not that letter-from her for whom Lorimer could have died-beseech his intervention, in order to communicate the real facts-to him for whom Gertrude would have died; and so set all well again between that blind heart, and the heart that was beating and bleeding for grief, in that fair woman's bosom?

In one thing more Lorimer copied the conduct of gallant Sir Patrick Spens. He instantly set about the task proposed to him, whether his own suffering might be involved in it or not.

While Gertrude was yet anxiously hoping a reply to her letter-promising that Lorimer would write those explanations to Sir Douglas which she had failed to make-Lorimer himself stood before her!

In her surprise, in her thankful gladness, to see him-bitter as it was to be better believed by her old tried friend than by her husband-she extended both hands eagerly towards him, and with a little sharp cry burst into tears.

The pulse in Lorimer's brain and heart throbbed loud and hard. Her tears thrilled through him. Sudden memories of her grievous weeping by the dead father she had so loved, when he had been so kind to, came over him. Tears shed in girlhood, when she was free free to marry whom she pleased, Lorimer himself, or any other man.

He stood mute, gazing at her; and then gave a hurried, hesitating greeting, a little more formal than usual. His longing was so great to take her madly in his arms, that he dared not touch her hand.

"Your letter-surprised me," he said in a thick suffocated voice, as he sat down.

be spoken to-on such a subject-even by-so good and true a friend as you have always been to both of us."

She spoke with increasing agitation at every word; pausing; looking down. Then suddenly those unequalled eyes looked up and met his own.

"Oh! Lorimer Boyd, I feel so ashamed! And yet, you know-you know, I ought not. You know how I have loved my husband from first to last. From the days when he was a mere heroic vision, whom you taught me to admire, to the days when I knew him-and he loved me!"

True. Yes. No doubt, Lorimer himself had turned the young girl's fancy to the ideal of love and bravery he had described to her. He had taught her (even while listening to his faithful, ungainly self) to picture the stately Highland boy sighing in his alien home, petting and caressing first his brother and then his brother's son; the youth beloved and admired; the soldier of after-life, treading fields of glory where battles were lost and won.

Lorimer himself had taught her to love Douglas! Would he unteach her now, if that were possible? No. The double faith to both was well kept; though neither could ever know the cost. Blind-hearted friend-sweet dream of perfect womanhood-come together again, and be happy once more, if the old true comrade through life can serve you to that end.

Every day to Lady Charlotte's little decorated drawing-room-every evening, and most mornings, came the familiar step and welcome face. He soothed and occupied those feverish hours of Gertrude's. He read to her. Ah! how his voice, deep, sweet, and melodious, reading passages from favourite authors, reminded her, also, of the first sorrow of her life, the illness and death of her father! How thankful she had felt to him then; how thankful she felt to him now. How her heart went out to him, the day Neil went back to Eton, and she saw the tears stand in his eyes, holding the unconscious boy's hand in his own; looking at the fair open brow

should ever moot with him again. That he besought him-by all the tender regard they had had for each other from boyhood till the present hour-not to break friendship by recurring to it in any way or at any time. That occasional letters from Boyd should be the greatest comfort he could hope for on this side the grave, but if that one forbidden subject were alluded to, Sir Douglas would not read them.

And so the dream of hope ended! And all the comfort Lorimer could give, was that, being innocent, the day would surely come when Gertrude would be cleared. That there was nothing so suicidal as hypocrisy, or so short-lived as the bubble blown by lying lips to glitter with many changing colours in the light of day. Lorimer built on some catastrophe to Frere and Alice more than on any effort of Gertrude's; but all trace of Frere was lost again; and what consolation could Gertrude receive from such dreams, when at any moment the precious life might be risked and lost-dearer than her own? Her Douglas dying-if he died—far away and unreconciled, was the haunting thought, the worm that gnawed her heart away.

Every day she pined more and more, and altered more and more in looks; insomuch that she herself, one twilight evening, passing by her own bust executed by Macdonald of Rome, and lit at that moment by the soft misty glow which marks the impeded sunset of a

London drawing-room, paused, and sighed, and said to herself, "Was I ever like that?"

The deep-lidded, calm eyes-which no modern sculptor ever has given with such life-like grace and truth-the gentle youthful smile of the mouth--all seemed to mock her with their beauty, and, as the brief rose-tint vanished from the marble in the deepening grey of evening, to say to her, "Pine and fade, pine and fade, for love and joy are gone for

ever!"

CHAPTER LVI.

A SEPARATED WIFE.

If the thought of distant Douglas was the worm that gnawed the heart of Gertrude, the worm that gnawed Lady Charlotte was what she termed "her daughter's position."

