can't wait till to-morrow. I will ask Sholto
to go to Oxford; he can be back to dinner.
I do so hate suspense!"

Margaret wished for a long time in silence
that she might accompany him; but the first
faint mention of this idea worried her aunt
so much that she nearly gave it up; and
then the thought of her father's friend, her
own friend, lying at the point of death, came
upon her with such vividness that she surprised
even herself by asserting something of
her right to independence of action; and
almost before she thought that they had consented,
she found herself in the railway
carriage with Captain Lennox.

It was always a comfort to her to think that
she had gone; though it was only to hear that
he had died in the night. She saw the rooms
that he had occupied, and associated them
ever after most fondly in her memory with
the idea of her father and his one cherished
and faithful friend. They had promised
Edith before starting, that if all had ended,
as they feared, they would return to dinner;
so that long lingering look around the room
in which her father had died, had to be interrupted,
and a quiet farewell taken of the
kind old face that had so often come out
with pleasant words, and merry quips and
cranks. Captain Lennox fell asleep on their
journey home, and Margaret could cry at
leisure; till at the sound of cheerful voices,
merry little Sholto's glee, and at the sight of
well-lighted rooms, and Edith pretty even in
her paleness and her eager, sorrowful interest,
Margaret roused herself from her heavy
trance of almost superstitious hopelessness
and began to feel that even around her, joy
and gladness might gather. She had Edith's
place on the sofa; Sholto was taught to
carry aunt Margaret's cup of tea very carefully
to her; and by the time she went up to
dress, she could thank God for having spared
her dear old friend a long or a painful illness.

THE FATE OF A TOAST.

No one would speak nowadays of a great
drinker as a knight of the toast, or of a
celebrated beauty as a reigning toast.
Yet in the days of Queen Anne, no
better description could be given of a beau,
or a more complimentary name to the loveliest
belle. "Go where you will," says surly
John Dennis, describing London in seventeen
hundred and four,- "among wits and courtiers,
among men of sense or blockheads,
the conversation rolls most upon two points
- news and toasting." Londoners are still
eager for news; but no one would now ask
for the name of the reigning toast at Almack's
or Saint James's. Lady Gertrude
Chamley may be the admired beauty at court
and opera- but nobody toasts her. No
Vanessa would now describe a Stella:

She's fair and clean, and that's the most,
But why proclaim her for a toast?

nor would any gentleman be so insane as to
burn his wig (if he wore one) when proposing
the health of the loveliest woman in London.

Who the first toast was no one has told us.
She was probably a Bath lady, if the story in
the Tatler of the origin of the name is to be
relied on. About this grave doubts exist with
the gravest antiquaries. Pope records that
Stanton Harcourt was shown where stood
the triple rows of butts of sack, and where
were ranged "the bottles of tent for toasts in
a morning." Wycherley claimed the invention
for a mere mortal:

Whatever gifts the gods may boast,
They found out wine and men the toast.

But who has found out the history of Miss
Maria Jane Calcott, whose death in seventeen
hundred and thirty-five is recorded in the
Gentleman's Magazine of that year, and herself
described as "a great beauty and the
toast of the beau monde in Soho?"

The great toasters were the Whigs composing
the celebrated Kit-Kat Club. They
had toasting glasses, with suitable inscriptions.
Some glistened with verses by poets of reputation.
Thus, the glass from which the first
Duchess of St. Albans was toasted, displayed
the following couplets by the Earl of Halifax:

The line of Vere, so long renowned in arms,
Concludes with lustre in St. Albans charms;
Her conquering eyes have made their race complete,
They rose in Valour and in Beauty set.

The Duchess of Richmond's glass bore this
inscription from the same pen:

Of two fair Richmonds different ages boast,
Theirs was the first, and ours the brightest toast;
Th' adorers' offerings prove who's most divine,
They sacrificed in water, we in wine.

Lady Wharton's toast-glass bore a stanza by
Sir Samuel Garth:

When Jove to Ida did the gods invite,
And in immortal toasting pass'd the night,
With more than nectar he the banquet bless'd,
For Wharton was the Venus of the feast.

As the rules of the Kit-Kat club have not
come down to us, we have no means of describing
what the honours were that accompanied a
toast. We may, however, infer that a mad
practice, which prevailed till late in the last
century, was observed in it. It was the custom
with every toast of importance, "to eat the
wine-glass." This was done by biting a piece
out, grinding it with the teeth, and actually
swallowing the fragments. The enjoyment
lay, in seeing an aspirant to distinction
cut his mouth in the insane undertaking. The
feat was actually performed by Mortimer, the
painter, who is said never to have recovered
from the consequences.

One of the celebrated toasts of the Kit-Kat
Club was Miss Ann Long, whose sad fate
has given occasion to this article. She was
the sister of Sir James Long, of Draycot, in
Wiltshire; was a great beauty, and had
a small independence. She led a thoughtless
life, but retained her virtue amid many