"How dreadful!" "We did not find it so." "Have you no brother, then?" "No; only one sister, who is lately married." "Don't you wish that she had been a brother?" At that moment of cross-examination I felt some sympathy for the dumb after-dinner ladies, but Amy went on, not waiting for my reply: "I don't know what I should do without Arthur. He is a dear fellow. We ride and hunt together, and when no one is here I go out shooting with him. I am a regular country girl, but I like a season in London for a change. We did not go this year, as mamma wanted to keep Arthur at home; she thought after being abroad it would be better, but I enjoy London; for a month or so it is great fun, after that it becomes a bore; the girls are all so utterly tired out, with a nobody-coming-to-marry-me look on their poor pale faces as they sit back in their carriages in the drive, until I declare one feels quite sorry for them. Mamma never keeps me until the end of the season, just as she never allows me to dance after supper at a ball. She says-my mother is a very clever woman, you know-that a girl has double the chances if she leaves a party just as all the gentlemen are wanting to dance with her." "How very tantalising! Don't you find it so?" "Sometimes; but not as a rule. I am generally so used up by the fatigues of a hard-working London day in the season that I am always ready to go. I enjoy the morning ride in the Row more than anything; but here are the gentlemen," she said, brightening up, although the alarm was false; "so I cannot tell you much more at present, but you must come over and see me very often, and I will do the same to you. I must always have a fidus Achates of some kind. I am sure you are just the one to suit me. You seem like an old friend already-it is that picture, I imagine; I am so fond of it-I wish you could see it.". "The one Colonel Stanhope has lent to an artist, do you mean, and about which you had that long altercation the other day?" "Yes, the same; I believe he has spirited it away. He is a Spiritualist, you know-goes in for digging up the dead!" she said, making a pretty grimace, as if she anything but relished the idea. "Did you ever turn tables and go in for that sort of amusement?" she asked. "Never, nor do I wish to; I have only read of their proceedings. There must be something in them, I fancy, since they have occupied the attention of some of our gravest philosophers." "I dare say, do you know why? I heard a most capital reason. once the fact is that most of these men have ceased to believe in Moses and the Prophets, and now they ask to be convinced of the immortality of their souls by a message from the dead. I have long fights with Colonel Stanhope, who is always wanting to inveigle me into one of his dark seances; but I tell him that until the spirits are above board, and prefer light to darkness, they are not fit company for me." "I don't see that he is altogether so mistaken." "What! You don't mean to say you believe in chairs and tables moving, and becoming the medium of disembodied souls?" she exclaimed, interrupting me. "I am not competent to form any opinion in the matter, since it is a subject that I have never studied practically; but a thought just flashed across my mind to account for the lively properties latent in furniture. You may depend upon it that they are only the souls of all the trees which have been cut up for tables and chairs, and that they are living again in the furniture !" "You are joking, surely!" she cried. "I suspect that I am," I said, laughing; "at the same time I treat the matter with some reverence, for I think it is the height of folly to condemn what we have not the wit to understand. Most things in life are, after all, but questions of eyesight, mental or bodily. It would be absurd in me to question your power of seeing a picture hung on the opposite wall, and to declare loudly no such picture to be there, simply because, my sight being short, I could not see anything held at such a distance." "How long the gentlemen are!" said Amy, who had not listened to my last remark in her anxiety for their return; "I heard them coming long ago-didn't you?" "You can't go beyond the half-hour!" I said, laughing. "Oh, can't I wait until I afflict you with one of my long confidences! It is funny, is it not, how girls always fall in love with each other before they reach the grand climax of bestowing their exuberant affection upon one of the opposite sex. There is nothing I love like a long talk with a girl of my own age-cne's very flirtations have a double zest when we live them over again in the ear of another." "As dead secrets we are the first to divulge!" I said. "This reminds me of my brother-in-law, Colonel Domville, who was always quoting that detestable man Rochefoucauld, and making me smart under the lash of his odious but very true maxims. Do you know the one I allude to?" "Dear me, no! I never study unpleasant subjects; but quote it to me, if you can. I never could quote anything in my life unless I had the book before me," she said, laughing. "You should have lived awhile in the society of my brother-inlaw, he would have taught you to remember a few; this one is very pointed, however: 'How can we expect that a friend should keep our secret, whilst we are convincing him that it is more than we can do ourselves ?"" 