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advice. I know little of the world, and less of the business world, but love gives knowledge, Herbert; and a firm determination to act rightly according to one's ability will steer even inexperience safely over dangerous passages.'

There was a quiet depth in her voice which could not be withstood. He placed his arm round her, and then, with many a fencing off from the true side of the matter, many a protestation that it was nothing-a trifle soon settled-he at last confessed that a small pecuniary crisis had come upon him, and that he was unable to meet a bill due to-morrow. He had found a letter at the office, he said, reminding him of this unpleasant fact, and giving notice of a visit from the bill-holder for payment. He had quite forgotten all about it until he received this note; but he did not add, that it ought to have been received above a week since, and would have been, if he had called once at the office in that time.

'How much is it, Herbert dear?' asked Grace quietly—very pale, but quite composed.

'Oh, only thirty pounds!' cried Herbert, with an injured accent; 'thirty pounds only!'-as if reversing the order of the sentence deepened the wrong. To think of being in such a horrible strait for such a paltry sum as this!'

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'But, Herbert,' said Grace, with a wondering look, 'how is it that, with all your connections and friends, you cannot raise this money for a time?'

Herbert looked uneasy. He stammered an excuse; then turned it off with a careless laugh, and declared it was nothing. So Grace remained in ignorance that this present annoyance was on account of money borrowed already, and spent in carriage-hire and suppers-a portion of it lost at the gaming-table.

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"Take my watch and chain, and this diamond hoop,' said Grace caressingly they ought to bring something considerable, for they cost so much! Why, Uncle Edward told me the ring itself was more than thirty pounds; and I should think that all three things would sell for as much as one cost.'

At first, Herbert flatly refused his wife's offer. He could not think of such a thing-it would be really disgraceful-so unmanly -he would rather break stones on the road than rob his sweet girl of her jewels. Then, it should be only the watch-no, the ring-that was most superfluous; he would borrow money on that, and pay it back the day after to-morrow. Well, for such a short time he might take all three; they would help him out of his present strait without any other aid; and it would not be a great trial to her to part with them for four-and-twenty hours when they would relieve her husband of so much anxiety. And so it was settled. And then they had a delightful hour together; with the feeling on the one side of an ugly circumstance overcome, and on the other of a benefit conferred on the being loved best.

But the day after to-morrow came, and no jewels were returned;

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and many a to-morrow brightened and darkened, but Grace heard no more of her possessions, than regrets from Herbert that he could not get in some outstanding debts which he had counted on; and soon even these were dropped: they became too patent in their falseness, and wounded Grace painfully; and the watch, and chain, and diamond hoop slept quietly on the shelves of a certain pawnbroker who had gathered unto himself more than one article of Herbert's private possessions.

Still the pleasure-trips and party-givings continued; still the pretty house was daily turned into worse than a wayside inn for revel and confusion; and still the total inattention to business reduced the income of the young lawyer to a mere clerk's salary. As Grace sat and worked in those long lone summer hours, the terrible truth shot in flashes across her; and the hideous conviction that the man she had loved was undeserving that devotion-that her husband was unworthy of her child-though it forced itself slowly and with infinite agony on her, became at last a settled thought, and strengthened what it tortured: for she felt that if one failed the other must bear a double burden; if Herbert could not rightly live, she must take counsel of her own heart, and walk with increased vigour in the onward way of right. No, she must harden herself to the truth; the fairy vision was fading away, and Grace was no child to live on fancies. She looked at things as they were, and shaped herself to bear them as she best might; she was not one to sleep beneath the moonlight and call her dreams realities. With patience, yet with tears-with courage, yet with grief-she learned the hard lesson set her, and spelled out every letter with a martyr's heroism and a saint's endurance.

Herbert was out one day when two men called. They were rough-looking men, familiar and uncouth in their manners, and asked insolently for the missis. One of them pulled out a paper that had an ominous look in it even to the servant-maid, and began reading the heading. Grace came down stairs: 'What is it?' she said wonderingly.

