"Is dear Miss Price there?" she asked again. The old lady advanced to the bedside.

"God bless my darling!" she ejaculated. "You seem

somewhat revived."

"I am.

Where are the boys? I do not see them."

"They are coming, my love!"-said her husband. "Here they are!" And the two boys leaned forward to kiss her. She threw an arm gently round each, and gazed at them intently, murmuring blessings.-Miss Hastings beckoned Lord Carleton aside.

"Do not be deceived. She is very near her end. This sudden revival is but momentary. Farewell!—I will not intrude on the last scene. May God bless you, Frederick, and support you in this trying hour!"

"Ah, Margaret! There is another world for us all. There we shall meet again, freed from the sorrowful entanglements of this!" He pressed her hand, and led her to the door of the

room.

"Who is that I see outside the door?-some one in a black dress?" whispered Lady Carleton to Arundel, as he bent over her, and rested his cheek on hers.

"It is Maggie, dearest mother. Would you like to see her ?"

She came with her aunt.

"Yes, my dear, very much! Tell them to bring her in. Dear little Maggie !"

Lord Merle went to the door, and spoke a few words to his father, who immediately afterwards led Maggie into the room. When she stood beside the bed she ventured to look up at Lady Carleton.

Ah, Maggie, my dear! so you have come to see me!" said the invalid, stretching out a wan hand. The young girl sunk on her knees, and covered the hand with tears and kisses. The hand moved feebly, and rested on her head.—“ God bless you, Maggie! May you live to be such a woman as your aunt! Come near to me. I have a word to say."

Maggie, in a state of suppressed agitation, rose from her knees, and bent to catch Lady Carleton's words. No one else

heard them. Whatever they were, Maggie seemed powerfully moved. She clasped her hands, and said in a low, fervent tone, "I will, I will!"

The dying lady kissed her cheek, and Margaret was drawn away, sobbing, by Lord Carleton.

When she recovered, half an hour afterwards, she found herself being lifted by some one into a carriage-the cold frosty air restored her thoroughly. "Aunt! are you here? Where are we going?"

"We are going home, my child," said her aunt, tenderly, taking her in her arms.

Maggie felt some hot tears fall on her face. She started. Her aunt her cold, dignified aunt, was weeping.

"How is Lady Carleton ?" asked Margaret. "Did you leave her better ?"

"Well: perfectly well. She will never know earthly sorrow more!"

CHAPTER IX.

THE FORTESCUES AND MR. MORTON.

Grace

"Let thy kindred and allies be welcome to thy house and table. them with thy countenance, and further them in all honest actions'; for by this means thou shalt so double the bond of nature as thou shalt find them so many advocates to plead an apology for thee behind thy back. Be sure to keep some great man thy friend, but trouble him not for trifles." LORD BURLEIGH's Advice to his Son.

"All the delights of life, I say, would go to the deuce if people did but act upon their silly principles, and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. Whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly enough." Vanity Fair.

THE Fortescues and Mr. Morton were related to the Rabys of Carleton. Mr. Morton was the only brother of the countess, and Lady Fortescue was her only surviving sister. Six months after that lady's death, things were going on much as they did before in Raby House-as far as could be judged by the world. The Earl of Carleton was still the most influential

person in the Cabinet. He gave dinners, balls, private evenings. Lady Fortescue, a fashionable little woman, whose husband, Sir John, was one of the earl's party, presided at his balls. Lord Carleton never spoke of his wife. His health was disturbed by her death, and he was absent from business for two months; after which time he seemed to apply himself wholly to politics.

Lady Fortescue bore some resemblance to her sister. "Like all the Morton girls," old Miss Price said, "she was better than she seemed, but not half as good as she might have been." She was lively, good-natured, and rather clever. If she had higher qualities latent within her, Sir John was precisely the sort of husband not to call them forth. She was successful. She loved the world, and the world loved her. If thoughts beyond the world sometimes entered her mind, and made her grave, they never stayed there long enough to make her sorrowful:-except on the death of her sister, Caroline. She played hostess at Raby House to a select party a few months after Caroline's death; but the most heartless of the guests went away with the conviction that "Clarissa had hard work to keep down her feelings to-night!"

