"Ellen! I have been waiting for you all the afternoon," he began, in a low tone, "and you never came out !"

66

No," she answered, "we were busy with our packing and preparations. I believe you know that mamma has let the house during her absence, so it was necessary to take an inventory of the furniture. Altogether, there has been a good deal to do to-day."

"The reason I so particularly wished to see you, Eleanor, was to say that I shall seek an interview with your mother this night."

She interrupted him with a startled, beseeching exclamation. "Yes, Eleanor, for it is my duty," he said. "I have deferred to your fears longer than I ought. Before Mrs. Seymour leaves, she must be informed how we stand to each other."

"It is but seeking our separation," she returned, with emotion.

"Ellen," he answered, in a tone of impassioned earnestness, "I cannot see it in the light you do. I can give you a good position in society; my father comes forward with the offer of liberal settlements; my family are all anxious to receive and love you. I know that Mrs. Seymour has prejudices in favour of hereditary rank, and that I can boast only of being one of the people. Still, my dearest, when she knows that our whole future happiness is at stake, she will forget these prejudices." "She never will," returned Eleanor.

"My mother arrived from Paris to-day," resumed Mr. Marlborough, "and she intends to make some stay in the town, purposely, Eleanor, to become acquainted with you. To-morrow, she will call upon Mrs. Seymour-after our explanation."

"Oh, George," she interrupted, in an imploring tone, "delay this explanation till mamma's return! Let us at least have a few more weeks of happiness together."

"When you are my wife, Ellen," he returned, half jokingly, half lovingly, "I shall lecture you for an aptness to be unreasonable. Do you not see that I am bound in honour to speak to your mother before her departure?"

Eleanor did see it: she was a girl of sound sense and right feeling, but she would willingly have delayed the explanation, for her dread of it was great. At the end of the crowded pier, when the party turned, and Mrs. Seymour saw who was her daughter's companion, she bent her head coldly and haughtily to Mr. Marlborough, and called Eleanor to her side. But several of her own companions, her friends, eagerly welcomed George Marlborough. Young, rich, handsome, and attractive, they were willing to take him as he was, devoid of " ancestry."

When Mrs. Seymour reached her residence, on her return from the pier, Mr. Marlborough alone remained with her, for the others had dropped off, one by one. She motioned to Eleanor to enter.

"Good night, Mr. Marlborough," she coldly said.

"Can I be permitted to have five minutes' conversation with you?" he rejoined, by way of reply. And Mrs. Seymour, with a slight gesture of surprise, a movement of her haughty eyelids, led the way to the drawing-room. Eleanor flew up-stairs to her chamber, and there waited and listened, her hands trembling, her temples throbbing, her heart sick with suspense and agitation..

An interval of about ten minutes elapsed-it seemed to Eleanor like as many hours, if time may be reckoned by anxiety-when the drawingroom bell was rung. Not loud and fast, as if her mother were in anger, but quietly. What was it for? For her? If so, could it be that he was accepted? The next moment, she heard Mr. Marlborough's step in the corridor, and he was shown out of the house. He was rejected then! and Eleanor sank on a chair, and covered her aching eyes. Her disappointment was very bitter.

The bell rang sharply now, and a summons came for Eleanor. She trembled, from head to foot, as she went down.

"Eleanor!" began her mother, in her sternest tone, "you knew of this application to me to-night?"

Eleanor could not deny it, and, frightened and agitated, she burst into tears, by way of reply.

"You may well cry," retorted Mrs. Seymour, angrily. "The disgrace of having encouraged the addresses of an iron man! It is iron: he made no scruple of avowing it."

Eleanor wept silently.

"Look at his family, all iron too! do you think they are fit to mate with ours? His father was nothing but a working man, and has made his riches by actual labour. You are no true daughter of mine, Eleanor, to have suffered yourself to become attached to this Mr. Marlborough.” Eleanor shivered: but she had nothing to answer.

"I hope I may be forgiven for plotting and planning prospects, when I ought to have left all to Providence," proceeded Mrs. Seymour, growing somewhat agitated herself, "but I have long cherished a hope that you would become the wife of John Seymour."

Eleanor looked up in surprise, and shook her head.

"Mother," she

said, "I do not like Lord John Seymour. I never shall-except as a relative."

