which I spoke; the sense of presumption that is upon me now. I am really puzzled to know how I ever came to summon up courage to speak at all, I really am," said Mr. Jones, with a little smile-rallying himself, as it were-which had something pathetic in it, and touched Mabel to the quick. "I feel so unworthy to plead for your regard, so-if I may be permitted to word it in that way-so unsuitable, and yet, I am sure, very sure, that no one-I really feel very bold to assert myself on this point-no one could appreciate you more highly than I do, or "-here he drew a long breath-"love you more dearly."

The fingers he held grew sensibly colder, and he thought it better to release them.

"You are not vexing over what I say?" he said, tenderly. "I would not have you vex over anything for the world-I would not indeed. But the very fact that you have condescended-for, indeed, I feel it to be that condescended to see me here and now, seems to give me a right to speak out what is in my heart."

"It is very good of you to care for me so much, to wish to help those belonging to me for my sake," said Mabel, her voice low, even, passionless, but very, very gentle; "I have done nothing to deserve it. But I will try-I will always try to make-you -happy-indeed I will."

"Then I may take it that you consent to my suit; that you promise to become -my wife?"

The last word was difficult to get out, it nearly choked him. She had seemed to him as far out of his reach as one of the stars that gemmed the purple sky; and now here she was beside him-his own, not another's, but his very own.

"I am not so foolish, my-my dear child" -he hesitated a moment over this, as fearing she might think it too familiar; but the gentle face was still turned towards him, the lips a little parted, the eyes quiet and not unkindly-"as to expect too much at first. At my age, and in my position-a position so different to that of those among whom your lot has been cast-I should be foolish to look for any-well, any romance on your part. All I hope for is this-I hope, some day, to win your tenderness by the love and care given to you day by day, and year by year.'

At the words "year by year," a little shiver coursed through the girl's veins. They called up before her mind a very different picture to the one drawn by Mr. |

Jones. They suggested the vista of the years to be-years in which she should never meet the dark fond eyes of Charley Rowan; never hear his voice; never feel the touch of his dear lips on hers and the clasp of his strong and loving arms. But the mood of weakness passed.

"Am I turning coward so soon?" she said to herself, and rent her thoughts from the dear, dead past.

"You will be always good to me, I am sure," she said, smiling a weary little smile, that yet seemed to the man beside her as the glow of the blinding sunshine; and then, of her own free will and deed, she laid her hand once more in that of Amphlett Jones.

The man was stirred to the very centre of his being. He would have clasped her in his arms, and drawn her dear head upon his breast had he given way to the impulse of his heart, but something, intangible yet irresistible, held him back; some subtle instinct warned him that he would lose more than he would gain by precipitancy.

"Will you let me tell you," he said, speaking with a fond timidity that again touched her deeply, "how it has been with me, ever since I met you-nay, before I met you-for-do you know, dear, I fell in love with your picture! İ did, indeed. . . . You see I have lived among ledgers, and goods, and hard business interests all my life-and so you came upon me as a sort of surprise. I had never imagined—never dreamed-that the world held anything like you—indeed, imagination and dreaming have had but little place in my life, as you may suppose. It has all been stern reality with me. Dodson, my chief manager, you know, and I have been like a couple of old fossils digging away in a sort of underground existence; but now the sun of happiness is shining very brightly for me- so brightly that it almost dazzles me"

Even as he spoke Amphlett Jones was unable to refrain from wondering to himself what would be the said Dodson's expression of countenance if he could hear his chief talking in such a strain, or catch sight of that fair girl in the filmy, smokecoloured gown with pliant waist begirt by a silver belt what oh what

indeed ? . . .

Shade of Dodson, with lined face, pen behind your ear, lank and grizzled locks, and respectable coat of broadcloth for Sunday wear, answer if you can! But

ALL THE

"THAT'S perfect, Humphrey !" exclaimed Selma, gratefully.

Humphrey was sitting in his studio with a sketching block and water colours before him, and she had just come into the room, and was standing behind him looking over his shoulder at the sketch he was finishing. It was a bright morning a week after Humphrey and Helen's home-coming; the studio had quite lost its unlived-in appearance-it had never looked absolutely new, nothing in it being of recent manufacture -and it looked very picturesque and comfortable.

