library. She knew his footstep without turning her head, and she stopped.

"Do you keep your beautiful playing a secret, dear lady?” he asked, and leaned over the pianoforte.

There was a sense of mastery and possession somehow expressed in those low, quiet words, that could not have been felt better if he had called her by her name. Only the intimacy seemed all on his side, and she would have felt nearer to him if he had called her Georgy.

"It is not worth while to play, Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Lewis sing so well: and then playing is never called for."

"But do play some more now, if you are not tired what is that you have just finished ?"

She tried, but reality had dispelled it, and the music only came stammeringly forth the second time: so she played soft airs of Chopin's, and then fragments of Beethoven: which should precede no other music, for nothing can express the calm of passion like his. She played her very best, and it began to grow dark; still he did not seem weary of listening, and was leaning over the piano, with hist face, so full of intelligence and gentleness, very near hers.

"I must go now," she said: he made no opposition, but bent down still a little nearer, and putting up a lock of her hair, that was loose, half-laid his hand on her head for a moment, and then helped her to shut up the pianoforte. After this he made Mrs. Lewis ask her to play in the evenings, besides always reminding her of it himself. He would have done the same out of kindness to any one who had appeared to him to be thrown at all in the background. She waited now every night to be askedor told by him to play. Whatever he might have bidden her do, she would have done it.

A

CHAPTER VI.

She

GEORGY did not much relish the new arrivals of the next day; her tête-à-tête was broken in upon, never perhaps to be resumed. That Georgy would have liked Mrs. Erskine, had she been possessed of but half a claim to liking, there was no doubt; but to like her was not difficult: few could have done otherwise. was a tall, striking, handsome old lady, rather masculine, in her abrupt vehement manner. But she was only so in outward manner; in her inner being, she was perfectly feminine. It is so difficult to define why a quiet, well-mannered woman often strikes one after a little acquaintance as not sufficiently feminine. To a woman it is often more quickly discernible than to a man; not so much from a quicker perception, as that it is much less carefully veiled from her. Such a woman does not affect to be masculine in any way, and yet there is an instinctive feeling that something feminine is wanting; and that want is perhaps the faculty of heartily looking up to any one person or thing greater than herself. Mrs. Erskine always had had this, and had it still.

After an unhappy first marriage, she wedded, when no longer young, Mr. Erskine. She worshipped! her gentle and reserved husband, more yielding outwardly than herself, and never dreamt of trying to govern him; indeed, the people she loved always governed her, in spite of her positive, decided manner, and commanding air. Now that her husband was dead, more of her affections were given to James than to the children of her first marriage. She could not help it; they had only their own share of love, and her youngest son received both his and his father's. The house at Monklands, not far off, was hers; but except when any of her children were with her, she was little in it. She had lived many years there with Mr. Erskine, but justice forbade her to leave it to Mr. Erskine's son; and that was the true reason why she no longer cared for the place. Besides, her daughters had thought it dull, and persuaded their mother to go away from it; and now that they were married, Mrs. Erskine had lost the habit of living there.

Georgy always contrived to be near the old lady; indeed it was a very pleasant neighbourhood, she was so witty and kindly, so warm-hearted and unsophisticated: then Georgy made her talk, and she fell into the snare, and often talked about her own concerns. Georgy had never remembered that some people in the world must know Mr. Erskine inti

mately besides his mother; all the people here knew him, and seemed to live on strangely oblivious of that privilege, bearing it very lightly. Mrs. Lumsden generally spoke of him as Jim Erskine: she boldly affirmed that he admired her, and declared that he was a capital fellow, and that she doated on him: "indeed he had two inestimable qualities in a man. He would make a delightful lover and a perfect husband; so few had capacity enough for both.”

Mrs. Lumsden was a rattling, well-dressed, little woman, with a lovely pink and white complexion ; well-mannered, well-bred, in the drawing-room for the first half-hour, or perhaps evening, but of thoroughly bad style in reality: she was quick, and had entire confidence in herself, saying whatever first occurred to her. Mrs. Erskine had rather a distaste for the little lady; and it was amusing to see her disapprobation, and then her perfect goodShe admired her spirit; though she said it was carrying it off bravely-" when you knew that a person did not like you, to declare that they worshipped you."

nature.

The whole party were lounging about in the drawing-room after breakfast, and Mrs. Lumsden had rushed into an epitome of a French book, not much adapted for the perusal of quiet English families. Mrs. Lewis was silent; and Mrs. Erskine, for a wonder, had not read it, but only heard of it: