Soul's Punctuation, or A Full-Stop for Small
Sinners. It applies very well indeed to Walter's
case, and would do him great good if he'd be
persuaded to read it in a proper spirit."

Thank you, Miss Fluke, " said Mrs. Charlewood,with a shade of offence in her manner,
"but I think you make rather too much of
Watty's little error, lie has a lively disposition,
has Watty. Quite lively. 'Igh his spirit may
be, and 'aughty. But his 'art is right."

To do Miss Fluke justice, she was no respecter
of persons, and had no more idea of sparing
the rich Mrs. Charlewood than the poorest
inhabitant of her father's parish. She therefore
at once opened fire; bringing all her big guns
to bear on her hostess, and sending such a
broadside of texts about her ears, that poor
Mrs. Charlewood's round red cheeks grew pale
as she listened, and she was thankful when
Augusta's entrance into the room created a
diversion.

"Have you heard," said Miss Fluke, turning
to Augusta with a sudden pouncing movement,
"have you heard about Mabel Earnshaw?"
Miss Fluke's eyes were opened to their full
extent, and she glared ominously, first at Mrs.
Charlewood and then at her daughter.

"No," replied Augusta, languidly sticking a
needle into some wool-work, and apparently
finding it necessary to repose a while before pulling
it out again, " I never hear anything about
her now."

"What is it about Mabel?" asked Mrs.
Charlewood. " No bad news, I 'ope."

"Awful" returned Miss Fluke, concentrating
an incredible amount of moral reprobation into
her utterance of the word, and performing an
elaborate and vigorous shudder: " most awful."

"Lord bless my soul!" exclaimed Mrs. Charlewood.

"Oh, if it's anything horrid, don't tell me,
please," said Augusta, putting her jewelled
fingers  in her ears. " I can't bear hearing horrid
things."

"'As any accident 'appened?" said Mrs.
Charlewood.

"Unless a merciful Providence turns her
heart, Mabel Earnshaw is going to perdition
headlong," was Miss Fluke's alarming reply.
To go headlong to perdition did not, however,
appear to belong, in Miss Augusta's estimation,
to the category of " horrid things." She
immediately took her fingers out of her ears, and
prepared herself to listen with composure.

"Dear Miss Fluke," said Mrs. Charlewood,
with her hand on her side, " I declare you've
given me quite a turn. Well, there! I should
be awfully sorry if any 'arm 'appened to Mabel
Earnshaw. She used to be a great favourite of
mine; and I can't abear to drop folks, and turn
my back on 'em so coolly as some people."

Augusta faintly raised her handsome
eyebrows, and tossed her head, but took no further
notice of her mother's implied rebuke.

"Well," said Miss Fluke, " I have to tell you
what you'll hardly credit, but what is true.
Mabel Earnshaw is going—— " here Miss Fluke
suddenly changed her tone, and uttered the
three last words of her speech very rapidly in a
loud distinct whisper, "going— ON THE STAGE."

Then she sat back in her chair, and
contemplated her hearers, with her arms folded
tightly across her breast.

"No?" exclaimed Mrs. Charlewood. Miss
Fluke made no verbal reply, but nodded five or
six times with extraordinary vehemence.

"How absurd." said Miss Augusta. " But I
don't know that I'm very much surprised.
Mabel was getting queerer and queerer lately,
and besides, you know, she never was quite like
other people."

"Dear me! How I should like to have known
her, whoever she was," cried Penelope, appearing
at the door, attired for walking, and accompanied
by her brother Walter. " How d'ye do,
Miss Fluke? Do tell me, Gussy, who was that
delightful individual who 'never was quite like
other people'. She—I think I heard you say
she—must have been a refreshing creature."

"Oh, I dare say you'll think her latest craze
all right and charming. Very likely. I was
speaking of Mabel Earnshaw, and she's going
on the stage; that's all," rejoined Augusta,
coolly.

"What!" cried Miss Charlewood, fairly
startled, for the instant, out of her self-possession
(a rare circumstance with her), and dropping
into a chair. " Mabel going on the stage!
I don't believe it."

"I grieve to assure you that it is too, too,
too, too, true," said Miss Fluke. " I know it
for a fact, on the best authority."

"Oh, that of course," replied Penelope, with
very unceremonious brusquerie. " People always
know things on the best authority. But who
told you?"

"Well, Miss Charlewood, since you ask me,
I am bound to tell you that it was—her own
mother!" Miss Fluke brought out this last
revelation as if it were the crowning horror of
the business.

"I wonder why in the world Mrs. Saxelby
should have thought of telling you such a thing:"
said Penelope.

The speech was not a polite one; but Miss
Fluke was quite impervious to its discourtesy.

"The fact is," she replied, looking round with
severe gravity upon her auditors, " I asked her."

Miss Fluke had asked Mrs. Saxelby as to her
daughter's intention of becoming an actress, and
had, moreover, made a pilgrimage to Hazlehurst
for the express purpose of so doing. Mrs.
Hutchins, by dint of prying and listening to her
lodgers' conversation, had arrived at some
suspicion of the truth. She had discovered from
Corda that Miss Earnshaw had relatives on the
stage. She had concluded at once that the
with the Eastfield post-mark, addressed
to Mr. Trescott, was from Miss Earnshaw. And
partly for the gratification of her own curiosity,
and partly to curry favour with Miss Fluke,
had revealed to that lady most of what she knew
and guessed.

Miss Fluke's account of Mrs. Saxelby's full