"No-I am not good at all. If you wish to stay longer, you can take your carriage and servants there; and I can go to town in my britska, instead of cramming it with our men and women servants, as we had intended."

Louisa's countenance fell.

The way in which he treated the whole affair; the carelessness with which he spoke of her sister-that sister so unspeakably precious in her eyes! The facility with which a separate journey to town was arranged-arranged merely to spare him the ennui of spending a few hours in company with those she so tenderly loved. The indifference with which he proposed a separation-a separation apparently so immaterial to him, so infinitely painful to her.

Luckily, she was not much in the habit of analyzing or dwelling upon her feelings. She answered instinctively.

"Oh, no! thank you, my Lord. Don't let our plans be changed. Indulge me with an

hour of my sister's company on the way-that

is all."

"As you like best," was his careless answer. "All I bargain for is—no delays upon the road -I detest them, when I am once en train."

CHAPTER XII.

THEY set out upon their journey.

Lord William, like other men, spoiled by early adulation and indulgence, was accustomed to consider himself as a privileged person; as one, to whose slightest wish or convenience that of all others was of course to give way. Like the grand monarque, he expected that all around him should be in the undeviating enjoyment of good health; he had an especial dislike to any one belonging to him being sick, and requiring of those attentions and indulgences which,

any

in such cases, may justly be called necessaries.

He was little accustomed to watch for or to

perceive the signs of suffering or languor; he disregarded, because he did not understand them.

In consequence of this temper Louisa, too young and timid to complain, was hurried at the speed four horses could carry her; and often from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, upon the road to London.

Yet jaded, fatigued, and half dead, as she was, light beat her heart as the carriage entered Elmsly, and stopped at the well-known archway of the Red Lion Inn.

She had scarcely attention or civility enough in her power to acknowledge the low bows of the burly landlord, as he did everything which it lay in the power of bows to do, to prove the deep reverence with which he now beheld the sister of Mrs. Phillips, transformed, as she was, into the Lady William Melville. She was too much in a hurry to be amused with, or even to

observe this civility. Her spirits were in a flutter that she could not control.

Lord William alighted at the inn. Louisa directed her servant to the well-known spot where her sister was to be found, and the carriage drove on.

It stopped at the little gate which opened upon a narrow shrubbery at the back of the house; and forbidding the postillions to drive to the front entrance, she sprang out, and was through the narrow path and in the house in

a moment.

No one was to be seen below, the ever-open door admitted her. It was that important day in small households-washing day: the servants were all engaged-Mary must be up stairs—it was even so; and to the nursery she flew.

Mary was watching her sleeping infants. Louisa opened the door softly, and looked into the little temple of domestic happiness.

The room was small, and the furniture simple to