From the very first day, when they were all three engaged in putting finishing touches all over the new house, Helen had silently, but none the less heroically, considering how much she was to sit in it, registered a mental resolution never under any circumstances to attempt to put Humphrey's studio "to rights." She had helped him to unpack his properties, and to dispose of them-or, as she mentally characterised his proceedings, "to strew them about the room," without even wish ing to utter a protest. If it were one of Humphrey's characteristics to like a room which looked like nothing she had ever seen before, and in which she herself though of this she was quite unconsciouslooked ludicrously out of keeping, she was well content that such a room he should have. The trouble it would give in the

VOL. VI.-THIRD SERIES

PRICE TWOPENCE.

cleaning weighed for an instant only on her housewifely spirit; no trouble given by Humphrey's wishes could be considered by her for more than that space of time.

Consequently at the present moment Humphrey was seated at a table which seemed to the orthodox Helen to have no connection whatever with the rest of the room, but which gave her husband perfect satisfaction, both because of the admirable light which fell upon it, and because of the effect of its colouring against the colouring of a neighbouring curtain.

"It's just what I had in my mind. How delightful of you, Humphrey," went on Selma, as Humphrey leant back in his chair, and looked reflectively from his sketch to her face, and back again.

"What do you think of that?" he said, indicating the head-dress he had sketched, "Is it too simple?"

The dresses to be worn by Selma as Bianca at "the Duchess's matinée," as it was called, had been designed, for the sake of the Chinese, by a very fashionable artist indeed. They were beautiful dresses, and Selma looked her loveliest in them; but, to the dismay of every one concerned, she had declared that they were none of them in the least what Bianca ever would or could have worn, and that she herself in consequence would have nothing to say to them. After a great deal of discussion and a few serious words from Tyrrell as to the loss to the Chinese that must ensue if the fashionable artist and his following should be seriously offended, she had stipulated for one dress of her own choosing to be worn in the most important act, and Tyrrell, knowing perfectly well that her objections to the others were well founded,

that they were in fact far too gorgeoushad agreed to compromise matters to that

132

extent. She had appealed to Humphrey to help her only the night before, and the sketch they were looking at now was the result.

"It can't be too simple, I think," she said; "but how shall I get those beautiful folds? It must be something very soft, mustn't it, and very pale? There's so little time to look for the right thing. I must see about it after rehearsal. Oh, Humphrey, what is that?" she added, as she caught sight of a half-finished sketch lying among the paraphernalia he had brought out with his sketching block. She took it in her hand as she spoke, and he glanced at it carelessly, answering: "That? Oh! An old fancy of mine."

It was quite rough and unfinished, the background vague and indistinct; but the principal figure, a slender youth apparently, but with a beautiful, appealing woman's face, with the hands clasped above the head, was full of beauty and power, and as Selma looked at it she said: "Imogen, isn't it! Humphrey, it is beautiful! Why don't you make a picture of it?"

"Let me look at it again," he said, with an amused glance at the unconscious original of the face he had sketched for Imogen. "I haven't seen it for a long time." He glanced at her again meditatively as she stood with her attention fixed on the picture, and thought how much her face had developed since the days when it had been necessary to idealise its girlish beauty considerably before it became the beauty of Imogen. "I wonder whether it would come well," he said, absently.

"You wonder whether what would come well!" said Helen, cheerily, coming into the room at the moment, with her hands full of the newest of tradesmen's books piled on the top of a most businesslikelooking work-basket. "Selma, dear, do you know that you'll be late for rehearsal It's nearly eleven o'clock."

There was a horrified exclamation from Selma, who was rehearsing now every morning for the matinée, and as she disappeared forthwith, Humphrey turned to Helen with the smile which no one else

ever saw.

"Morning orders take a long time," he

said.

"Have you wanted me, dear?" she asked.

"Of course!" he answered.

expedition, and to disappear again immediately.

Humphrey and Helen, left alone together, settled down to their respective morning's work-as it was Helen's delight to think-as though they were a husband and wife of three years', instead of three weeks', standing. They had spent each morning of the past week in the same way, Humphrey talking much, little, or not at all-as the spirit moved him, and Helen quite content to listen, and respond according to her lights, when he spoke, or to concentrate her attention upon her needlework when he was silent. This morning the first hour passed in almost total silence, and then Humphrey said, gravely :

"I heard from Roger this morning."

"From Roger!" repeated Helen, suspending her work, with her thread half pulled through, and lifting her head. "Oh, Humphrey, how is he getting on?"

Roger had written very little during the past year, and any phases of thought or feeling through which he might have passed were unknown to his family; he was never spoken of except in low-toned, pitying question and answer; and Helen's tone now was the respectfully sympathetic and affectionate tone in which a man who has passed some time at a distance, wrapped in the halo of a great trouble, is generally alluded to.