"Ugh!" growled Mrs. Seymour. "Listen. I have not accepted the proposals of this Mr. Marlborough; but I have not rejected them." Eleanor's heart leaped within her. "I must say, they seem to be rolling in money-for commoners. He says there's a fine country seat

of theirs, which will be settled on you, and be your home, and that I may also make it mine: indeed the settlements he mentioned were altogether liberal; but these low people are often lavish of their wealth. It was surprise at his magnificent offers that caused me to hesitate before rejecting him. So now, if you can make your mind up to abandon your rank, and enter a family who never had, by descent, a crest or a coat-ofarms, you must do so. Mr. George Marlborough obligingly assured me your life's happiness was centred in him."

Mrs. Seymour spoke with the most ineffable contempt, but there was a sweetly joyous feeling diffused through Eleanor's heart.

"No reply now," continued Mrs. Seymour, arresting the words on Eleanor's lips. "Take this night to reflect on the advantages you enjoy in an unblemished descent, remember the halo that surrounds the aristocracy, and ponder well before you obstinately put yourself without its pale. To-morrow, Mr. Marlborough can receive his answer.' The morrow came; and George Marlborough was the accepted husband of Eleanor. "What will the family' say ?" groaned Mrs. Seymour.

II.

CLASS was over for the day, and the girls were tired enough. They hated Fridays. There was no dancing, no drawing, no walking; nothing but writing, learning, and strumming on the everlasting old pianos. And they had been up at five, studying for the prizes.

Some of the elder girls, their ages varying from sixteen to twenty, were sitting on a bench before the first-class desk-table. Those, in the middle, sat very back; those, towards the ends, very forward; and the two outer ones were turned sideways, each an elbow on the desk; so they formed a sort of half-circle, and were gossiping away in English, in defiance of rules. The teachers were fatigued, like themselves, and were mostly at a distance, paying little attention.

Rose Darling was the middle girl. She was one of the wildest creatures that ever went into a school, but she was lovely, clever, and as vain as a peacock. Her friends, aware of her random propensities, judiciously (or injudiciously) kept her at school longer than they would otherwise have done, and Rose was very rebellious over it. She had been only twelvemonths at Madame de Nino's, but she had her own way in the school, and would have it, did just as she liked, was always in scrapes, or getting out of them, and was much courted and invited out by different friends in the town. One of her propensities was to be continually falling in love. She used to boast about her conquests, and, nearly every time she went out, would, on her return, favour the girls with the description of some fresh gallant who had laid siege to her heart. The last idea of the sort had lasted longer than usual. A gentleman, whom she had only seen at church, or in their walks, was the object. She did not know his name, but he was remarkably handsome, and Rose raved of him.

"Where did you see him?" she whispered to Carry Davis, who had been fetched out that afternoon, and had just returned, and told Rose she had met her fiancé, as he was called in the school.

"In the Grande Rue," replied Carry. "He was strolling up it. My aunt bowed to him."

"I know he was watching for me! these horrid Friday evenings! What a fool you were, Davis, not to ask his name. I vow I'll find it out before many days are over."

"Just see how those French cats are eavesdropping!" exclaimed Carry Davis. "They'll go and tell Mademoiselle that we are speaking English."

"There's a new pupil come in to-night," observed Charlotte Singleton, in the very best French she could call up, for one of the teachers was nearing the class.

"Not a pupil," returned Adeline de Castella, the only truly beautiful French girl who ever entered the school, and she had a name and a face fitted for a romance in history. "She is only coming on a visit to Madame, during her mother's absence in England."

"Who is she?" asked Rose. "What's her name?"

"Eleanor Seymour," replied Adeline. "She left school before you came. They live here, but she has been away from the town until lately,

paying visits. She comes of your haute noblesse, but they are very poor.'

"Oh of course; those poor people are sure to be somebody-if you believe them," ejaculated the cynical Emma Mowbray, relapsing into English again.

"Her mother is the Honourable Mrs. Seymour; she was the daughter of Lord Loftus," returned Adeline, who spoke English fluently, and understood our grades of rank and titles as well as we do.

"How old is she? grown up?"

"Oh yes : about twenty," cried Mary Carr. "She is a favourite with everybody."

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Le souper, mesdemoiselles," called out Mademoiselle Henriette, the head teacher.