For it had flown like wild-fire round the town, first in Edinburgh, and then in London, that young Lady Ross and her elderly husband had separated. "A most shocking story, my dear," with many shakes of the head.

"All the accidents were against her," her complaining parent declared.

Even an event which at first sight seemed a relief, the departure of Kenneth and Eusebia, had an evil result. For neither did that erratic couple depart together. Eusebia, after the most violent and frantic denunciations of Gertrude, whom she had accused of first seducing Kenneth from her, and then getting his uncle to forbid him the house, declared that she neither could nor would live at Torrieburn. She would return to Spain; she would be

free.

-

Packing therefore into their multifarious cases all the glittering jewels (paid and unpaid) which she had accumulated since her marriage; all the flashing fans, and fringed skirts, and black and white blonde, and Parisian patterns, which formed her study from morning to night; she set forth, as the housekeeper expressed it, "without say ing with your leave or by your leave."

She never even inquired what was to become of Effie, or offered to say farewell to Kenneth.

But the latter, enraged more than grieved at her conduct, and doubly enraged at finding that by a singular coincidence Monzies of Craigievar had also chosen this especial time for a foreign tour, resolved to quit a scene so bitter to him as Torrieburn had become, and also to betake himself to Granada, whether for vengeance or reunion he himself could not have told.

Pale Effie, with her large loving eyes, entreated to go with him, but in vain. He would return for her. She must be patient. She must go and stay a little while with his mother. She must be a good girl he couldn't be troubled with her just then.

With all these arrangements or disarrangements, Gertrude had certainly nothing to do; but the world told a very different story. She was a wily, profligate woman; her husband had renounced her; she had broken Eusebia's heart, and divided Kenneth and his once attached uncle for ever. Most of the ladies had "foreseen what it must come to." They could not think of leaving their cards at the house. They wondered Lady Charlotte should venture to force her daughter on society. They really pitied her for being Lady Ross's mother; they believed she had been a decently conducted wife herself, though an utter idiot, and of course quite an unfit guide for a person of young Lady Ross's propensities.

Some of them did hear that Sir Douglas was taking proceedings for a divorce, but the difficulty was that he did not wish to ruin the young man Kenneth Ross, who, indeed, had been "more sinned against than sinning," and that there was very great reluctance on the part of certain witnesses to come forward.

Sir Douglas's sister, for instance, was a very strict, pious, and modest young person, and she had openly declared she would sooner die than be questioned and cross-questioned in a court of justice.

It was a lamentable business altogether, and quite disgraceful.

Lady Charlotte, on the other hand, thought her poor Gertrude abominably ill-used in not being worshipped as a saint, and shrined as a martyr; besides being asked out every evening by the crême de la crême of society. She was for ever wailing and lamenting about some call not made, some card not sent in, some rudeness offered, or supposed to be offered. She thought the Queen ought personally to interfere for the protection of her daughter. She worried poor Gertrude to death by little whimperings and petitions to " go this once, just to show you are asked," when some more than usually important occasion arose. To all pleadings that it was distasteful, unnecessary, and that even were all other circumstances happy, the absence of the soldier-husband, in a life of privation and danger, was surely excuse enough for not mingling with general society,-Lady Charlotte had her counter-arguments. It would not have signified "if nothing had happened if nothing had been said;" "it was not for gaiety," it was to uphold her; and she ought to consider that it wasn't only herself, it was Lady Charlotte, it was the family that had to bear the disgrace.

"I

When Mrs. Cregan endeavoured to console her by saying, "I don't believe any one of these women believe a single word of the stories against Lady Ross, or think the least ill of her in their secret hearts, but I do believe there are plenty of them who are delighted to pretend that they think ill of her," poor Lady Charlotte confusedly declared that that was exactly what pained her. wouldn't mind if Gertrude was really bad; I mean I should think it quite fair, though of course I suppose I should be vexed, being my own child. But when I know her to be so good, and they are all so violent and unreasonable -the Rosses of Glenrossie-I do really think the Queen ought to do something, and you see she does nothing, and there is no justice anywhere. I declare I think the people that abuse Gertrude

ought to be punished. I know the tradesmen can't say things, and why should ladies? I mean that they can prosecute each other (tradesmen), because I had once a butcher who prosecuted the miller who served Mr. Skifton's father with flour: he prosecuted for being called a false-weighted rascal;' and I should like to know if that is as bad as the things they say of Gertrude ? And there is my cousin, Lady Clochnaben; but I've written to Lorimer about that. It is too bad-really too bad-and enough to break one's heart."

Mrs. Cregan sighed compassionately. "Well," she said, "I love my own girl as dearly, I think, as mother can love a child. But I declare that if I knew her to be virtuous, I should care no more for the insolence and slanders of these jealous, worldly, scandal-loving women. than I should care for the hail that pattered down on the skylight of the house she was living in."

