knew at once that something had happened.

"Well, mauvais garnement, and so you have seen her?"

"Yes, I have seen her. But what has come to you, mother? What is the matter?  Has any one been here?"

"Yes, some one has been here; an angel with a red face, mon enfant."

"Nonsense!  You don't mean —— Then it was he, after all!  But what on earth did he come here for?"

"Ah, what, indeed! What do angels generally come for?"

"I haven't an idea. I only know one.  My acquaintance has been more the other way."

"Fi donc! But you are ranged now, mon fils, n'est-ce pas? You will have no more to do with naughtiness — hein?"

"That depends. Not if I have an angel always with me."

"Answer me one question, sir.  Have you given up all your bad ways, for the sake of your angel?  Foi de gentilhomme, is this truly her doing?"

"Solely hers. No other power on earth, I think, could have made me work."

"A pretty compliment to me, va-t-en!  But no matter, if it is true; I will swallow the pill and not make a bad face. And now, sir, are you bent upon running away from your old mother, to-morrow?"

He would have said yes, but something in his mother's face made him hesitate.  Could it be that this curate, in the course of a short visit, had wrought the miracle, which Lowndes had been labouring for six months to accomplish, and had failed?

"Perhaps it is the last request she will ever make of you," continued Mrs. Cartaret, stretching up to part the hair from his brow, and then holding his face tenderly, for a moment, between her fat little hands. "You, and Beckworth, and all will very soon pass away from her. The reins are slipping from her hands, and it is time that the old woman was unseated, isn't it?"

He said nothing, but caught her in his arms.

As he leaned out of his window that night, smoking a cigar, he had but one regret. "How. I wish I hadn't passed him. That fellow is a trump. I would walk fifty miles to shake him by the hand.  None of the fellows I know would ever have done such a thing. It's incomprehensible. Is it his religion, or is it his nature, that has made him what he is?  Ah, Maud, this red-faced parson is worth a dozen of me, if love went by merit.  But, happily for me, it doesn't!"

CHAPTER XIX.

MAUD was in the parlour, the following afternoon, entertaining a spinster friend of Mrs. Hicks's, who had called. But Mrs. Hicks was out, and the bore of talking and listening to this maundering, though no doubt very amiable, lady, devolved on Maud. She was at her wit's end. They had talked about the Queen; they had discussed whether Her Majesty would come out more next year or not. The visitor had repeated with pride some anecdotes of the princesses which she had captured, and which showed a sort of connexion, however remote, with the highest circles. After which, they had deplored the unusual drought, and lamented over the approaching flower-show, which was sure to be a failure, in consequence, and then they came to a dead stop. There is no knowing what subject the spinster, by her own unassisted efforts, would next have pumped up, but that a carriage, at that moment, stopped at the gate. Maud rose and went to the window. Was it another of these
inflictions? She could see nothing by reason of the privet hedge, and sat down again, feeling that another visitor of this sort would be almost more than she could bear.

There was a minute's interval, and then the parlour-door was thrown open, and Mrs. Cartaret was announced.

Maud started to her feet, but she was conscious of nothing for a few seconds.  Then her heart seemed to be rising in her throat; she stood there, she could not go forward, while the old lady advanced towards her, holding out her arms, and Maud fell into them. The spinster, fluttered at the entry of a county lady who had very seldom been seen in Salisbury, and, furthermore, by the demonstrative character of the greeting she witnessed, murmured some inaudible formula of farewell, and slid out of the room.

"My dear," cries Mrs. Cartaret, as soon as the door is closed, "I have done you horrible injustice. I have said all sorts of hard things of you; will you forgive me?  I have come out here all this way to ask you; and if you will not, I shall go back and make my son miserable. I have been very angry — oh! I tell you frankly — I have been very angry, and I would listen to nothing he said. We have had a desperate quarrel. But in the end, see, it is not he