"Very good. I want you to manage it. I
want you to start for the Grange to-morrow."

George looked back at the fire, and sighed
impatiently.

"I understand you now, admiral," he said.
"You are entirely mistaken in me. My attachment
to Miss Vanstone is not to be shaken in
that manner."

Admiral Bartram took his quarter-deck walk
again, up and down the room.

"One good turn deserves another, George,"
said the old gentleman. "If I am willing to
make concessions on my side, the least you can
do is to meet me half way, and make concessions
on yours."

"I don't deny it, sir."

"Very well. Now listen to my proposal.
Give me a fair hearing, George—a fair hearing is
every man's privilege. I will be perfectly just
to begin with. I won't attempt to deny that
you honestly believe Miss Vanstone is the only
woman in the world who can make you happy.
I don't question that. What I do question is,
whether you really know your own mind in this
matter, quite so well as you think you know it
yourself. You can't deny, George, that you have
been in love with a good many women in your
time? Among the rest of them, you have been
in love with Miss Brock. No longer ago than
this time last year, there was a sneaking kindness
between you and that young lady, to say the
least of it. And quite right, too! Miss Brock is
one of that round dozen of darlings I mentioned
over our first glass of wine."

"You are confusing an idle flirtation, sir, with
a serious attachment," said George. " You are
altogether mistaken—you are indeed."

"Likely enough; I don't pretend to be
infallible—I leave that to my juniors. But I happen
to have known you, George, since you were the
height of my old telescope; and I want to have
this serious attachment of yours put to the test.
If you can satisfy me that your whole heart and
soul are as strongly set on Miss Vanstone, as you
suppose them to be—I must knock under to
necessity, and keep my objections to myself. But
I must be satisfied first. Go to the Grange
to-morrow, and stay there a week in Miss Brock's
society. Give that charming girl a fair chance
of lighting up the old flame again, if she can—
and then come back to St. Crux, and let me hear
the result. If you tell me, as an honest man,
that your attachment to Miss Vanstone still
remains unshaken, you will have heard the last
of my objections from that moment. Whatever
misgivings I may feel in my own mind, I will say
nothing, and do nothing, adverse to your wishes.
There is my proposal. I dare say it looks like
an old man's folly, in your eyes. But the old
man won't trouble you much longer, George—
and it may be a pleasant reflection, when you
have got sons of your own, to remember that
you humoured him in his last days."

He came back to the fireplace, as he said those
words, and laid his hand once more on his
nephew's shoulder. George took the hand, and
pressed it affectionately. In the tenderest and
best sense of the word, his uncle had been a
father to him.

"I will do what you ask me, sir," he replied,
"if you seriously wish it. But it is only right
to tell you that the experiment will be perfectly
useless. However, if you prefer my passing the
week at the Grange, to my passing it here—to
the Grange I will go."

"Thank you, George," said the admiral, bluntly.
"I expected as much from you, and you have
not disappointed me. If Miss Brock doesn't
get us out of this mess," thought the wily old
gentleman, as he resumed his place at the table,
"my nephew's weathercock of a head has turned
steady with a vengeance! We'll consider the
question settled for to-night, George," he
continued aloud, "and call another subject. These
family anxieties don't improve the flavour of my
old claret. The bottle stands with you. What
are they doing at the theatres in London? We
always patronised the theatres, in my time, in
the Navy. We used to like a good tragedy to
begin with, and a hornpipe to cheer us up at
the end of the entertainment."

For the rest of the evening, the talk flowed in
the ordinary channels. Admiral Bartram only
returned to the forbidden subject, when he and
his nephew parted for the night.

"You won't forget to-morrow, George?"

"Certainly not, sir. I'll take the dog-cart,
and drive myself over after breakfast."

Before noon the next day, Mr. George Bartram
had left the house, and the last chance in
Magdalen's favour had left it with him.

AT HOME AT TEHRAN.

IT is the terrible winter of 1857, the severest
which has been known in Persia within the
memory of living man. The snow is said to lie
thirty feet deep in parts of the open country
which surround Tehran. Whole caravans have
been cast away and lost in it. The government
messengers, who bring the mails from Europe,
crawl in upon worn-out horses with their limbs
frozen. The couriers from India are detained by
impassable marshes and bogs, and rivers wild
with rushing torrents. When a post does arrive
from any quarter it is hailed as quite a joyful
event. Not a day passes without some dismal
story of men and cattle perishing in the
snow-drifts.

Nothing can exceed the cheerless and utter
discomfort of Persian houses at this time.
They are generally made of mud, not even
bound together by straw or stubble; and,
whenever there is a thaw or heavy rain, the tenant
has no cause for surprise if one of the walls of
his dwelling should tumble down, or be washed
away. Coals and fuel, and even provisions, are
hardly to be had without difficulty and at
exorbitant prices. The houses, such as they
are, swarm with rats, and I have been obliged