moaned Mildred. "Take away your hands,
mamma. Let nobody caress me — nobody
comfort me. I tell you I am all made up of self
and folly. O mamma — why didn't you? Why
didn't you?"

"My treasure, didn't I what?" said Mrs.
Mulcaster, soothingly.

"Punish me when I was little!" retorted the
spoiled one, with flashing eyes. "You knew my
wilfulness."

"Pretty well," sighed poor Mrs. Mulcaster.

"There — you confess it — and with all my
life's happiness at stake! O mamma, I wish I
could forgive you!"

''Louisa, do you hear this? " said Mrs. Mulcaster,
turning to her younger daughter. "Should
Providence ever send you children, recollect that
too great tenderness may cost you their duty."

"Mildred is not herself, mamma," said Louey,
with some warmth. "I do believe she is mad."

"I thank you, Louisa, for your very kind and
sisterly remark," said Mildred, majestically.
"I shall at least know where I need not seek
comfort or sympathy in my sorrow."

"You told us, dear, you did not want any,"
replied Louisa.

Mildred put her tiny hands to her face.

"Louey, Louey!" exclaimed her mother,
"surely this is not the tone. Govern your
temper, I beg, or I must request you to leave
the room, until my suffering child is better able
to endure such rebukes."

"I'm not suffering at all, mamma," said
Mildred, bursting into a flood of tears.

"My darling, compose yourself. See, Louisa,
what your violence has done! Hark, hark!
There's a visitor. Quick, Louisa. Not at home."

"Stop, Louey," said Mildred, wiping her
beautiful eyes, and regaining her dignity.
"This must not be. Let them come. Let
anybody come. Mamma, I am ashamed of you.
Would you wish it said that your daughter was
breaking her heart in solitude because her lover
had deserted her for his scullion?"

"Because," remarked Louisa, dryly, "that
would hardly represent the facts!"

"Hush, both of you," said Mrs. Mulcaster,
authoritatively.

And the servant announced

"Colonel Lugard."

The colonel saw at a glance that tidings of
some sort had reached The Haie. Nevertheless,
the smile he had worn on entering did not
relax; but, on the contrary, broadened into a
decided laugh.

"I caught sight of Miss Shrapnell's
pony-carriage," he said, "as I turned into the drive
and quickened my pace to a charging gallop.
But I'm only in time to restore order. Whenever
I cannot anticipate my fair neighbour of
Battery-Boombe, I make a point of following
her as promptly as possible. And you can
hardly imagine, my dear ladies, how much I am
able to effect, in binding up mental hurts,
correcting intelligence, straightening distorted
facts, and general repairs of a like description.
I am a complete ambulance-corps, attached to
the division Shrapnell. Who's hit now? Come,
tell the doctor. Well, my dear Miss Louisa,
you look the gravest. I begin with you. The
last piece of county gossip conveyed to you
related to—to — shall I go on? A wedding.'"

Mrs. Mulcaster trembled, and glanced at
Mildred; but her daughter's calm, fixed look, and
the colonel's beaming smile, reassured her. She
let him go on.

"You," he said, addressing them all, "like
myself, have heard a ridiculous rumour connecting
the name of our young neighbour, George
Gosling, with one so far beneath him in station,
that the jest — and a very bad and malicious one
it was — ought to have been at once apparent."

Mildred's look thanked the speaker so
eloquently, that a sudden thrill shot through his
heart, for he knew, that unlucky colonel, that
there was more, considerably more, to say. With
that radiant glance, too joyful for disguise,
entered into the colonel's startled soul the
conviction that Mildred loved, and that he himself,
purposing only to clear their general favourite,
George, from an unworthy rumour, must, if he
told his story out, scatter worse confusion than
Miss Shrapnell herself!

He knew, in common with many others, that.
a union between the houses of Gosling and
Mulcaster had been ranked among the very
probable events of the county; but of the actual
engagement, and its rupture, he knew nothing.
Mrs. Mulcaster had, at his last visit, mentioned
in a rather significant manner that intercourse
with Gosling Graize had diminished. When,
therefore, the report reached him that George
was about to be married, and to one of his own
domestic servants, his astonishment had been
entirely limited to his young friend's selection.
"There has been a row — a lovers' quarrel — a
rash move of the rebel George," thought the
perplexed officer, "and of that, bar the cook,
they know nothing. Halt, there. Threes about!"

But this prudent manoeuvre was not to be
executed. The "three" before him would not
permit it. Convinced of the falsehood of Miss
Shrapnell's tidings, Mrs. Mulcaster saw no
objection to continuing the subject.

"It is curious how circumstantial falsehood
has become of late. My only wonder is that we
were not favoured with all the interesting particulars
of Geo — Sir George Gosling's courtship."

"Ha, ha!" said the colonel. "Gossip, you
know, grows like the Highland cairn. Everybody
adds a stone!"

"Scandalous. Stories like these, devoid of
the merest atom of foundation, should be visited
with some severe social penalty."

"Ahem!" said the colonel—- "yes."

"You don't agree with me?"

"Perfectly. Without foundation — yes. Such,''
added the colonel, briskly, "could not be too
severely reprehended."

"Such as this" said Mrs. Mulcaster, fixing
him to the point.

The poor colonel winced. His sense of
justice, even to a Shrapnell, was keen.

"I — I— the fact is, Will Crooke——-" (Will
Crooke, once his orderly, now his groom, was
the colonel's reserve in difficulty; but here