Eleanor Seymour made her appearance in school the next morning. She was to be treated, at her own request, quite as a pupil; sitting in the schoolroom, and joining in the studies when she chose. A pale girl with long dark hair, delicate features, and an exceedingly sweet expression of countenance. Rose Darling disliked her at once, as she did all who had unusual pretensions to beauty; and she began to set up, in her heart, a sort of rivalship. Miss Mowbray also took a strange dislike to her, but Emma Mowbray's disposition was violently envious. Miss Seymour certainly presented a contrast to the majority of the school-girls, with her nicely-arranged hair, her flowing lilac-muslin dress, and her delicate hands. School-girls invariably display red hands, and Madame de Nino's pupils were no exception, save Rose Darling and Mademoiselle de Castella. Adeline's were naturally beautiful, and Rose took such care of hers, wearing gloves in bed with some mysterious pomatum inside them, and gloves, with the fingers cut off, all day in school. The girls, too, were habited anyhow; ugly cotton dresses and faded mousselines de

laines.

"Well," cried Rose, snappishly, "if she is to be one of us, she ought to dress consistently. Look how she's decked out!"

"Don't be envious, Rose," said Mary Carr. "It is said she is going to marry young Marlborough."

"Who's he?" cried Rose.

"Some rich gentleman, staying in the town."

"Rich!" repeated Rose; "rich and old, then, I conclude. I don't envy her. But catch me stopping here if I were going to be married. I'd have a runaway wedding first."

And so she would.

The next day was Sunday, and long before the hour for church, Rose Darling was dressed, and striding restlessly about the room, worrying the others to get ready.

"You are impatient," remarked Miss Seymour to her. "It is not time."

"And you would be impatient also, if you had somebody waiting for you there, as I have," retorted Rose.

"She means her lover, Miss Seymour," laughed Bessie Clark. pretty sort of lover though, for they have never yet spoken."

"A

"I know he loves me," cried Rose, earnestly. "He never takes his

eyes off me in church, and every glance speaks of love."

(

"He looks up at the other schools as much as at us," remarked Miss Carr, "like all the rest of the young men do. It's fine fun for them, having girls' schools to stare at.'

"And if he does look at Rose," added Emma Mowbray, sneeringly, "he only pays back a tithe of the glances she gives him, and, love or no love, he would be very ungallant not to do that."

"Last Thursday," cried Rose, unheeding this reproof, "he smiled and took off his hat to me, as we passed him in the street."

"But little Annette Duval said she saw you nod to him first," said Miss Carr.

"Annette Duval's a story-teller," raved Rose. "I'll box her ears, when she comes in from Mass. The fact is, Miss Seymour, the girls here. are all jealous of me, for he's one of the divinest fellows that ever walked upon legs. You should see his eyes and his auburn hair!”

When the school took their seats in the British chapel, Rue du Temple, as many of them as were in Rose's secret, glanced down at the pew usually occupied by her lover, as they all styled him. He was not there, but presently he came up the aisle with a lady and a little girl.

"There he is!" whispered Rose exultingly to Miss Seymour, who sat next her. "Is he not handsome?"

"Where? Which?" asked Eleanor.

"Going in to a pew down stairs, just opposite to us, in the middle aisle. He is handing in the little girl; she is in pink; the lady's in halfmourning. I wonder who they are. Oh! he's looking up! Look at his dancing blue eyes! Don't you envy me?"

"What of him?" repeated Eleanor.

"It is he, I tell you-whom the girls tease me about-I trust my future husband. For that he loves me, I am positive."

Eleanor Seymour's face flushed crimson, and just then the gentleman looked up towards the gallery, and a bright smile of recognition, unmistakably meant for some one in Madame de Nino's school, spread over his features. Rose took it to herself.

"Did you all see that?" she whispered, right and left. "Who took first notice now?"

When the service was concluded, Rose rushed, post haste, out of the pew, and the rest followed her; contrary to all precedent, for the schools usually wait till last. But the previous Sunday, Rose had been too late to see him, he had already gone. And this, as the event proved, she was as much too early. She tried to linger, but Mademoiselle Clarisse, who was in an ill-humour, because she had forgotten the French novel she had meant to take to church to read, marched them off at a swinging pace, grumbling and scolding at their having pushed so rudely out.

"Is he not a fascinating man?" ejaculated Rose to Miss Seymour, as they entered the dressing-room.

"The glossiest fabrics are often the worst to wear," called out Bessie. Clark.

"If ever there were truth and faith in man, it is in him,” cried Rose, vehemently. "He will make an enchanting husband."

"You have not got him yet."

"Bah! did you all see the look and smile he gave me?

There was