THE BEST OF HUSBANDS.

CHAPTER I.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

"WAS Milbank at the manufactory this morning, Maggie?" "Do you mean John or Richard, father?"

Old Mr Thorne looked up from his occupation, which was that of engraving something very neat and delicate on a steel plate, and regarded his daughter with a look that was at once tender and grave. Constant intentness on very minute work had deepened the furrows which age had made on his bald forehead, but he was not, in reality, very far advanced in life. As he removes the magnifying-glass, which, while engaged in his calling, is habitually fixed in his eye, you can see how bright and blue it is, and keen as steel.

"How should I mean Richard Milbank, Maggie? Even when his uncle Thurle was alive, it was rare to see him at his post; but now that death has taken the old man, and Richard's interest no longer urges him to attend to business, it is not likely that he would do so from mere duty. I meant John, of course."

"John was at the factory, as usual," answered the girl

A

quietly. She, too, was engaged in the same employment as her father, and apparently so wrapt in it that she did not even look up at him, though the blush that had risen to her very brow told that what he was saying did not pass unheeded. She was of slight and graceful form, with sloe-black hair and eyes, and a complexion so very colourless that it suggested delicacy of constitution. It was no wonder that it should be so, for there was little fresh air to be got at Hilton, one of our great "centres of industry" in the Midlands, and the Thornes lived in the heart of the town.

Their house was a substantial one enough, though small, and not having any appearance of a shop in its outward aspect. Mr Thorne's customers were not the general public, but he served certain master manufacturers, among others, Matthew Thurle, now, however, lying dead at his little country-seat at Rosebank. His workshop was on the first floor, and had the aspect of a savant's apartment, rather than that of a mechanic -the walls being hung with scientific instruments of various kinds, and the tables strewn not only with articles of his trade, but with abstruse books, and papers full of calculations. fact was, he was only a mechanic by necessity; by choice he was an inventor, and, as usual, he had suffered for his ingenuity. He found it difficult, even with the help of clever Maggie, to keep his head and hers above water-or rather, at the level, which, as it was, did but barely satisfy him. It was summer time, and the window of the back-room was opened wide, revealing a sort of arbour built upon the leads without, which a few inches of earth had transformed into a flower-plot.

The

"You look pale, Maggie, darling; come out into the air for a few minutes; I want to speak to you." The old man stepped out into this improvised garden, which, though bright with sweet-smelling blossoms, commanded no better view than the backs of houses like their own, and a broad, black space, immediately beneath it, across which flashed, many times in

every hour, with a roar and a rattle that shook the street, the trains of the London and Hilton Railway. It took a great deal of Maggie's spare time to cleanse this little Eden from the "blacks" and other defilements which the iron horse thus cast upon it; but with the help of a little hand-engine, constructed by her father himself, she contrived to do so. The garden on the leads was the wonder of the neighbourhood, and especially its arbour, over which the creepers had been so skilfully trained that it formed a very tolerable bower, secure from prying eyes. Here Mr Thorne took his seat; and after a minute or two, during which she employed herself in methodically putting away her work-either from force of habit, or in order to gain time to marshal her thoughts in readiness for the coming interview-his daughter joined him. "When you were away, lass, this morning, I received an invitation to Mr Thurle's funeral. Did John speak of it, when you saw him at the factory?"

"No, father; not a word." Her tone was cheerful, considering the subject of which she spoke; and her air was one of relief, as though she had expected him to broach some topic more unwelcome.

"That was strange too," continued the old man, was he himself who sent me the invitation."

"since it

"Then I think he ought not to have done so," returned Maggie quickly. "It was taking too much upon himself. It was taking for granted-for one thing-that his elder brother would be disinherited, and that he would be his uncle's heir."

"Nay, nay; you do John wrong-as you often do, Maggie. He wrote in his brother's name as well as his own; and there was no assumption at all about it. He did not say so 0; but my impression is Richard would have nothing to do with the matter at all. There is nothing more to be got from his uncle now; he has done his worst towards him, whatever it