'Sorry, missis-must do our duty-little matter left unsettled -master promised to pay, and hasn't very sorry, missis; but must put an execution in.'

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'An execution!' Grace started at the word. 'It was so sudden; could they not wait until Mr Ayton came home?' They laughed the grim bailiff-laugh. Why, bless ye, Mr Ayton made no difference. They wanted his sticks, not himself.' Grace, whose only ideas of an execution were inextricably involved with prisons and dungeon-cells, had much ado to keep up her courage. At least you will wait,' she said, 'until I can send for Mr Ayton? I do not understand these things, and it has taken me by surprise.'

They pulled out their watches, and consulted together; and finally agreed to give her two hours' delay, that she might send for her husband. Grace thanked them courteously, and gave

them an extravagant sum for beer: they spent it in gin instead. She then called the servant, and sent her to the office; and if Mr Ayton was not there, to Mr Smith's, and Mr Lawson's, and Miss Merriman's; to Mr This, the actor, and That, the musician; and tổ all his favourite haunts, so far as she knew them. She wrote the names and addresses on one of her own cards, and hurried the girl off in a cab.

The minutes flew like wild-fire. One hour had passed in the apparent space of a quarter; the half of the second chimed, when the servant came back, bringing no tidings of Herbert. She had found traces of him at several places, but had finally lost sight of him at Miss Merriman's. He had been there in the morning, and had gone out with a large party in carriages, but no one knew where. They were a large party, and had gone out in three carriages, she said, down somewhere into the country for the day.

For a moment, Grace was overwhelmed, paralysed, stricken, heart-wrung. She felt deserted by all the world, and insufficient for her trial. The servants were more ignorant than herself, and with even more superstition about the matter. They could not therefore help her; unless indeed the sight of their ungoverned terror, by calling up her pride and self-command from the force of contrast, might be called an indirect aid.

'Missis, time's up,' said one of the men, bawling down the kitchen stairs. She had gone down as the girl came through the area.

'Can you not wait until to-morrow?' she asked, coming up.

'Impossible, missis; we've stayed too long already,' grumbled the men; and then they began to talk with each other in an under-tone.

'It must be done,' at last said the one who seemed to have the management of the affair. 'I'm very sorry, missis; but duty's duty and must be done by them as is paid for it. Here, Jem, call a cab, and let's be done with the job.'

"What will you do?' said Grace. She was now trembling much. 'Take a few sticks away, missis; the bill's only a matter of fifteen pound, and we needn't take a vast deal. You'd better go up stairs, ma'am, out of the way of the door; you look cold, and maybe the draught will make you worse.'

There was a rough kindliness in the man's manner that destroyed all Grace's stoicism. She thought nothing of the men-nothing of the knot of idlers gathering round the door, as the dining-room furniture was being carried out to a cab-she cared nothing for her dignity or ladylike composure; but, covering her face in her hands, with all its chestnut curls drooping over her fingers, she burst into such tears of speechless desolation and childish terror, that even the bailiffs were moved, and did their best, in their uncouth way, to comfort her.

Telling her between whiles to be of good heart, and not to take

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on so badly, the men went on removing the furniture; joking with the mob outside; thrusting into and upon the cab chairs, and lamp, and clock, and sofa, and the dear old furniture brought from the country-home; consoling Grace as they passed, and carrying on the work of demolition with business speed and alacrity. At last all was done the dining-room was completely stripped; the hall lamp was taken as well; and the hall chairs of carved oak, which Grace had hunted up in Wardour Street, were first handled, then consulted over, and finally heaved into the second cab chartered for this melancholy work. And then the men, with fresh demands for drink, took their departure, leaving Grace in the deserted dining-room the most miserable creature under that beaming

summer sun.

