Presently she went up to her room. During
that latter part of the night, staying so much
at the doors, she had put on an old scarlet opera
cloak, and wrapped it about her neck. Not that
she found much comfort in it, but she did
not forget that there was to be duty on the next
night.

The girls, rapturously photographing the joys
of the night, heard Lady Laura call softly to
Blanche, who came in. Lady Laura, still in the
opera cloak, shut the door, and then said,
"Blanche, I want to tell you something—can
you bear a little disappointment?" And then,
making as light of it as she could, told all about
Lord Spendlesham. Blanche burst into
passionate tears. Her mother consoled her, and
even with effect.

"I am not sorry," she said. "He was a foolish
creature, and you would have had great trouble
with him. He was a mere boy. There were
great obstacles from the beginning, in fact. I
never reckoned on it regularly. Now go to bed,
dear, and put it out of your head. I shall put
it all out of my head. To-morrow I shall see him
and manage him, dear. Some wicked people
have got round him; or, if the worst comes to
the worst, we shall think of something else, and,
suppose," she added, with an odd smile, "shall
begin it all again!"

The brilliancy of the night was already before
Blanche's eyes, and made her receive the artificial
encouragement. She had never fancied young
Spendlesham, and there had been a handsome
baronet that night, single, and with the other
virtues. She had more faith in that dismal
anthem of her mother's, "To-morrow begin it all
again!" She was struck, too, by the unwonted
softness of that consolation, and coming back,
when half way from the door, kissed her mother;
an unfrequent ceremony, for which there was
rarely time. When she was gone out, her mother
dropped wearily into a chair before her dressing-
glass, and then the old spectres—headed
by furious Madame Adelaide—all poured in
afresh.

Blanche went in to her sister to find sisterly
sympathy. She told her all her mortifications
and sorrows, and found some comfort. The
single and handsome baronet hovered in the
distance, as a sort of transparency. For more than
an hour they talked of it, and of a hundred other
things, taking off their finery as they went along.
Laura junior, full of her hopes and prospects,
told her story. At last they heard four strike,
and, with a start they thought of Duty for the
next night, and Laura junior laid her head upon
the pillow.

"Mamma has some plan, I know," said Blanche,
"for she said she would begin it all again
tomorrow. She will manage Spendlesham, I dare
say. I am sure she has some clever thing in her
head. I shall just run in and see. Is she in
bed?"

She went in softly. " Why, mamma—–" she
said, for Lady Laura was still sitting before the
glass, with the flowers on her head, and the red
opera cloak still about her. She was sitting, as
she had sat many times before, waiting for her
maid to come and begin to do her hair, when
going out to the old call of Duty. "Why,
mamma," said Blanche—and, running up, gave a
cry—rather a shriek.

At least she was at her post, and in her old
uniform. After all, it is at his post, and in the field,
that the veteran should most of all choose to meet
his end. That notion of "beginning it all again
to-morrow" had sent a chill to the nerves and
muscles of the heart. The old spirit was there,
and she would have been at the front again on
the morrow, "beginning all" once more; but the
old strength had at last given way. She was
not built of iron. "Begin again to-morrow!"
She had often done that, under circumstances as
hopeless; but now it seemed to be shouted at
her by the hoarse voices of the spectres. And
so the heart of the poor struggling gallant
soldier cracked, and in her flowers, and in her
cloak, and before her dressing-glass, she slept
off into quite another and more awful world,
where she was "to begin again in the morning,"
and where there were happily no balls nor
dresses, no struggle, no flowers, no fans; no
battling with bills, nor with infuriated milliners,
nor job-masters; but where it is to be hoped she
found at least rest.

L'ENVOI.

Now that some years are between that night
and this time, we see some of the figures in this
story in conditions such as the intelligent
reader of stories can almost fancy for himself.
About the next day or so after that unhappy
party of Lady Laura's, we can see the worn
and spent old diplomatist, Sir Hopkins, who
for weeks had been flitting and fluttering about
offices and ante-rooms, totter down eagerly to a
cab. "Foreign Office," he calls out, "and as
quick as you can." That morning he has heard
of the death of the governor of the Lee Boo
Island. "It is very hard," he thinks to himself.
"They treat me anyhow! They forget my old
services. It is shameful! And now to put me
off with that wretched place! I suppose I must
take it." And, grumbling and indignant, he sent
in his card to Harding Hanaper. "I shall try
for something else," said Sir Hopkins, "before I
consent to that." Poor soul! his heart was in
office—office of some shape, and sort—Foreign
Office "candle snuffing, even," if there was such
employment.

Harding Hanaper was very busy. A mail
was going out that night. "How that man
plagues us." (Yet it was more than a month
since Sir Hopkins had seen him.) "I can't see
him! I won't see him! What does he want?
Tell him to put it in writing." But Sir Hopkins
was not to be put off like the common petitioners.
His worn face found its way in. "The Lee Boo
Island," he said, panting aloud, "is vacant. They
have kept me so long, and altogether treated me