By the most heartless of the guests, I mean to indicate Lady Fortescue's brother, Mr. Morton. A heartless man does not mean a man without a heart—one who has given it all away to another, and remains without any for himself—that is, as all the world agrees, a witless, senseless man. No!-a heartless man means one who keeps his heart, with all its feelings and emotions, for his own private advantage. Such a man was Henry Morton-formerly the well-behaved school and college companion of his cousin, the Earl of Carleton, now Mr. Morton, M.P., his brother-in-law-heir-at-law to North Ashurst, and sole guardian of his nephew, Sir Willoughby Morton-the richest young baronet in the three kingdoms. It seems somewhat beside the mark to tell you of a man's connexions when I wish to convey an idea of the man himself, but I have insensibly fallen into the usual fashion in describing Mr. Morton. Yet Mr. Morton was by no means an

insignificant person-a mere cipher-good for nothing but to swell the total of the figures which it follows; he had plenty of brains—a craving for distinction—and a conscience neither over nice nor over wise. In short, he was about the last man in the world to be characterised as a mere nobody, or as

66 that sort of tool

Which knaves do work with called a fool."

Why, then, was it that the world valued Mr. Morton more for the sake of his brother-in-law and his nephew than for his own sake? Simply because Mr. Morton did so himself.

Mr. Morton had, besides the usual minor ones, two master vices, both utterly destructive of true dignity of character.I am by no means blind to the fact that a thoroughly brave man is a very rare creature, and a man utterly free from vanity still rarer; but Mr. Morton had more vanity than most men of his intellectual calibre, and less moral bravery. He was born with a clear, searching, sharp intelligence, which enabled him to see through the generality of men, and despise them. But he was also born with an inordinate love of admiration and a dastardly fear of the world.

Vanity and moral cowardice kept up a perpetual struggle in his breast: the one prompting him to do "deeds of high emprise," for the sake of the praise of man; and the other withholding him from the attempt, by the fear of exciting the enmity of those whom he must oppose, in order to succeed; and by the fear of complete failure.

By the time he was thirty he understood himself better than most of us do; and when he came to that sorry understanding he was not a whit the better for it. The Platonic axiom, "know thyself," when put into action, neither increased his wisdom nor his happiness. He saw nothing better for it than to go on doing, upon principle, what he had in youth done upon impulse-viz., to use all the cleverness of his head to cover the civil war always raging in his heart. He had a hard life of it. I never saw a man upon whose countenance care and bitterness had more distinctly set their seal.

Mr. Morton's talent for diplomacy and finance was well

known, and Lord Carleton availed himself of it; giving in return the semblance of his friendship, This was useful in many important ways to Mr. Morton.

One word as to his outward man:-Mr. Morton was studiously polished in manner-in person he was tall, thin, handsome, and aristocratic; with a quick glance of the eye, and a weak, conceited, yet implacable jaw. The mouth was small, clever-mobile, and decidedly dishonest; the upper lip was too long. It was a mouth made for lying, flattery, and sarcasm. The nose was aquiline and handsome, but rather too large, though not sufficiently so to give weakness to the face. The forehead was narrow and high-the hair of a good brown-abundant, and fine in quality. The complexion, originally of a beautiful white and red-like his sister's, had become of a pale drab hue, which women thought was the effect of ill-health and over-study. It was only the effect of the evil feelings secretly and constantly at war in his heart; they had made him bilious and ill-tempered.

He wore his hair like the portraits of the men of the golden age of good Queen Bess, and he was vain of this resemblance. When every one wore powder and a smooth chin, he ventured to go about with short curled hair and a pointed beard. This audacity met with its reward in time. Many a pretty woman who believed that no man could be anything but frightful without powder and a queue, made an exception in favour of Mr. Morton.

"That strange style is really becoming to him!"—" There is something quite picturesque about it."-"He looks like a courtier of the Elizabethan age."-"Really his head has quite a poetic look!"-"A very interesting, thoughtful face!”"How cleverly he talks, too-so much wit and sarcasm! "I dare say he is a poet!"-Thus the female fashionables judged of Mr. Morton's face. It had some characteristics of the Elizabethan age, for it was astute, shrewd, and grave with the wisdom of this world.-Mr. Morton at three-andforty was still a bachelor. He rejoiced in the possession of the implicit confidence and boundless admiration of the wild