detestable daughters, to yield to your supremacy. Let Mrs. Hope the younger fully eclipse Mrs. Hope the elder, and all her tribe. Try this kind of life, Lilian, and give it one real, determined trial; begin at once. Let me aid you. I was born for better things than helping Elizabeth to keep house at home. I have genius, I know; I only want scope and opportunity; and how can I use my talents more laudably, than in ensuring the happiness of my sister?"

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But, Eleanor! shall I be happy? Something tells me I too was born for higher and better ends than those I have all my life pursued. And yet-I hardly know what I mean, dear; there is another life even in this world, of which you and I know nothing. Alice Rayner spoke of it. Eleanor, what makes Alice

happy"

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"I am sure I do not know; perhaps she is not really happy."

"Yes, she is really and truly happy. If you talk with her for ten minutes you cannot doubt it; and yet, Eleanor, see how she suffers, with no prospect of anything like recovery."

"I cannot imagine," returned Eleanor, "what is the secret of her content; she is an actual puzzle

to me."

Perhaps it is," said Lilian, in a low voice, "that the life of the world to come is so beautiful, so glorious, and so sure, that the troubles of the way are no more to her than hindrances to a traveller who is sure to reach his home before night."

"Yes, she is very religious," answered Eleanor, drily. "That hardly seems the right term to apply to Alice. I have known many people who were what is called 'very religious,' but they were quite unlike her-as impatient and discontented as you or I could ever be."

"It seems, then, there are two kinds of religion." "I suppose there is but one real kind, and all the rest are imitations, more or less resembling the true sort.'

"But how are we to know the true from the base coin ?"

;

"I don't know, Eleanor. Sometimes I wish I did everything seems so hollow, so unsatisfactory. Difficulties spring up, where one least expects them; just when one feels securest, something gives way, and the future looks dark and unpromising. If I did but know Alice's secret!"

"Ask her," said Eleanor, shortly, for this serious conversation annoyed her.

"I have asked her often, and she has told me, and to a certain extent I understand her; but, Eleanor, the knowledge only reaches my comprehension-it does not come into my heart, and I think and think till I am weary. I am sometimes afraid I shall live to find my life a burden to me. Even this little darling that God Himself has given me, will not always fill the void I often feel. One feels as much alone sometimes, as if one were solitary on earth, without ties or kindred."

"Lilian, dear, you are low-spirited to-night," said Eleanor, soothingly. "Coming into the drawing-room has wearied you; remember you are not strong yet, and Basil's defection has put you about. You shall go to bed now, and think about my recipe for happiness. I am sure Basil will approve it. As soon as ever you are quite well, you must give a large party, though Basil and Mrs. Howard both say there will be nobody in town till after Easter; still I dare say you may put down as many names on your list as you wish at beginning."

She

Wearied and dispirited, Lilian went to bed. lay awake, expecting Basil would come home and visit

her chamber, as he always did the last thing. But the hours wore on, and she fell into an uneasy slumber, and dreamed that she and Eleanor were dancing at a crowded ball, and that Basil turned away from her, reproaching her as he went. And she too turned away from the gay scene, full of bitterness and anguish of heart; and she saw Alice Rayner far off, no longer worn with suffering, but radiant and beautiful as an angel. She strove to reach her, but there was a dark, deep sea between them, and she was left quite alone in the world. She awoke, her whole frame shaking with bitter sobs, and all was still; she was in her own chamber, the baby sleeping peacefully by her side, and the night-lamp burning low in the socket.

CHAPTER IX.

THE GAY WORLD.

"All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune;

Till a silence fell with the waking bird,

And a hush with the setting moon."-TENNYSON.

MORE than a year had passed since the conversation thus recorded. It was a beautiful summer, and the height of the London season; and while the woods and dells of old England were donning their loveliest array, and wooing the passer-by to tarry among their green fragrant depths; while roses and woodbine were wreathing the hedgerows in the bowery lanes, and

while the restless sea was lifting up his softest voice, and breaking in deep-toned murmurs on the rock and the shingle, or quietly rippling on the cool firm sand, the votaries of the great world were thronging concert and ball-rooms, or taking the air in the dusty ring of the Park, caring little or nothing for the blue sweeping streams, the breezy commons, and the sweet leafy nooks that were far away from the hot, bustling, noisy town.

It was past noon, and a broiling midsummer day. Lilian lay rather carelessly attired on a couch, in her dressing-room. Eleanor lounged in a luxurious fauteuil. The breakfast things were on a small table between them.

Lilian's beauty was now thoroughly matured. She had become an extremely beautiful woman-more perfect grace and loveliness were not to be found amid the fairy-like forms who nightly thronged the dazzling haunts of gaiety. Yet, there was something gone from the sweet brow and the deep, earnest eye, that, in other days, gave Lilian's expressive features their chief loveliness.

The "Lily of Brough-dale" was a flower of fashion now. She was changed since those innocent girlish days, when she poetized under the shadow of the apple-trees in the old garden at home; and still more changed from the clinging, shrinking bride, who had almost withered in the dry atmosphere and sapless soil of Hopelands.

Lilian and her husband had never been to Hopelands since they ceased to be residents there, but Mrs. Hope and three of her daughters were now in town. Theresa was no longer "an evangelical Sunday-school teacher"-that is to say, she no longer called herself one. Destiny, in the shape of a high-born, whitehanded, Puseyite curate, met her one day; and

straightway she was seen embroidering altar-cloths, and working at extraordinary vestments, which she called by names unheard of before, save in Olivia's stores of erudition. Then she took to walking three miles to the daily service at Brandscoombe; and, finally, Mr. Hope was one day almost electrified by the apparition of the Honourable and Rev. Ambrose Shrewsbury appearing in his library, and demanding, according to form, the hand of his third daughter, Theresa Margaretta!

Mr. Hope was so thoroughly taken by surprise, that he consented on the spot, although he cordially detested this clerical sprig of the aristocracy, and had already settled in his own mind that, if he were indeed a legitimate successor of the apostles, it must be from Judas Iscariot that his line of descent was traceable. Nevertheless, Mr. Hope would not retract his hastilypledged word; and there is no doubt that, had he dared to do so, his son-in-law elect would have anathematized him there and then. Mrs. Hope fretted; Miss Hope was annoyed-she had a superstitious dread of a Puseyite, as of a Jesuit in disguise, and expected to be converted or perverted by storm, and forced to take the veil in the nearest convent. Olivia liked the connection, and began to read the tracts for herself. Harriet cared nothing about it; and so, in due time, Mr. Shrewsbury was preferred to an excellent living in the diocese of Exeter, and Theresa Hope became his wife-and, as Basil laughingly said, a "priestess." One or two

pungent witticisms on that most vulnerable subject, Tractarianism, caused him to be excluded from his sister's wedding; so he revenged himself by sending, as his nuptial gift, a crucifix, a rosary, and a missal, to be ready as soon as they should be needed! To his profound astonishment, they came not back again.

And now, having accounted for Mrs. Hope's pre