anxiously for her children's return from the Music
Meeting. As the carriage stopped, she came
hurrying and panting into the entrance hall, her
gold and scarlet head-dress trembling, and the
thick folds of her black satin dress sweeping
over the marble floor, and raising quite a little
simoom in the still sultry air. Mrs. Charlewood
had once been pretty, with a pink and white
face of irregular outline, and a soft though
scanty crop of light hair. She had now grown
immensely stout, and the blush roses on her
cheeks had deepened and widened into crimson
peonies. But she still affected a little
languishing lachrymose manner, which, to say
truth, was less suited to her present matronly
appearance than it had been to the delicate
prettiness and drooping curls of her maiden
days.

"Where in 'Eaven's name have you been?"
she cried. "What 'as detained you?"

Mrs. Charlewood could scarcely be said to
drop her h's, for she had a peculiar habit of
making a determined pause before words
beginning with that ill-used consonant, as though to
call attention to the fact of her ignoring it
altogether. In short, there was the same distinction
between her omission of the aspirate and
other people's, as exists between simply
overlooking a friend in the street and cutting him
dead. Mrs. Charlewood cut her h's dead.

"The oratorio must have been over an hour
ago, at least," continued the good lady, "for I
saw the carriages coming up from town by
dozens."

"We have been to New Bridge-street,
mamma. An uncomfortable little girl tumbled
under our wheels. But suppose we impart all
particulars over luncheon? We have brought
you Mabel Earnshaw quite exhausted with
excitement; and I profess myself hungry,
with an utterly uninteresting and common-place
appetite."

Mrs. Charlewood kissed her young guest, and
led the way into the dining-room. She would
have liked to put many more questions, and to
have had her curiosity gratified without delay.
But, in truth, she stood very considerably in
awe of her eldest daughter, and thought it
wise to wait with outward patience until it
should please Penelope to speak. Augusta had
pleaded fatigue, and had retired to her own
room, there to partake of a very substantial
cold collation. She was averse to taking her
meals with the rest of the family, always excepting
dinner, which was a form and a ceremony,
and admitted of a brilliant toilet.

"Well, Mabel," said Mrs. Charlewood, when
they were seated at table, "I 'ope you enjoyed
the concert? Penelope don't seem inclined to
give me any news, so I must look to you to do
it, my dear."

"It was very fine," answered Mabel, and I
am very much obliged to you all for giving me
such a great pleasure. I hope you don't think
me ungrateful, Mrs. Charlewood, but the
accident drove away the impression of the music
for a time."

Then Miss Charlewood, being restored with
meat and wine, unlocked her lips, and began to
relate the story of the little girl. She was in
the midst of her recital, when Clement entered,
having evidently hastened. Mrs. Charlewood
assailed him with a torrent of questions. She
had a great respect for her son, but she was not
afraid of him. She had an instinctive
knowledge that Clement would never permit himself
the sharp speeches at his mother's expense
which Penelope ruthlessly indulged in.

Mabel Earnshaw sat silent, listening earnestly
to what he told them. She was not a beautiful
girl, except in so far as the first fresh bloom of
healthy youth is beautiful; but her face was
full of intellect, and capable of a singular
expression of concentration. Her forehead was
wide and well developed, and her eyes of a
changing grey, shaded by short thick dark
lashes. These eyes, bright and liquid, though not
especially large, made the chief charm of her face.
But it was in the mouth that all its characteristic
expression lay. It was a delicately cut, sensitive
mouth, but with a capacity for locking itself into
a fixed frozen scorn, that changed and aged
the whole countenance. The soft lips, when
smiling or speaking, were flexible and tender,
but once shut, they conveyed in some indefinable
way a strange indomitable power of silence.
They were not locked now, however, but
slightly parted, as she listened to Clement's
news of the little girl, and the bright eyes,
full of candour, were raised with an entire
absence of self-consciousness to the speaker's
face.

"I am heartily glad to be able to say that there
is nothing serious to be apprehended," said
Clement. "The collar-bone is broken, but
Brett assures me that she will be as well as ever
in a few weeks."

"Poor little thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Charlewood.
"But, dear me, how careless to take a
little girl like that out in such a crowd, and
him a lame man, too. But there! Those kind
of people have no more forethought than
anything."

"What is the kind of these people, Clem?"
asked Miss Charlewood. "The child had not the
usual look of a New Bridge-street aboriginal."

"No, indeed," Mabel eagerly struck in; "I
have never seen a more refined little face."

"Well," said Clement, "I believe the man is
a fiddler. He had been to the hall to speak to
some of the musicians, he told me. He's a
shiftless, scampish kind of fellow, I fancy.
Altogether, he impressed me unfavourably."

"But he seemed very fond of the child," said
Mabel.

"Oh yes; fond of the child, no doubt. He
blew me up furiously at first, and said I had
murdered her."

"New Bridge-street," said Mrs. Charlewood,
musingly. "Law! Why that's a very wretched
neighbourhood. Down by the canal. I know
just where it is, because I remember very
well —- "

Mrs. Charlewood's reminiscences—which