too. When we first came here the door
creaked terribly; now I enter positively without
noise. I wonder what put it into her head
to do this!"

"Why, Clem!" cried Penelope, "Ann
wouldn't think of such a thing, I am very sure.
Whoever oils the lock, it is not she; besides,
the only oil we have in the house is salad oil,
and that I keep locked up in the kitchen
cupboard."

There was a momentary silence. Then Mrs.
Charlewood said, tremulously: "It is not Ann
that oils the lock, dear. It's—it's me."

"You, mother? What on earth for?"

"I—I found it fidgeted me so to have it
creaking and grating. I've nervous fancies
now, you know, that I didn't 'ave once upon a
time; so I just keep it well oiled with a feather,
and—and—I didn't want to bother anybody
about it."

"Well, you have been uncommonly sly in
your proceedings, mamma," said Penelope. "I
have never once chanced to see you near the
lock."

Mrs. Charlewood appeared so confused,
and unwilling to pursue the subject, that
Clement signed to his sister to say no more. The
matter was thus allowed to pass off for the
time, but Penny referred to it afterwards in
speaking to Clement.

"It was odd of mamma, was it not, Clem?
I have noticed several rather strange fancies
she has taken lately, and a kind of secret way
that used not to be usual with her at all."

"Her nervous system has been greatly
shattered," said Clement. "We must be gentle
and tranquil with her."

Miss O'Brien's visit had been a surprise and
a break in the Charlewood's monotonous life.
She brought the latest news of Augusta and
her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Malachi Dawson
had arrived in England, and were travelling to
town by easy stages, paying one or two visits
en route. The elder Mrs. Dawson occupied for
the season a small dark stuffy house in a cul-
de-sac in Mayfair; and there her son and
daughter-in-law were to remain during their
brief stay in London before going down to
take possession of their own home near
Eastfield.

"Augusta told me to say that she should
certainly come and see you," said Miss O'Brien,
blushing in delivering the message as Augusta
had not blushed in giving it.

"Augusta 'as not written to me for a long
time," said Mrs. Charlewood, gently.

"She says that she—that you—that her last
letter was never answered."

Penelope checked Mrs. Charlewood in a
reply, and said slowly, "I hope Augusta will
come to see her mother. Her mother will be
glad to see Augusta."

About a fortnight afterwards, a hackney cab
drew up before Number Nine De Montfort
Villas. It had stopped at several doors
before, and the driver only succeeded in finding
the right house by the zealous assistance of a
chemist's boy with a basket on his arm, who,
having been sent on a pressing errand in a
precisely opposite direction, eagerly embraced
the opportunity afforded by the cabman's
inquiries to accompany the vehicle to De
Monfort Villas.

From the cab alighted a lady in rich mourning
robes, with a thick black veil covering
her face. She was followed by a ruddy-faced
broad-shouldered man in clerical costume, and
lastly came forth another lady dressed in a pale
lilac muslin of the lightest fabric and most
delicate colour, and wearing a close straw
bonnet trimmed with white ribbons. The lady
in mourning rang the bell, and after a word or
two with the little servant, the whole party was
admitted into the house, and ushered into the
small back parlour. "Missis would be down
directly," the servant said, "and so would Miss
Charlewood."

The lady in mourning raised her veil, revealing
the handsome face of the late Miss Augusta
Charlewood. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed,
fanning herself with her handkerchief, "how
frightfully hot I am. That veil has nearly
suffocated me." As she was speaking, the door
opened, and Mrs. Charlewood and Penelope
came into the room.

"Oh,Gussy! Oh, my child!" cried the former,
taking her daughter in her arms. Penelope
gave her sister her hand, and bent forward
as though to kiss her, but Mrs. Malachi
Dawson offering her cheek, Penelope omitted
the salute altogether,

"And do you see who I have brought with
me?" said Augusta.

Mrs. Charlewood turned round, and wiped
the tears from her eyes before she recognised
her visitors. "Why, goodness me!" she
exclaimed. "Mr. Fluke, and Miss Fluke! Well,
this is a surprise. 'Ow d'ye do?"

The Reverend Decimus Fluke shook hands
with the widow. He was not an unkindly man,
and he put a good deal of friendly cordiality into
the grip which he gave her hand. The sight of
her black gown and altered face moved him
to pity her very sincerely. But his voice was
as loud, and his manner as boisterous, as ever
when he spoke to her. Could he have been
convinced that the assumption of a soft tone
and gentle manner would have been in this
case a real act of benevolence, he would have
striven to perform that act. But the idea was a
wholly inconceivable one to him. Miss Fluke, I
am inclined to believe, was much less accessible to
emotions of compassion. She had, as she would
have expressed it, "to save her own soul;" and
that aim she pursued according to her lights
with entire singleness of purpose, plunging
onward in a straight line, and treading down
sensibilities and susceptibilities and delicate
little flowers of feeling with as little ruth as a
bullock might be expected to feel for the daisies
crushed by the plough he was drawing. The
"wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower" would
have appealed to Miss Fluke's imagination quite
in vain.