swarmed round our drag, listened to our band, and eaten our provisions, in a very hearty manner indeed.

And yet, to speak of myself personally, I could find very little pleasure in society at this time. Besides being face to face with the fact that I was shortly going to India, I was tormented by thoughts of Helena Chobham, whose situation was at this time causing me great anxiety. Her image was constantly before me, but in imagination only. In the course of eight years I had seen her no oftener than eight times, and yet I was secretly devoted to her with my

whole heart. On the rare occasions when I had met her, our interviews had been brief, and she had carefully shunned allowing me any opportunity for such an interchange of confidence as I was sighing for. She had been occupied for some years past in watch

ing the sick and visiting the poor, chiefly at her own discretion, in the east part of London.

I had heard lately that her health was beginning to fail, and that her friends, including my mother, were renewing efforts which they had often made to cause her to desist from her self-denying, self-injurious occupation; and being on the eve of leaving the country, I had determined, whether rightly or wrongly, to see her myself, to remonstrate with her, and, above all, to come to an understanding with her. The first difficulty which lay in my path was to find her, the second difficulty was to see her alone; and I found means to overcome both.

Having heard that she was sometimes seen at a certain hospital in London, I asked a celebrated doctor with whom I had

VOL. II.

H

long been on friendly terms, to give me his assistance. He at first told me that it was absolutely impossible for him to help me; but when he had sounded me for my precise motives as thoroughly as he had ever sounded the chest of one of his patients, he gave a short laugh, and observed that he knew Mrs Chobham intimately, and, moreover, heartily disapproved of the course she had taken in burying herself from the society of her friends. In short, he promised to assist me; and, either from the special persuasions which I believe he used, or as I then preferred to suppose-from the compassion which his bare statement of my case excited, Helena consented to see me once before I left England.

CHAPTER XI.

BEFORE describing my farewell interview with Helena, I must endeavour to repair the long neglect with which I have treated her affairs. To do this I must first return to the period just following the carriage accident at Goodnesbridge. As soon as Mrs Frank Chobham had completely recovered from her bodily injuries received on that occasion, she announced her desire to retreat into useful obscurity. For some time, however, she was restrained-partly by the arguments and remonstrances of her former guardian, Mr Simmons, and those of my mother, but chiefly by some exertions

made by Mrs Chobham the elder and Mr Garbold.

As for Mr Simmons, he was rather shy of his former ward, who he knew had good cause for feeling resentment towards him. -namely, on account of the share he had taken in bringing about her marriage. He confined himself chiefly, therefore, to writing letters of mild expostulation. My mother made more practical efforts. She began by detaining Helena at Hare Place, and causing several other ladies to come there as guests at the same time. By this step, however, she only made the object of her solicitude more unhappy. Lady Susan Longstaffe, really the least sincere of these visitors, was successful in her pretences of friendship for Helena, for she possessed a profound knowledge of the world, and moreover, was very good-humoured. But