"Ah! Mrs. Cregan, but you haven't been tried, and you don't know what it is! So proud as I was of my Gertie ! But I've written to Lorimer about the Clochnabens; that's one comfort."

It seemed a very slender comfort, for Lady Charlotte continued to apply her handkerchief to her eyes, and murmur to herself; but she had a strong and not misplaced confidence that Lorimer would rebuke his mother for "speaking ill of Gertrude, and refusing to call, and all that."

"I shouldn't wonder if he made her call-spiteful and bitter as she is, all because dear Gertie once said to her, 'This is worse than rude, it is cruel,' when she snubbed Mrs. Ross-Heaton! I hope he'll make her call."

Poor Lady Charlotte! why it should be a satisfaction to compel a visit from one" spiteful and bitter," and unwilling, let the great world of mysteries declare! But Lorimer had written, sternly and somewhat too contemptuously on the subject, to his mother.

His mother did not answer him. The answer, such as it was, came from "the earl," and was worthy of the hand that penned it.

CHAPTER LVII.

SITTING IN JUDGMENT.

"MY DEAR LORIMER,-My mother put your letter into my hands. I don't often write, but as she has requested me to do so on this-I must say disgraceful-business, I do so, and add my own opinion.

"You will bear in mind the point de départ whence she views this affair; (very different from your own manière de voir). She considers Lady Ross an artful woman, who, after encouraging and having a liaison with a great blackguard (Kenneth Ross), and God knows how many more besides, inveigles you yourself into a similar situation. You were in and out of Lady Charlotte's house like a tame dog when last you were in England; and though, from the bad company Lady Ross has kept generally both at Naples and in Scotland, a liaison and intimacy with you would rather raise her character than injure it, in the estimation of the world; and though I presume you will insist that the lady has not infringed. the seventh commandment, yet my mother feels she has a legitimate right to be astonished at your proposing a visit from her under the circumstances.

"She has never doubted but that your remaining unmarried is consequent on some former disappointment with regard to this woman; whose not very prudent sayings, both to and of my mother, are probably unknown to you. My mother has nothing to go upon, to believe in the absence of her criminality; and she considers your own real happiness (which could only be consulted by marriage) marred by this entanglement. She now puts it to you: Do you, in proposing this concession of a visit to Lady Ross, intend to marry? You cannot expect her to call while your own intimacy in that quarter subsists. You do not, for your own character's sake, contemplate, if you marry, continuing to see Lady Ross? Still less I presume of exacting from your future wife that she should visit her? No girl

worthy your seeking would accept you on such terms. The world would not understand it. I would not.

My mother's calling, of course, would be an éclatant testimony in Lady Ross's favour, and she has no objection to fulfil your object. But we both feel that had there been no intimacy between you and Lady R., you never could have wished any female members of your family to continue her acquaintance. You would make no excuses for her: you would simply think what THE WORLD thinks; and the opinion of the world is what you have chiefly to bear in mind. Society will of course place her higher the day after LADY CLOCHNABEN has called, than she has stood since her separation from her husband; but my mother will be more easily placated and managed, if she thinks, for the attainment of the object you have in view, you don't go beyond what is absolutely required. None of us would approve of that. The world would not. If she calls once, she considers that will be sufficient.

"I won't give way to the apprehension that my letter can annoy you, or that there is anything in it distasteful to you to read. I hope you consider me a privileged person.

"Where my mother gets all the gossip from about Lady R., I can't guess. Mother H. I should think: only I doubt her being so well informed.

"Do not think me pédant, or dry; I enter, on the contrary, into your present feelings, but I think a year hence you will change your views as to the propriety of the step which my mother is ready to take, on the express understanding already set forth in my letter; and I think you have (or rather Lady Ross has) no right not to be satisfied with the conditions. You have nothing to answer for, if her character is tainted. The evil was done before your time.

"I once more assure you I have no intention to hurt your feelings by these observations. I speak my mind as a looker-on, and as a man who has been, many years since, himself on the verge of making irrecoverable sacrifices, and who now only feels thankful that he was suffered to escape.

"Your affectionate Brother,
"CLOCHNABEN."

That Lorimer read this letter through without grinding it under his heel like Kenneth, speaks much for his natural or acquired patience. To be continued.

picture for his time, and for long succeeding generations of English youth, has ceased to be true of the alert youngsters to be seen everywhere, now-a-days, going blithesomely to school, jocund, brisk and gay as larks. Why should they now be sad? They are all mere half-timers for work, in comparison with their predecessors on the same wellworn benches. The hours are now so brief when they

"Their murm'ring labours ply, 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty,"