intimate with, your aunt's family. Do they
continue to like Alfred Trescott?"

"Oh, mamma," cried Mabel, hastily, "don't
speak of him! The sound of his name is odious
to me."

"Mabel! What do you mean?"

"I will tell you, dear mamma. I meant to
tell you some time; but I did not want to
annoy your ears with the tale the moment you
arrived."

"But now that you have said so much,
Mabel, you must say more," said Mrs. Saxelby,
nervously. Mabel rose and paced about the
room.

"Oh, don't frighten yourself, mamma dear,"
she said. "It was an annoyance—a great
annoyance to me. But it is not worth distressing
ourselves about further. The day before you
arrived, Mr. Alfred Trescott did me the honour
to ask me to marry him."

"To marry him! Him! I never heard such
presumption."

"I do not know, mamma, that I have any
right to say so."

"Don't tell me, Mabel. A low, vulgar,
worthless fellow. I remember so well what
Clement Charlewood said to me of him long ago.
Oh, it puts me past all patience! This is the
consequence of being mixed up with such
people. Ah, Mabel, Mabel, I wish you had
stayed at Eastfield, or done anything rather
than this."

Mrs. Saxelby's unstable mind was already
veering round again to the opposite opinion to
that which she had begun to entertain respecting
her daughter's line of conduct.

"But tell me what he said," she continued.
"I need not ask how you answered him."

"It was more the manner in which the offer
was made, than the offer itself, that offended
me," said Mabel.

And then she proceeded to relate to her
mother how Alfred Trescott, "with all his
blushing honours thick upon him," had come
to her, and laid them, with a flourish, at her
feet. She had been much startled; but she
had endeavoured to make her positive refusal
as gentle and as little painful as she could.

"I think you treated him a great deal too
well," said Mrs. Saxelby.

"Mamma, I had no right to resent his offer.
And I wished to spare him pain, if he really—
if he had any—if, in short, he were truly in
earnest," stammered Mabel. "But on my
answer, repeated more than once with what
deliberate assurance I could command of its being
irrevocable—I was taken by surprise and
agitated—he grew quite violent. I think I should
have been frightened, had he not made me
angry by something he said. But you know
strong indignation drives out fear."

"Insolent wretch! What did he say?"

"Oh, some coarse insulting words about—
about—I hate to repeat them, even to you.
He said that he supposed I looked for riches,
but that now I might find myself mistaken; for
that Mr. Clement Charlewood—he spoke the
name openly—would be shortly left independent
and wealthy, by his father's death, and
that it was very unlikely he would still think
of me. I bade him instantly leave my presence,
and never dare to speak to me again. Then he
changed his mood, and threw himself into a
wild state of excitement, imploring my pardon,
and trying to fall on his knees before me. But
I could endure no more. I left him without
another word, and I have not seen him since."

Mrs. Saxelby poured out the vials of her
wrath upon Alfred Trescott. It was a ladylike
and not very terrible wrath; but it was real.
Will not even a timid barn-door hen cluck and
peck, and beat her wings, if one offers to molest
her chickens?

A short time after this conversation, Carlo
Bensa informed them that Miss O'Brien was
going abroad. Mrs. Dawson was to meet her
son and his bride at Nice on their homeward
journey, Miss O'Brien was going with her aunt,
and they would all return to England together.
Lady Popham would depart for London in a
few weeks, and young Trescott was to accompany
his patroness to the metropolis. Such
was the news that the singing-master brought
from Merrion-square.

"Hum, going abroad?" said Mrs. Saxelby,
musingly, when Bensa had gone away. "Ah,
well, I suppose that is all over now. If the
Charlewoods have come down in the world as
much as people are saying, of course Clement's
match will be broken off."

"Broken off, mamma?"

"To be sure. You don't suppose that people
like these Dawsons would think of allowing Miss
O'Brien to marry a ruined man? Penelope
told me as much as made it plain to my mind
that Augusta's husband considered his family a
fair exchange for her wealth. But now, if there
is no wealth! Don't you see, Mabel?"

"Oh, mamma, mamma, how hard it will be
for him! If he really loves her, mamma, think
how he must suffer!"

"As to that, my dear child, I suppose he
will, in a measure; but I dare say it won't
break his heart. Men get over these things
with wonderful philosophy."

Poor Mrs. Saxelby had not been able quite
to forgive Clement Charlewood for the easy way
in which she supposed him to have got "off
with the old love" and "on with the new."
It was true that Mabel had refused him. Of
course, that was quite true; but Clement ought
to have pined and persevered a great deal
longer, if even it would not more have become
him to refuse consolation from that time forth
for evermore.

Mabel said no further word on the subject,
but her thoughts were busied with it often.
Ay, often when her lips were mechanically
uttering the words of her stage part, or her
eyes were mechanically conning her task for the
evening.

"I would not have abandoned him, though
ten times his present ruin had befallen him, if
—if I had been his affianced wife." So ran her