by every ordinary means, to exorcise the demon
of unrest before folding her white hands and
yielding fairly to the languid inactivity in which
we find her.

It had been a week of much uncertainty and
discontent. The mere material absence of George
was an evil in itself. Nobody ever bore teasing
like him. Never was a victim whose gentle
retorts gave greater zest to provocation! These
pleasures had departed, and left a weary void.
The hours his presence had enlivened must be
filled up somehow, and every attempt to do this
in a satisfactory manner had ended in signal
failure. As for the cause of his absence, that was,
by consent, ignored, as a matter at once too
distressing for laughter, and too absurd for
tears.

Mrs. Mulcaster had proposed change of scene
for her injured darling, and had even written
surreptitiously to a friend, Lady Mary St.
Colomb, at Ryde, on the subject of cheerful
lodgings; but Mildred, on being sounded, at once
announced her intention of remaining where she
was, until — until — no matter——- To which period
the project was accordingly deferred.

Remarkable rumours had reached The Haie
during the past week. That something of
an unusual nature had occurred at Gosling
Graize could not admit of a doubt. But what
was it? The hundred tongues of rumour
sometimes confound each other, and nothing comes
of the Babel but a desperate rout. There was
no coherence in the advices from the village
with which Gosling Graize held its most intimate
relations. If, for example, as alleged, Sir
George had shown symptoms of aberration of
intellect, how should the cook's having killed a
dog in the same condition have been the means
of her master's recovery? Or how should the
reported betrothal of Sir George to a young
lady of enormous wealth, and descent little
short of royal, have proved so unacceptable to
a very illustrious personage as to induce the
Reverend Mr. Phlunkey to decline the publication
of the banns for the ensuing Sunday?
Again, why should the decease of the dog throw
the cook, who killed him, into such a frenzy of
despair, that nothing short of the marriage of
Sir George with a Miss Van Splagen, who was
a remote connexion of the burgomaster of
Saardam, restore her equanimity ? The cook,
the dog, the lady, and Sir George, seemed, in
short, to be engaged in a sort of reel, into which
the butler, though without a partner, was
perpetually intruding and creating the most perplexing
complications.

Vague and cursory allusions had fallen from
casual visitors; but those parties had invariably,
like skaters approaching a spot marked "dangerous,"
glanced swiftly otf into indifferent topics,
having that forced flavour that indicates,
unmistakably, how imminent had been the peril.
Into these poor Mrs. Mulcaster, burning with
anxiety to understand what had really happened,
was compelled to follow. Come what might of
Gosling Graize and its proprietor, it was not for
her to express one word of imerest in the
matter. But she compared notes in private
with her younger daughter, and was at no pains
to conceal her disquietude.

"You may smile, Louisa, and arch your
brows, but mark my words. That boy, in his
excitement, has done something rash —
committed himself, I mean, to some folly that it
may tax all the ingenuity of his friends to set
aside, and may, after all, entail upon him
lasting misery."

"Be quite easy, dearest mamma," replied
Louisa, "and mark my words. In another
week George will be among us on the same
footing as before."

Her mother smiled at the bold prophecy, but
shook her head.

"I know George Gosling," she said.

"And I Mildred Mulcaster," said Louey.

As the ladies sat together on the day we have
mentioned, a visitor waited upon them, the
announcement of whose name seemed to create a
subdued sensation not wholly complimentary.

"Miss Shrapnell."

This lady was the last that remained unmarried
of the very numerous daughters of the late
Lord Boombe. The deceased nobleman had
been a quiet, mild-mannered little man, shy and
nervous to the last degree. His disposition
was so gentle and humane that it seems like a
pleasantry to state that his whole existence was
passed in the invention of the most terrific
agents for the destruction of the person and
property of his fellow-men.

To him is society indebted for the first
conception of that delicate little instrument the
Seaquake shell, whose mere fillip suffices to
hurl the largest line-of-battle ship that ever
swam fifty fathoms out of her native element.

To Lord Boombe the world's best
acknowledgments are considerably overdue for that
beautiful adaptation of steam-power to military
ends, which, at the distance of three miles, will
effect the annihilation of an entire battalion,
colonel, drummers, band, doctor, and all, in the
insignificant space of one minute and a half.

Encouraged by obtaining, after a correspondence
of thirty-five years, the consent of government
to test the value of this last invention on
the very first favourable opportunity, his lordship
next turned his attention to the perfecting
his balloon siege-bomb, calculated to reduce,
at one discharge, the most powerful fortress in
Europe, when a slight explosion in his laboratory,
so trivial as to have been mistaken by
the butler for the cat sneezing, shattered
his nervous system, and, in fact, originated the
illness from which he died.

The family mansion, Battery-Boombe, was
curious in itself, as representing the old system
of Vauban adapted to the residence of a small
British family. It had a drawbridge, moat, and
wall, with salient and re-entering angles
complete, although it was almost beyond the range
of possibility that any rational human being
would sally or re-enter thereby. There was
a laboratory and a guard-room, besides another
apartment or two, the whole made
bomb-proof with a covering of earth twelve feet thick,
the six young ladies inhabited the casemates,