, like "Titania," among the profusion of beautiful exotics which adorned the rooms.

Philip, who had come up and bent over Ann's sofa for a chat, had noticed "How pretty Ethelind was looking!" and "how well her dress became her!"

"Yes," Ann said, "and I think you ought to ask her to dance with you to-night."

"I dance with my own wife !-my dear Ann, people would say I had gone mad. Ethel herself would not thank you for giving her such a partner. No! my dancing days are over. Better perhaps for both if they had never come;" and he turned away into the crowd.

The dance was ended; the dancers were parading about to obtain air and ices. Presently Philip returned, bringing Guy Vyvian with him.

"Miss Atherton, allow me to present my friend, Captain Vyvian, to you," Lord Redenham said; and Margaret had to rise, and make a stiff, distant bow, and then again she tried to glide back to her low chair.

"Vyvian is a capital dancer, Miss Atherton, and I have brought him on purpose to tempt you to join in this valse they are beginning."

"Pray, assure Captain Vyvian I never valse, Lord Redenham," Margaret replied in a low voice.

Captain Vyvian coloured slightly, just bent stiffly to Margaret, and turned suddenly to speak to some one who was passing.

"Miss Atherton, you have frightened Vyvian away. I had taken great pains to bring him here, telling him I had the best partner for him in the room. He is an uncommonly good fellow, I can tell you. I don't know that I could wish a girl a better lot than to be that man's wife; and how he has remained single so long, I cannot think, for they are all in love with him, and he has a very good fortune, besides his good looks.” As soon as she could, Margaret glided out of a side-door near. the hall, leaning against the balustrade, she ran full against Guy Vyvian before she had time to retreat. He had to move to let her the stairs.

pass up

In

"And this is the result of all my good resolves," she exclaimed bitterly, as she bolted her door, and threw herself down on her sofa. "I, who thought I could have met him-nay, almost wished to do so-that I might show him we could be friends, even if we were nothing more."

She would have given a great deal to know if he had come to her of his own free will. It was clear he had not told Philip of their former acquaintance, or he would not have introduced them to each other as strangers. A tap at the door startled her. Ethel had sent to see what had become of her sister.

"I am coming," she said, hastily smoothing out her hair; and, arm in arm, she and Miss Gwynne entered the brilliantly-lighted drawingEthelind came up to her. She gave a scrutinising look, and quietly took her hand in her own.

room.

"Now, Maggie," she said, "I want you to dance. It is a quadrille next; you won't object to that. Will you dance with Redenham, if I ask him to be your partner?"

"No, no; do not ask Lord Redenham, Ethie. I heard him say just now his dancing days were over. Besides, I have already refused so many, I should perhaps give offence."

Captain Vyvian made one step forward, hesitated, and then fell back. Horace Chudleigh was before him.

"Miss Atherton promised me, Lady Redenham. I hope she will not disappoint me."

Margaret, afraid to raise her eyes, put her hand in his arm, and they went to join the set just forming.

"It is so long since I danced a quadrille, except with little children,” she said, "I am not sure I remember my figures. Mr. Chudleigh, you must put me right if I make any terrible blunders."

When Margaret turned, to her consternation, Barbara Leigh and Captain Vyvian were there vis-à-vis.

"There is no fear now," Horace Chudleigh whispered. "We have the two best dancers in the room."

Without giving herself time to think, Margaret turned to her partner. Barbara was laughing and talking in her highest spirits, while Guy looked gravely down on her bright animated face, and pretty light airy figure.

"Mamma was maintaining just now, Miss Atherton could not dance; that Quakers never did. I am sure she dances admirably-so much more quiet and lady-like than half the girls who stand up."

Guy replied, gravely, "Few people could dance better than Miss Atherton did once."

"Bless me, do you know her, then? I thought Redenham said he introduced you this evening."

Guy coloured. "It is some years since we met; I don't know her now. Soldiers are thrown amongst so many whom they seldom or ever meet again, they are scarcely likely to be recognised."

"Of course, you would remember her; she has such a very peculiarly

intelligent expression. Now, don't you think so? It takes a great deal to make me acknowledge beauty in people, especially when you hear girls cried up as so lovely, so sweet-looking, so very pretty—coarse, vulgar, unintellectual faces, without one good feature, or one redeeming expression. My opinion is, beauty has degenerated even in my day." And Barbara gave her head a conscious toss, as if she felt sure what the verdict must be in her own case.

"I am not a professed admirer of beauty, Miss Leigh," Guy said, "unless it has something more than mere regularity of features to recom

mend it."

"Well, then, you must agree with me that there is something in Miss Atherton perfectly different from any face you ever saw. Not so regularly formed as Lady Redenham's, but a sort of idealised spiritualism in it, which makes you think of the Madonnas of the old Italian painters."

Captain Vyvian was spared a reply. He had to go forward and take Margaret's hand. The tips of her gloved fingers just touched his broad palm. For a moment he felt inclined to let that touch say what words could not convey; but she turned round, and replied to something Horace Chudleigh was saying, without even a look towards himself, and he dropped the fingers coldly, and stepped back into his own place beside Barbara Leigh.

"Miss Atherton must be several years older than her sister," Barbara began again. "It is strange she is still single-and such a favourite, too, as she is with the gentlemen! My brother is quite bewitched by her, and Horace Chudleigh is losing his heart to her as fast as he can; see how they are laughing and chattering."

"Hang that girl, she will drive me mad!" Guy mentally exclaimed; and to change the current of his companion's ideas, he commenced the all-absorbing topic of the War, and the probable chances of his being called to join the troops already in the Crimea.

"I wonder what your Deignton pupils would say, if they could only see you as you are now, Miss Atherton," Horace Chudleigh said; "they would really believe in the truth of those fairy tales you used to improvise for them, that you actually were the possessor of Cinderella's glassslipper."

"Whatever the children might think, Mr. Chudleigh, your uncle would say—and I am quite ready to agree with him—that I was doing more good in my Deignton home than any thing I am performing here."

"I don't think you must say so, Miss Atherton; you cannot think how much brighter and happier Lady Redenham looks since you came. Then, too," he added, in a lower voice, "it has given me the opportunity of becoming acquainted with you."

"I wish some one could persuade Ethel to dance," Margaret said, as they finished their quadrille; "I don't think she has danced once tonight."

They separated; and whether Captain Vyvian had overheard her, or