impressions of the time spent in her aunt's family.
Still she preserved an affectionate remembrance
of those tabooed relatives, and had made many
high, though rather vague, resolves to seek
them out, and renew her old loving intercourse
with them, at that distant and constantly
receding epoch, which I presume we have all of
us pictured to ourselves once upon a time, and
which Mabel naïvely characterised as "the time
when I shall be able to do as I like."

The Saxelbys' social position in Hammerham
was immensely inferior to that of the Charlewoods
and yet the two families were on very
intimate terms. Benjamin Saxelby and Luke
Charlewood had known each other as men of
business for years; Mr. Charlewood being, in
fact, one of the principal directors of the gas
company, whose shareholders had collectively
a right to call Mr. Saxelby their servant. But
it was not until after his marriage that the
latter had crossed the threshold of Bramley
Manor. Augusta Charlewood was just
completing her education at the school to which
Mabel's step-father sent her, when the little girl
arrived there as a new pupil. And Augusta
Charlewood had taken a fit of romantic affection
for her schoolfellow. (Augusta Charlewood
was rather prone to take fits of romantic
affection. But it is only fair to add that they
did not last long.) However, an invitation
given and accepted for Mabel to pass some holiday
weeks at Bramley Manor, led to an
acquaintance between the Charlewoods and Mabel's
mother and step-father. And the Hammerham
millionnaires were not long in discovering that,
whatever might be said of Mr. Saxelby, his
wife bore the unmistakable stamp of gentle
breeding; and that the gloss of their spick-and-
span gentility ran no risk of being tarnished by
her society. Augusta's short-lived enthusiasm
for that "dear, sweet, clever Mabel," had cooled
very considerably long ago, but the young girl
had ingratiated herself thoroughly with all the
other members of the family, and was treated
almost like a pet child of the house.

"Don't you think Christian charity is a very,
very rare thing, Mr. Charlewood? I don't
mean charity in giving. That is not uncommon.
But charity in speaking and thinking?"

She always felt a little shy with Clement
Charlewood, of whose judgment and sense she
had formed a very high opinion. And then he
was habitually so grave and reserved, that she
had never been able to become on the same
terms of easy intimacy with him as with the
rest of the family. She even had an idea that
he did not particularly like her, although he
was invariably kind and courteous. "I know
he looks upon me as a silly little schoolgirl,"
said Mabel to herself.

"Without going further into your definition
of charity, Miss Earnshaw, would you mind
telling me, in plain words, what unkind speaking
you so resent?"

She coloured deeply, but answered with
firmness, "I think it was uncharitable to say that
the little girl's soul was in peril only because
her father plays in the orchestra of the theatre.
I believe very good people may belong to
theatres."

The young man glanced down at the flushed
girlish face by his side in undisguised
astonishment.

"They may, certainly, I suppose," he said,
slowly. "But forgive me for remarking that
you are too young and too inexperienced
to know much about it."

"Of course I'm young," said Mabel, making
the damaging admission in all humility, "but,
for all that, I do believe—I do know, that there
are good people in theatres."

They had arrived at her home as she said the
words, and, without waiting for a reply, she
pushed open the garden gate and ran lightly up
the path to the house.

The Saxelbys lived in what the agent, who
let it, called a "cottage horny." It was a
square low house built of light yellow bricks,
with long French windows opening to the
ground; and it had a pretty bright space of
flower-garden in front, separated from the road
by one of the thick neatly clipped box hedges for
which the suburbs of Hammerham are famous.
There was a wooden verandah, painted a very
bright green, running round the house; and a
very beautiful jessamine twined round the slender
pillars that supported the verandah, and
filled the air with the delicate perfume of its
creamy star-shaped flowers. At the back there
was a long narrow stretch of velvet grass,
enclosed between walls covered with fruit-trees.
Altogether, Jessamine Cottage, FitzHenry's-
road, was a very pleasant peaceful English-
looking residence. And Mrs. Saxelby had contrived
to give to its interior arrangements an air of
elegance which was wanting to the gaudy
splendour of Bramley Manor.

Mabel stopped on the threshold of the glass
door that gave access to the little entrance hall,
and said with her hand on the bell,

"You'll come in and see mamma, Mr.
Charlewood?"

He hesitated. But she seemed to take his
compliance for granted; for as soon as the neat
maid-servant had opened the door, she passed
in, saying without turning her head, "This
way, please, Mr. Charlewood. Mamma will be
in the morning-room, I know."

So Clement followed her, and found himself
unannounced in Mrs. Saxelby's presence. That
lady was sitting in a small room looking on to
the lawn; and the light chintz-patterned muslin
dress she wore harmonised perfectly with the
freshness and simplicity of her surroundings.
The walls of the little sitting-room were covered
with a pale brown paper, touched sparingly
with gold. The carpet was also light brown;
and the window-curtains were of spotless white
muslin. There was not an article in the room
that could, strictly speaking, be called ornamental,
except an abundance of flowers. And yet,
as Clement Charlewood paused for an instant
at the door, and looked at the sober-tinted
room, with its green background seen through