strong can dare to be; with an iron will in the
centre of him surrounded by wide outworks of
lofty kindness and secure tolerance; scrupulous
in money matters and rigidly truthful; proud
of a stainless name and an honourable pedigree;
a man emphatically in his own right. A strong,
self-centred man, able to walk alone without the
recognised social supports, he was yet proud, as
such men are, of the merits and possessions of
his wife; proud of her birth as equal to his own;
proud of her name and repute as stainless as his
own or as his sister's; proud of her as she stood
there carved out of the purest marble, and silently
defying the world to find a flaw anywhere. Yet
to his sister he insisted, warmly, as was said, on
the honourable lineage and undeniable social
circumstances of both mother and daughter, as
make-weights in the marriage settlements and
claims on the family respect; not on the family
bounty. This was the group, then, that set out
on the great highway of life together, without a
cloud in the sky as yet.

"A person wants to speak to you, ma'am."
The servant held the door of the drawing-room
slightly ajar, not flinging it open with the liberal
hospitality usual when a welcome guest is at her
back.

"Who is it, Annie?" said Mrs. Broughton.
She always assumed the manners of the mistress
when Gordon was not there.

"I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure; he's not
been here before, and he asked for you."

"Go and see what he wants, then; and if he's
a gentleman, show him up," said the little
woman, briskly. She was always on the look-out
for angels unawares.

"But Gordon is not at home, mamma,"
interposed Laura, in her soft, low, deprecating
voice.

"Well, and what then? Surely the man
won't eat us up alive, child!" laughed her
mother.

"But if he wants money or anything?" again
urged Laura, fear ever uppermost with her as
expectation with her mother.

"Leave that to me," replied Mrs. Broughton,
arranging her curls becomingly over the bow of
bright blue ribbon, worn at the side like a
matronly kind of snood.

"The very person I want to leave it to,"
said a thick oily voice, and a swarthy man,
almost like a man of colour he was so dark,
shabby and vulgar but yet not one of the
"lower classes" as they are called, pushed the
servant aside and entered the room.

Mrs. Broughton gave one little cry; only one;
and for a moment became green, not white.
"Sam!" she then said, in a low voice. "You
villain!"

"Well! that's an affectionate greeting, at all
events!" said the man, with a coarse kind of
indifference.

"What would you have better?" she retorted,
angrily. "What business have you here at
all?"

"That I call cool! I should think more business
than any one else." And Sam's dark face
grew darker with the sullen look that came
into it.

"But so suddenly— so unexpectedly!" said
Mrs. Broughton, changing her tack with
masterly facility, and falling into the old cheery
manner quite naturally; but squinting.

"Which should have made the pleasure of my
visit all the greater," sneered the man, "if you
had been a duti—-"

"If I had been an affectionate sister!"
laughed Mrs. Broughton, shrilly. "Well! and
so it should, I confess!"

Sam looked at her for a moment, and whistled.

"Oh! that is the game, is it?" he said, and
planted his legs wide apart. Then he turned to
Laura. "And who have we here? My niece?"
he asked.

"Yes, your niece, Sam, your poor brother's
child and my sweet daughter," said Mrs.
Broughton, with what was meant to be a
tender touch upon her daughter's sleek head.

"Ah, well, she's a credit to him," said Sam,
examining her much as if she had been a horse
or a dog. "Come here and kiss me, my dear,"
he then said, after a pause.

"Go and kiss your uncle, my precious
Laura," repeated Mrs. Broughton, in a caressing
tone.

Laura hesitated.

"Do as you are bid, child," said her mother
in a low voice, harshly.

And Laura went.

"Well, did I do you a great deal of harm, my
dear?" said the man, after he had kissed her,
holding her still in his arms and looking at her
with a strange expression.

"No," blushed Laura, and stammered and
tried to free herself from him.

"But you didn't like it, eh?" and the
vindictive expression that seemed the only one
really natural to him came into his face for the
second time in this short interview.

Laura was silent; her mother gave her a
sharp sidelong look, and her uncle frowned
heavily; and the young wife felt instinctively
that a web was weaving round her, of which she
could foresee neither the outlet nor the extent.

"Of course you know what I have come for,
Louisa?" then said Sam, turning to Mrs.
Broughton, and running his fingers through his
hair. It was short, curled, crisp hair, and grew
low down on his forehead, with a straight line
round the head like a skull-cap of Astracan
lambskin.

She tossed her head, and made her flaxen
ringlets dance. "The old story, I suppose!"
But though she tried to speak with jaunty
unconcern, the intense shrillness of her voice a
little betrayed her, and her squint became
painful to witness.

"Exactly so," said Sam.

Mrs. Broughton glanced at her daughter out
of the corner of her eye. "I have no money,"
she then said, emphatically.

"No?" Sam looked incredulous and insolent.
"Yet you are living with a fine house and a fine
appearance— all sham, eh?"