This would not do this prostration was not the way by which to gather strength for the great trial of life; this weakness was not the appointed mode of bearing up against disaster. She must control herself get patience, nerve, and trust, and go up to her God for consolation and support. She went into her own room, and flung herself on her knees by her baby's cot; and long prayers of passionate pleading for comfort went up through the stillness of her rifled home, as symphonies of holy music in the service of the dead. And angels came down from the Mercy-seat above, and bent over her lovingly, receiving her as their sister, and carrying up her prayers, like the light of the morning sun borne upward by the white clouds.

Herbert returned late. He came in the most delightful spirits. He had passed a most delightful day down at Chiselhurst, with a party of friends all life and spirit, and had never felt on such good terms with himself or so charmed with his lot in life. The blank look of the hall struck him, but he did not stop to consider what it was that was so unfamiliar. Always glad to return home to his beautiful wife, though so easily lured away from her, he bounded joyously up stairs, calling her name in that quick, clear accent, and coupling it with precious words of fondest love, which always shewed that he was happy.

Grace came out to meet him. Though she smiled, and held out her arms as of old, a strange atmosphere was round her, which Herbert could not choose but see.

'In the name of Heaven, my Grace, what has happened?what have you heard?-where is the boy?'

'Don't tremble so, Herbert dear. Baby is quite well. Not much has gone wrong.'

'Not much, Grace?-what?-how? Quick, my darling! my brain is on fire!'

'Herbert, how wild you look! Come into the drawing-room, and sit down. Indeed, it is not much, dear! That bill you owe the livery-stables' man- -don't you know? It is for fifteen pounds, and the man sent for it to-day. At least, he sent two men, who- She hesitated.

'Who were insolent to you, Grace?' cried Herbert, passionately clenching his fist.

'No, dear, quite the contrary: they were very civil, and only did their duty. But they were bailiffs, and took away the diningroom furniture, which they said was letting you off very easily.' 'Grace, an execution in my house!' cried Herbert in a tone of agony.

'Yes, dear. I could not prevent it. I sent to several places for you, but you were not to be found; and as I had no money in the house, I was obliged to let the things go; for what could I do?'

Herbert felt something rise in his throat that choked him. The picture of his patient, girlish Grace left all alone to encounter such horrible degradation and sorrow, while he had been away in the midst of the most intoxicating gaiety, rose up vividly before him. He saw her terror and her shame; he counted the agonised tears in her downcast eyes, and heard her melancholy voice pleading for mercy and delay; while he who ought to have been her protector had deserted his post, and given to pleasure what belonged to virtue and love.

'And it was for this I brought my Grace away from her quiet home!' he cried in a tone of despair, straining her to his breast. O Grace, what a villain thoughtlessness has made me! how folly has deepened into vice, and vice gone near to blacken into crime!'

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Something overcame him; it might be the sudden transition from the day's excitement to such blank desolation. He could not hold up his head, but, kissing his wife's chestnut curls, she felt the hot tears stream down her throat like rain. All her love welled up afresh at the sound of those stifled sobs; all her woman's tenderness and mercy and sweet forgiveness of wrong; all her newborn strength and maternal courage. With arms pressing him to her, with a sad fondness that went to Herbert's very heart, she spoke high words that sank like gentle rain on the dry sand. There was a power in them he could not withstand; for with all his faults he was as impressionable for good as for ill. His error was his want of constancy in keeping, not his obtuseness in receiving, virtuous counsel. He kissed her hands with a reverential love that seemed to honour the worshipper as well as the worshipped, and made many and solemn promises for the future-wich he kept for a time; living the quiet, orderly sober life fitting to his profession and estate, and giving Grace a blessed shelter from the waste of her melancholy, wherein she might say with truth that she was happy.

Those quiet evenings, how peaceful and holy they were! Grace looked forward to them with an ardour of expectation more intense than any happiness which she had yet known in her married life; and under their influence she grew more beautifulHerbert more noble-every day. But they lasted only for a moment. The old spells were woven round that fickle heart again; the old way of life, which had been abandoned, was entered on with

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