clergyman there of her own party, who could
pray and expound with unction.

Mrs. Dodd, not to throw cold water on what
seemed to gratify her children, accepted Miss
Hardie's invitation; but she never intended to
go, and at the last moment wrote to say she was
slightly indisposed. The nature of the indisposition
she revealed to Julia alone. "That young
lady keeps me on thorns. I never feel secure
she will not say or do something extravagant or
unusual: she seems to suspect sobriety and
good taste of being in league with impiety.
Here I succeed in bridling her a little; but
encounter a female enthusiast in her own house?
Merci! After all, there must be something good
in her, since she is your friend, and you are hers;
let her pass: I have something more serious to
say to you before you go there. It is about her
brother. He is a flirt: in fact, a notorious one,
more than one lady tells me."

Julia was silent, but began to be very uneasy;
they were sitting and talking after sunset, yet
without candles; she profited, for once, by that
amazing gap in the intelligence of "the sex."

"I hear he pays you compliments; and I have
seen a disposition to single you out. Now, my
love, you have the good sense to know that,
whatever a young man of that age says to you,
he says to many other ladies; but your experience
is not equal to your sense; so profit by
mine; a girl of your age must never be talked
of with a person of the other sex: it is fatal;
fatal! but if you permit yourself to be singled
out, you will be talked of inevitably, and distress
those who love you. It is easy to avoid injudicious
duets in society; oblige me by doing so
to-night."

To show how much she was in earnest, Mrs.
Dodd hinted that, were her admonition neglected,
she should regret, for once, having kept clear of
an enthusiast.

Julia had no alternative; she assented in a
faint voice. After a pause she faltered out,
"And suppose he should esteem me seriously?"

Mrs. Dodd replied quickly, "Then that would
be much worse. But," said she, "I have no
apprehensions on that score; you are a child,
and he is a precocious boy, and rather a flirt.
But forewarned is forearmed. So now run away
and dress, sweet one: my lecture is quite
ended."

The sensitive girl went up to her room with a
heavy heart. All the fears she had lulled of late
revived. She saw plainly now that Mrs. Dodd
only accepted Alfred as a pleasant acquaintance:
as a son-in-law he was out of the question. "Oh,
what will she say when she knows all?" thought
Julia.

Next day, sitting near the window, she saw
him coming up the road. After the first movement
of pleasure at the bare sight of him, she
was sorry he had come. Mamma's suspicions
awake at last, and here he was again; the third
cull in one fortnight! She dared not risk an
interview with him, ardent and unguarded, under
that penetrating eye, which she felt would now
be on the watch.

She rose hurriedly, said as carelessly as she
could, "I am going to the school," and, tying,
her bonnet on all in a flurry, whipped out at the
back door with her shawl in her hand just as
Sarah opened the front door to Alfred. She then
shuffled on her shawl, and whisked through the
little shrubbery into the open field, and reached
a path that led to the school, and so gratified
was she at her dexterity in evading her favourite,
that she hung her head, and went murmuring,
"Cruel, cruel, cruel!"

Alfred entered the drawing-room gaily, with a.
good-sized card and a prepared speech. This
was not the visit of a friend but a functionary;
the treasurer of the cricket-ground, come to book
two of his eighteen to play against the All
England Eleven next month. "As for you, my
worthy sir (turning to Edward), I shall just put
you down without ceremony. But I must ask
leave to book Captain Dodd. Mrs. Dodd, I come
at the universal desire of the club; they say it
is sure to be a dull match without Captain Dodd.
Besides, he is a capital player."

"Mamma, don't you be caught by his chaff,"
said Edward, quietly. "Papa is no player at
all. Anything more unlike cricket than his way
of making runs——"

"But he makes them, old fellow; now you and
I, at Lord's the other day, played in first-rate
form, left shoulder well up, and achieved—with
neatness, precision, dexterity, and despatch—the
British duck's-egg."

"Misericorde! What is that?" inquired Mrs.
Dodd.

"Why, a round O," said the other Oxonian,
coming to his friend's aid.

"And what is that, pray?"

Alfred told her "the round O," which had
yielded to "the duck's-egg," and was becoming
obsolete, meant the cypher set by the scorer
against a player's name, who is out without
making a run.

"I see," sighed Mrs. Dodd: "it penetrates to
your very sports and games. And why British?"

"Oh, 'British' is redundant: thrown, in by
the universities."

"But what does it mean?"

"It means nothing. That is the beauty of it.
British is inserted in. imitation of our idols, the
Greeks; they adored redundancy."

In short, poor Alfred, though not an M.P., was
talking to put off time, till Julia should come in:
so he now favoured Mrs. Dodd, of all people,
with a flowery description of her husband's play,
which I, who have not his motive for volubility,
suppress. However, he wound up with the
captain's "moral influence." "Last match,"
said he, "Barkington did not do itself justice.
Several, that could have made a stand, were
frightened out, rather than bowled, by the
London professionals. Then Captain Dodd went
in, and treated those artists with the same good
humoured contempt he would a parish bowler,