dignity. Yes, there was a homely dignity about him; and his manners, though these were blunt and unsophisticated, were no longer laboured and artificial. He had ceased to think of what had become in a measure habitual to him. Other and infinitely heavier considerations had totally outweighed social dogmas, and from the moment that he had regained his liberty in this respect, the man and the gentleman at heart shone out in his words and actions. Where there is no longer anything to conceal, and not a grain of pretence, there may still be rusticity, but there is no room for vulgarity and pettiness.

Heated hot with burning fears,

And dipped in baths of hissing tears,
And battered with the shocks of doom
For shape and use,'

Sir William was a rustic gentleman, but he was not unworthy to rank with the best, not the worst, of the class to which he had risen. Iris was able to comprehend how a young gentlewoman, a little rustic herself, rather masculine, after the fashion of the generation, in temper and training, with a natural impatience, and scorn of forms and ceremonies and nice outward distinctions, should fra

ternize with a Sir William, and hold him in sincere esteem, even in high regard, in defiance of what carping people persistently remembered and chronicled against him.

It was impossible for Sir William not to respond within limits to the generosity and kindness of the girl, as he had done long ago without bounds in more difficult circumstances, to the generosity and kindness of another girl. It was therefore quite true that he was on very good terms with Marianne Dugdale, to the extent of submitting to be chaffed by her, as if it were a pleasure to him, and of bluffly chaffing her in return, as he had never dreamt of chaffing Iris Compton. It was perfectly possible that something—a great deal-might come out of these terms.

But Iris soon discovered that another puppet was to play his part in the little drama, a puppet with such strength of feelings, hopes, and wishes, that he threatened to produce a serious complication of the plot. Ludovic Acton had been at Greenwich before the date of Lady Fermor's arrival in London. He had been commanded both by his mother and Lucy to call immediately on his father's most difficult parishioner. Being greatly

under female commanders from the moment he put his foot on shore, he had reported himself at Kensington Gore before Iris was transplanted there. He had done it in the way of duty, and with the usual failure of poetic justice in the affairs of men, in the very act of filial, fraternal, and neighbourly goodwill he found himself, as he had soon to own with a groan, 'completely done for.'

King Lud had happened to pay his first visit when Lady Fermor was not out of her room, and he was handed over to a wonderful dark-eyed girl, with a little mouth, a square chin, a square yet symmetrical figure, altogether, habited in a sort of workwoman's blouse, in which she did not seem to feel the least put out. She stepped briskly from the conservatory, where she had been knitting her brows, and pouting her lips over the dilapidated rock-work, the rolled-up tarpaulin which ought to have shaded the roof, the syringes which would not spout water, the sickly plants ravaged by the green fly. She scarcely waited to hear his name, and to listen to his modest explanations and apologies for intruding on an unknown young lady, before she told him :

'Oh! I know who you are' (it is a wonder she did not say, 'I know all about you'). 'You are the son of the Rector down at Lambford. Your people said you would call, and I am glad, because sailors are handy, and you may be able to help me. Come and see the disgraceful wreck of a London conservatory.'

King Lud went and saw and worked with Marianne Dugdale for half an hour, and did not conquer, unless in the trifles of nailing up some of the higher dropping-down cork rock-work, erecting the tarpaulin in its proper place, clearing out the pipes of the syringes and playing them on the astonished green fly. As if that were not enough for the entomological specimens, Marianne gave her order, 'Smoke, Mr. Acton-smoke!" It was like the royal child's command to the wise and witty author of the 'Three Estates,' 'P'ay, Davie Lindesay-p'ay!'

King Lud, too, complied forthwith, consoling himself for having to light and puff a cigar in such a presence by the true conviction that those pretty fresh lips, frank and fearless as they were, had never been soiled by so much as a cigarette, for the country

Amazon of high degree is more innocent and unsophisticated than the same Amazon belonging to the town. He was conquered himself, hard hit, beaten to the wall at the first bout. He had never seen such eyes, or worked in company with such clean baby fingers. He had never met a girl so genuine, so original, so unconscious, so bright. might have added he had never been so warmly congratulated for small achievements, or so soundly rated for sundry little mistakes in the height and flutter of his admiration, in fastening the cork and the tarpaulín.

He

In his entire subjugation her Majesty's officer called again at Kensington Gore on the following day, under the poor pretext of renewing his smoking operations against the green fly, which the butler could do more effectually than a visitor could manage it. On his second call Ludovic saw Lady Fermor, and she who had never been deficient in hospitality to young men, made him free of the house during her stay in town. She did not withdraw this permission, as she might have done, when she found that the Rector's son availed himself of it on every possible and