scarcely care what you think. There has
been nothing to warrant your taking this
tone to me. Nothing."  And she remained
gazing at him.

Mr. Ridley, whom she had once or twice
calmly put down, said she was "stuffed
with Irish pride." And, in fact, there was
in her that feeling, when she found the
world opposed to her, of turning and
facing it. Deeply hurt, wounded to the
quick, she never hesitated, but said:

"I don't care for such insinuations, nor
would I lift my finger to disprove them.
To-day my father put into my hand a
letter of proposal from Mr. Leader. I can
show it you; for you were slandering him
as well as me. He is honourable and good,
and has never said anything of you, though
he might."

"Because he does not care for you. You
don't know human nature."

"Ignorant, too? You are heaping
compliments on me. I could forgive anything
but injustice—bitter, cruel injustice. If I
did what you suppose, or could do it—enter
on such an organised deception—I should
be as unworthy of you, as I think you are
now of me!"

He was confounded, crushed. He had
no idea, no one in the little place had, that
there was all this warmth and vehemence
in her. He faltered some excuses.

"No," she said, "it is too late. This is
your doing, not mine." As she spoke she
sat down to the table and wrote for a
minute. Then stood up and read to him
what seemed a sentence. "'I thank you
for the honour you have done me in offering
me your hand in marriage. I am most
grateful and deeply flattered at this token
of your regard. I accept your proposal.
God grant I may be worthy of it.' There,"
she said, with the air of a queen of Ireland.

At that moment entered the Doctor most
curiously apropos, as he said himself. It was
coming in "as they do on the stage."  "A
letter you have there?" he said, with a
little eagerness. "Give it to me, dear, I'll
be postman." And he secured it in his
breast-pocket.  "Ah, Mr. Tom, you've
behaved foolishly. The only way with
Katey, as I could have told you, is trust—
'plicit trust. Not a breath of a ghost, of a
shadow, of a stick, of a shade of suspicion.
Then you blight all, as you have done. I
can see this is an official act, sir. Her
hand and deed. When Katey takes a step
she doesn't take another track in a hurry."

The young man did not answer. And
bowing his head, he turned to leave the
room. With his hand on the door, he
suddenly turned, and with an imploring
look, said, "Oh, forgive me! Don't let us
part in this way!"

The Doctor struck in heartily, as if
talking to himself, "Katey double-faced!
Katey to be intriguing against her own
sister! Well, after that!"

She turned from him. He was gone.
Then, after a minute's delay, the Doctor
followed, to play postman.

A DREAM AT SEVILLE.

To use a favourite modern idiom, I had
"done" Seville. I had seen the religious
processions which enliven the Holy Week,
I had seen the first bull-fight of the season,
I had visited the annual fair, and I had
lounged through the superb gardens of the
Duke of Montpensier. An object in these
gardens, which made a particular impression
on my mind, was a sort of grotto, to
which the duke had transferred the
dilapidated tombs of Don Juan, the
commandant, and his daughter.

When one night I fell asleep in my
lodging, I once more found myself standing
before the ghastly recess, and gazing at
the three tombs, the figures in which
were in a sadly mutilated condition. The
great libertine himself, Don Juan Tenorio,
historically known as the friend of Don
Pedro the Cruel, King of Spain, being
altogether destitute of a face, easily suggested
commonplace reflections. I had
a fine opportunity for repeating Hamlet's
soliloquy in the churchyard with modifications
suitable to the occasion. I could say
that Don Juan had a mouth, and could sing
once, nay, that his living representatives
sing the music of Mozart; but that even
the stone copy of his lips had now passed
away, and I could extend my profound
meditations to the nose and chin. The
opportunity was not to be resisted, and I
was mentally uttering a world of twaddle,
when I found my self checked by the gradual
appearance of features on the image before
me. The features, as they became distinct,
were clearly not of stone; but of actual
flesh and blood. Even the body had lost
its stony aspect, and seemed to cover itself
with the semblance of clothes—gay clothes
in the old Andalusian style. When the
transition state, through which the figure
was evidently passing, was quite over, I
perceived, to my utter amazement, that the