everybody cry by his pathetic way of saying
Mesopotamia? I advise you to dismiss the
sense of ridicule from your mind, and get the
words into your head while I finish copying this
page."

"Oh, thank you, Janet," said Mabel, simply.
"How sensible you are! I will try, but I
fear it would be impossible for me to make
anybody cry by saying Mesopotamia!"

By dint, however, of fixing her mind upon
the necessity of making the best of what was
entrusted to her, Mabel not only committed to
memory the three or four parts that had been
given her, but managed to repeat them to her
aunt, when the latter came home, with some
degree of earnestness: though when she came
to "My lord, I quail not at your threats," &c.,
she was conscious of feeling tame and sheepish,
and of becoming very hot and red in the face.

She was very anxious to see as much acting
as possible, and accordingly she and her
uncle and Janet ensconced themselves, evening
after evening, in a corner of the upper boxes of
the Dublin theatre, and witnessed a great many
performances. Mabel was always intensely
interested, and was the best audience in the
world, becoming quite absorbed in the fortunes
of the scene. Indeed, so easily was she moved
to tears by the mimic sorrows before her—even
by those of the wildest and most melodramatically
impossible sort—that Janet sometimes
quietly whispered in her cousin's ear,
"Mesopotamia, Mabel, Mesopotamia!"

So the evenings slipped away, until on a
certain evening, when they were all assembled
at supper, John Earnshaw, with his daughter
and niece, having been in the "front" of the
theatre, and Mrs. Walton having been acting,
Jack said, "I'll give you all three guesses as to
who came to pay me a visit in the painting-
room to-night."

"Stop a moment, Jack!" said his sister Janet.
"Do we all know him?"

"Yes, all of you, except Mabel; and it's
well for her peace of mind that she doesn't know
him, for he is about the handsomest fellow going,
though I can't say I like him particularly.
There's something snaky about his eyes."

"I've guessed!" cried Mabel, suddenly.
"Your visitor's christian name begins with A?"

"Yes," replied Jack, staring at his cousin.

"And his surname with T?"

"Will any lady or gentleman present," said
Jack, looking round, "be so good as to repeat
the most approved form of exorcism against
witchcraft? Also, mother, if you happen to have
such a trifle in your pocket as an old horse-shoe,
I should be obliged by your allowing me to nail
it on to the threshold."

"But who was it, Jack?" cried his mother
and Janet together.

"Ask Mabel. She evidently knows all about
it."

"Jack, how can you be so absurd?" said
Mabel, laughing. "I only guessed that your
visitor was Mr. Alfred Trescott."

"To be sure! That's all!" returned Jack.
"A young man, whom I have not seen for more
than a year, appears to me in the solitude of my
painting-room one evening in the most
unexpected manner. Returning to the bosom
of my family, I invite its various members to
hazard a guess as to who my visitor was; and
the only one who instantly pitches on the truth
is Mabel! Mabel, who is unacquainted with
him, but who, nevertheless, has his christian
name as pat on her tongue as if she had been
his godmother."

"Alfred Trescott," said Janet, putting her
hand to her head; "then it was he? Of
course! I thought I knew the face. My attention
was attracted this evening by a young
man sitting in the orchestra (though not playing
any instrument), and I thought I knew him!
Now I remember. Alfred Trescott, of course!
He stared a good deal at us, and that first made
me observe him. Mabel was so absorbed in
the play, that she had no eyes for any one."

"And my part of the mystery is no mystery
to anybody but Jack," said Mabel, smiling.
"I have told Aunt Mary all about my acquaintance
with little Corda Trescott."

"Well," returned Jack. "But how did you
guess that Alfred Trescott was my visitor?
Did you know he was in Ireland?"

"No; but I knew that the family had
left Hammerham. And one word you said
made me think of young Mr. Trescott:—
'snaky.' It flashed upon me whom you must
mean."

"Flattering for my friend," said Jack. "I
shouldn't care, myself, to be instantly
recognised by the epithet snaky. But how odd
he never said anything about knowing you.
To be sure, he didn't stay long, and he was
talking about himself all the time. I asked
him how his playing was getting on, and
when he was coming out in a violin solo at
the Philharmonic? To which he replied with
a sneer, 'About the same time that your first
picture is exhibited on the line, at the Academy.'
So, as I saw he didn't like it (and perhaps
as I didn't particularly like it myself), I dropped
the subject."

Two days afterwards, young Trescott called
at Mrs. Walton's house, and professed much
surprise at finding Mabel there. "I little
thought to have the pleasure of seeing Miss
Earnshaw," said he. (He had her name
correctly enough now.) Janet remarked
afterwards that this affected surprise was a piece
of gratuitous hypocrisy, inasmuch as he
had evidently seen and recognised Mabel at
the theatre. The young man neither said nor
did anything that could positively be called
objectionable, and yet the whole family appeared
relieved when he went away. He avoided with
considerable tact any mention of Hammerham
people or incidents, unless Mabel first spoke of
them. And yet he contrived, in some subtle
way, to give her aunt and uncle the impression
that Mabel had been on terms of greater
intimacy with himself and his father and Corda,
than had ever really existed between them. He