"He is getting on very well from a business point of view," answered Humphrey. "For the rest - he never talked, even at first. Nell, he is coming home.'

Helen let her needlework fall on her lap, and her cotton rolled unheeded to the floor.

"Humphrey!" she exclaimed, "he mustn't. It isn't a little bit of use, poor, dear fellow! Look how happy she is. She doesn't care for anything in the world but acting. Oh, Humphrey, you must write and tell him."

Humphrey had paused in his work, and turned towards her, brush in hand.

"There's nothing to tell him, Nell," he said, quietly. "He isn't thinking of distressing Selma. He is coming home because his business obliges him to be in London."

looked thoughtfully at his picture, which, however, he did not see, and Helen added: "It is dreadfully sad and difficult with auntie and the girls as it is. You don't know, Humphrey, what little things are always happening to make poor Selma remember."

"That is what Roger is most anxious to put right," said Humphrey, beginning to mix some colour. "He says" He stopped, and took a letter from his pocket. "You had better read it," he finished, giving it to Helen, who read aloud:

"I want her, old fellow, to put the whole thing out of her life altogether. She mustn't think that I'm coming back to London to be in any way a reproach to her. There will never be any one in the world like her to me; if I were a romantic kind of fellow, I suppose I should say she will be my ideal as long as I live. But she was far too good, and clever, and beautiful for me, and I've fought it out, and given her up, though I shall love her all my life.'

Helen paused in her reading, and raised her head suddenly, with the instinctive exclamation of a young and happy wife.

'Oh, Humphrey, what a pity it all is!" she said, regretfully. "What a pity she changed her mind!"

Then, as the silent Humphrey made no response, she turned to the letter again, and read on:

"Of course, I would have stayed away if I could; but as I'm bound to come back to London, I think it would be better for her and for every one if we squared the whole thing up. I gather from home letters that mother and the girls don't see it as they should; but if she won't mind meeting me, I think I can make it straight at home. I sail on the twenty-fourth. Love to Helen.'"

Helen finished reading, and sat with her pretty, pitying eyes fixed still upon the letter.

"Poor fellow!" she said, softly. "Poor, dear fellow !"

"What will she feel about meeting him, Nell?"

"I don't know," answered Helen, looking up gravely after a moment's consideration; "it depends upon so many things. I don't know whether she will ever get over her guilty feeling towards him. I don't see how she can refuse to see him; but I'm afraid it will upset her. She feels things so," concluded Helen, with the air

of one who enunciates an unfortunate and mysterious but undeniable fact.

Humphrey had taken up his mahlstick again, and he did not answer; and, after a few moments' silent reflection, she said : "I had better talk to her, dear?" "Yes."

"I can't worry her this week while she is so full of her matinée. Will it be soon enough if I wait until after the twentyfourth?”

"Quite soon enough. He can't arrive before the third or fourth of March." "He isn't likely to take us by surprise this time," sighed Helen, remembering Roger's previous home-coming. Then, taking up her needlework again, she said: "Poor Roger, I wonder whether he will be much altered. He writes just like his old self. Oh, it's a dreadful thing to have on one's mind for a week, Humphrey."

Helen always objected very strongly to waiting for a painful moment; she liked to face her difficulties and troubles, and get them over and done with; and when she met Selma after the rehearsal that day, and saw her sister's face so quietly hopeful and contented in its repose, so bright and sensitive in its animation, her dread of distressing her made her desire to "get it over" hardly to be repressed. She did repress it, however, for that day, and the days that followed, each one of which found Selma, if possible, more deeply absorbed than the last had left her in the preparations for the matinée.

The play, unusual as it was, had caught the fancy of all the members of the cast, and rehearsals were long and thorough. The air was full of reports about it; and, amongst the many rumours current, two stood out with particular distinct ness to be repeated again and again in circles fashionable, artistic, and Bohemian-that the piece was very powerful and unconventional, and that Selma Malet was going to do something very remarkable.

Selma herself was the only person concerned who knew nothing of any reports, who had no expectations, who formed no definite estimate as to herself or any one else. All her ideas were concentrated in her intense interest in her part, and there was no room in her mind for any question as to what achievement would bring her in the way of prestige and applause. Tyrrell, watching her curiously throughout the week, only once saw her wake to consciousness of any thought external to the creation into which she was putting her