66 I 'But for all that it is very pleasant to get rid of the load. hate secrets, and, worse still, secret people; they always seem to belong to the vampire tribe-they fascinate all your secrets out of you, and give you no confidence in return; you find yourself in their power before you know how greatly you have committed yourself. I dislike such people immensely; they make me nervous and uncomfortable. But here come the gentlemen at last!" she said, rising with alacrity, as if she had talked quite enough on such serious topics and was glad of a change. Colonel Stanhope took her place, saying "Well, Mary, how have you been getting on? How did Arthur behave?" Awfully well!" I replied, laughing. "You have discovered Master Arthur's pet adverb, I see; he is not a bad fellow; but "-and he lowered his tone as he spoke"I put you on your guard against his mother." "I am never likely to interfere with her," I said, with surprise. I am not so sure of that. Arthur's weak point is an easy susceptibility, with his mother's will as a strong anchor whenever a breeze threatens to become dangerous and carry him out to sea too far. Take care, my little girl," he said, with a sudden earnest tenderness; "the world is before you, and we must see that no little hearts are broken at the outset ;" then adding, in a lighter tone, "You must appoint me your father confessor-won't you?" "When there is anything to confess, I promise that you shall fill the post," I replied, gratefully. "That is a good girl." We were silent for some moments, when he exclaimed: "Oh, what a bore, I knew it was coming; Crofton must have his rubber, and I am victimised accordingly; and there is Arthur looking wistfully across in this direction, wondering why I don't vacate in his favour; so I must go." Amy was at the piano, playing a delicious tarantella by some modern composer, with Lord Delamaine in waiting to turn the leaves of her music. "You sing, don't you?" said Captain Crofton, coming up to me. "I am awfully fond of singing." "So am I-do you sing?" "No; I wish to heaven I did; but I go regularly to the opera when I am in town. I am awfully fond of the opera-I was only a night or two in London as I passed through, and I went to hear in Faust. It is the finest thing out, where she sings the duet, you know, and the scene before in the garden. Oh, it is awfully fine!" I have never seen the opera, but I know the music." "Do you? Can you sing the jewel song-that one with the shake? I don't know the Italian for it." "I know the one you mean, but it is hardly suitable for a drawing-room. I think that you want the scenery and the jewels to give it effect and point. It is so difficult to make people understand what you are in such ecstacies about unless they see the cause." "Never mind the scenery if you can sing the music; as the showman said to the little boy who asked which was Pharaoh and which was the host? You must imagine the 'ost, 'cos the canvas isn't large enough to contain 'em.' So we must imagine the jewels and all the etcetera. Do come and sing it! Amy is just finished; we have the music, so you haven't the ghost of an excuse. Here, Amy, get your score of Faust. Miss Prior is going to give us the jewel song, and you can accompany her." Do come and sing it! Oh, by George! that is awfully fine!" he exclaimed, as I finished it, while Amy laughed in the midst of her thanks, saying "You have completely destroyed Arthur; he won't recover this for a week," and indeed, when I looked at him I could not help laughing with Amy at the lackadaisical expression of his face. Notwithstanding the frequent repetition of the irritating adverb, to which I soon grew accustomed, there was something very agree. able and genuine about Captain Crofton. It was impossible not to like him, he possessed a freedom and charm of manner that refused to be kept at a distance; and I enjoyed my evening very much. As time passed on, and I became the object of his unvarying attention, I felt that it would require a very stout heart to remain insensible to his fascination. That he would ever have the power to supply Philip's place I knew to be impossible; but Philip, since he had refused Colonel Stanhope's invitation, was fast becoming a dream of which I despaired. It is at this point of aching vacuity that we so often wreck our lives by filling the void with any pleasing object that greets the fancy. So impatient are we then of suffering that we fling off pain with rebellious laughter, and defy our longings with hollow substitutes. It was thus I strove to stifle pain, and with success, for I took no heed of aught but the simple pleasure of living in the midst of everything that could enhance the delight of life, and make it one of pure physical enjoyment. "OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY," (BY J. E. MILLAIS. IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION, 1876.) SCOTLAND, that generations breeds, Oh, rugged land of proud tradition, Oh, land of dauntless patriots! Oh, land whose 'scutcheon stain'd with blots, Oh, land of gory wild romance, Oh, lovely land of crag and glen, Here, by the poet-painter's art, It is a heathery inland bay, Where circling mountains stretch away Where, on grey stones, the crowing grouse, The sleepy startled morn arouse. Where, by moist reed and mossy peat, |