lightning down the stairs, with the vain hope of
still being able to overtake her, and arrived at
the entrance-door just in time to see her drive
off in a hired brougham, attended by a very
respectable-looking elderly man-servant out of
livery. He had seen that she was quite alone
in the carriage, and he turned back again
quickly for the chance of meeting her
companion; but she was nowhere to be found, and
he went home in a state of unusual excitement.
It was barely ten o'clock when he reached his
lodging; he could not read, and so he sat down
Ite to Mrs. Brande. On turning over a
heap of papers which lay scattered on his table,
he came upon the letter in which she had told
him to take the places; and on looking at it
again, he discovered that, by some piece of
carelessness, he had read Monday next instead of
Monday week, and so the mystery was solved.
His note to her was a very short one; he told
her of his stupid blunder, and merely added:
"There was no Hallé", no Piatti; Joachim
played, but I did not hear him. Medusa was
there;" which considerably puzzled his cousin,
who plied him with continual notes upon the
subject, but never got any answer.

On the Monday following the eventful Monday
described, true to her original plan,
Mrs. Brande came up to town, and, faithful to
her appointment, drove up to the Piccadilly
entrance of St. James's Hall at ten minutes
before eight o'clock. She was a real child about
her amusements, and always liked to be there
ever so long before the beginning. She found
her cousin, early as it was, already in waiting
for her at the door.

"What have you been doing with yourself
all day, you bad boy," she said, as he helped
her out of the carriage, "that you never came
to look me up, though you knew I was to
arrive by the twelve o'clock train?"

"I couldn't, dear," he answered; "I was at a
monster concert and couldn't get away; it
began at one, and was not over before half-past
six. I had got helplessly jammed in, and had
to bear my fate as best I might, and bide my
time to the end."

"Good Heavens!" she said, "what an ostrich's
stomach for music you must have! Fond as I
am of it I couldn't have done that, and then
do this on the top of it; no wonder that you
look dead beat! Was it a good concert? What
did you hear?"

"Oh, a lot of things," he answered, carelessly;
"I'm sure I don't know what."

"And who sang?" asked she.

"Let me see," said Mr. Saville. "Oh, a whole
heap of people sang everybody sang I can't
recollect who."

He had taken care to secure the same seats
of the week before, and when they arrived, he
noticed with emotion that the first six places
on the front bench close to them were still
empty. As the hour of commencing drew near,
he was in a state of abstraction that at last
became quite apparent to his cousin; he hardly
heard what she said to him, and scarcely
answered when he had heard. The orchestra was
filling by degrees, and he kept his eyes riveted
upon the people as they entered.

"My dear Edward," said Mrs. Brande, "who
in the world are you looking for among all those
shabby people up there on the platform?"

"I am looking for a checked shawl and a
grey worsted stocking," he answered. But
he looked in vain. Presently a party of people
rustled past him, the women's gowns as they
brushed by filled him with a strange agitation.
He recognised them— they were the people of
the Monday before— and took the same seats on
the front bench. There was the elderly gentleman
with the red nose, the daughter with the
spectacles and the big music-book, the stout mother
with the pagoda on her head, and her bottle of
smelling-salts in her hand, and they had brought
with them a son of fifteen who took the place
next to Mr. Saville, who could have kicked him.
Our friend was in an irritable frame of mind,
and the boy fidgeted him into a perfect fever.
The youth's neckcloth was too stiff, and he
craned his neck about incessantly; then his
waistcoat was too tight for him, and he tried to
ease himself by first unbuttoning the three upper
buttons, and then buttoning them up again,
and unbuttoning the four lower ones, so as al-
ternately to relieve the different portions of his
suffering person. Harty Brande was quite de-
lighted with the boy; he had chilblains too, and
after rubbing his wretched feet together, and
making his boots creak till he nearly drove his
neighbour wild, he finally kicked both his boots
off at the heel, after which he sighed deeply
and seemed rather better. Harty, who had a
great sense of fun, was thoroughly wrapped up
in him. Edward Saville thought with savage
delight of the end of the concert, and the
moment when he would have to put those boots
on again. The music came, the music went;
the evening had come, and was gone, and
Edward had accompanied his cousin home, and
was now sitting by a bright fire in her small
drawing-room, moodily drinking a very good
cup of tea.

"My dear boy," she said to him, "what ails
you? You don't seem half glad to see me,
whatever the reason may be; and I am so
disappointed about it that I really don't think I shall
tell you something which I had imagined would
have given you pleasure."

"Yes, I am glad to see you Harty, dear," he
said, kissing her hand affectionately; "but I am
tired, and out of spirits, and the music and that
hot room together have finished me. Decidedly
London is a mistake at this season of the year;
and to-morrow when you start, I think it not at
all unlikely that you will find me at the station
ready to accompany you back to Herne
Court."

"Don't go to the station to-morrow, then,
for if you do, you won't find me," she said,
laughing; "this is exactly what I was nursing up as
such a treat to delight, you with— William has
gone for a few days' hunting to the Digbys, and
I have a holiday until Saturday. I thought