doing, but at least you should be prepared to
find them received with some degree of—of
hesitation, at all events."

Clement started as if he had been struck.
Secure in the honesty of his own purpose, and
in his knowledge of Alfred Trescott's character,
it had never occurred to him that any one could
possibly doubt either.

"Lady Popham," he began, greatly agitated,
"if I could only explain to you——"

"Besides which," went on the old lady, heedless
of his interruption, "besides which, it
appears to me that all this fuss on your part is
highly unnecessary. The young lady has, you
tell me, a mother in every way qualified to take
care of her; and she is at present under the
guardianship of her aunt, a woman, as every
one here will tell you, of irreproachable
character."

"Thank God for that!" murmured poor
Clement.

"In short, there is but one circumstance which,
in my opinion, could justify your conduct. If
you tell me that you yourself are engaged to
Miss Bell——"

"I am not engaged to her,' answered
Clement, in a low voice.

"Then you must excuse me for saying that I
do not recognise your right to interfere."

Clement arose with a deep sigh and stood
before her. "If I could have known beforehand,
Lady Popham," said he, with an unaffected
simplicity of sorrow which the old gentlewoman's
ear was of sufficiently fine fibre to appreciate,
"if I could but have known how worse than
useless my visit would prove, owing partly to
my own want of tact and grace, you would have
been spared this intrusion, and I, some
mortification and disappointment."

The impulsive little woman, whose moods were
as uncontrolled and vehement as those of a child,
and but little more deep and lasting, sprang to
her feet and seized his hand.

"Now, my dear Mr. Charlewood," said she,
"don't think of going in this way. Don't, I
beg of you. Do me the great favour and honour
to remain here to dinner, and let me send to
Kilclare for your portmanteau, and stay at
Cloncoolin to-night, Geraldine will never forgive
me if she thinks I have shown any want of
hospitality to a member of your family, under
whose roof, she tells me, she is spending such
pleasant days. You see I am pleading quite
selfishly." And Lady Popham bent her head,
and looked up at him out of her bright sunken
eyes with a little coquettish glance that seemed
to conjure up the pale ghost of her forgotten
girlhood.

Clement's feelings, however, were neither so
fleeting nor so superficial as her eccentric
ladyship, and he had got a wound which his pride
and his love alike impelled him to bear in silence.
He therefore excused himself with what grace
he could, but with a fixed determination against
which Lady Popham's flattering eager words
beat their light wings in vain.

As he drove down the avenue again, now
barred with long blue shadows and golden ingots
of yellow evening sunshine, a gentleman with
two magnificent Irish setters at his heels
sauntered slowly by him towards the house.

"I should know that face, surely," thought
Clement, feeling conscious at the same time that
the said face had no pleasant associations
connected with it in his mind.

"Who is that gentleman?" he asked of the
driver. "Do you know him?"

"Is it the captain?" said Tim Molloney,
contemptuously; for he had not quite forgiven the
Englishman's doubt as to Mr. Donovan's
"kyar" being admitted into Cloncoolin. "Do
I know the captain? Faith, an' I do that
same. Sure he's my lady's great-nephew.
Her brother's daughter's second son. The
Honourable Arthur Skidley, no less, on lave
from Doblin, an' a foine high-spirited affable
gentleman he is."

"Arthur Skidley?"

"The Honourable Arthur Skidley," repeated
Tim. "Does your honour know him?"

"No," said Clement, brusquely.

"Oh!" ejaculated Tim; and plying his whip
smartly, he started Brian Boroo at a pace that
brought them clattering and shambling into
Kilclare before sunset.

"O Mabel," thought Clement, looking out
from the window of the poor inn upon the blue
line of mountains wherein the silver Clare had
its source, and behind which the great fire of
sunset was slowly dying, "Mabel, Mabel, the
hope of my life is fading, even as the redness
fades out of the sky, and its last gleam only
serves to show me what I lose, and to make the
coming night more blank and cheerless."

OLD AND NEW SERVANTS.

As we walk straight on down the great
Valley of the Shadow, and moisten our crust
with bitter tears, there are certain agents
appointed to attend on us in our progress,
apparently to smoothe our path. Happy Eden,
where our first parents waited on themselves!
With the fall came sin, and death—and servants
—into the world. Happy the Otaheitans and
other savages; they can accomplish their simple
round of duties without menial aid. Even their
prisoners they do not make slaves, as we might
reasonably suppose; they eat them. If they
would, indeed, do that kindly office in the
instance of "Jeames" and "Chawles!"

The thing has been too much overdone.
Luxury and civilisation have taught us to
multiply the necessary aids, which we foolishly
imagine are indispensable. Napoleon sums it all
up, as he happily summed up so many things,
in almost an epigram. "The hereditary Hapsburgs
may be shaved by others; one who is the
Rodolph of his family shaves himself." That
is to say, effeminacy and luxury are weakly
dependent on the services of others, not in shaving
merely; but your fresh, independent, healthy
hero serves himself. It could scarcely be