and bringing me in only two and a half per
cent.—you could pay me much better interest,
and might go on working Marlborough Mills."
Her voice had cleared itself and become more
steady. Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she
went on looking for some paper on which
was written down the proposals for security;
for she was most anxious to have it all looked
upon in the light of a mere business arrangement,
in which the principal advantage would
be on her side. While she sought for this
paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by
the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke. His
voice was hoarse and trembling with tender
passion as he said:—

"Margaret!"

For an instant she looked up; and then
sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping
her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping
nearer, he besought her with another
tremulous eager call upon her name.

"Margaret!"

Still lower went the head; more closely
hidden was the face, almost resting on the
table before her. He came close to her, He
knelt by her side to bring his face to a level
with her ear; and whispered—panted out
the words:—

"Take care.—If you do not speak—I shall
claim you as my own in some strange
presumptuous way.—Send me away at once, if I
must go;—Margaret!—"

At that third call, she turned her face,
still covered with her small white hands,
towards him, and laid it on his shoulder,
hiding it even there; and it was too delicious
to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to
wish to see either deep blushes or loving
eyes. He clasped her close. But they both
kept silence. At length she murmured in a
broken voice:

"Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good
enough!"

"Not good enough! Don't mock my own
deep feeling of unworthiness."

After a minute or two, he gently disengaged
her hands from her face, and laid her
arms as they had once before been placed to
protect him from the rioters.

"Do you remember, love?" he murmured.
"And how I requited you with my insolence
the next day."

"I remember how wrongly I spoke to you,
—that is all."

"Look here! Lift up your head. I have
something to show you!" She slowly faced
him, glowing with beautiful shame.

"Do you know these roses?" he said,
drawing out his pocket-book, in which were
treasured up some dead flowers.

"No!" she replied, with innocent curiosity.
"Did I give them to you?"

"No! Vanity; you did not. You may
have worn sister roses very probably."

She looked at them, wondering for a minute,
then she smiled a little as she said—

"They are from Helstone, are they not? I
know the deep indentations round the leaves.
Oh! have you been there? When were you
there?"

"I wanted to see the place where
Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst
time of all; when I had no hope of ever
calling her mine. I went there on my return
from Havre."

"You must give them to me," she said,
trying to take them out of his hand with
gentle violence.

"Very well. Only you must pay me for
them!"

"How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?" she
whispered, after some time of delicious
silence.

"Let me speak to her."

"Oh, no! I owe to her,—but what will
she say?"

"I can guess. Her first exclamation will
be, 'That man!'"

"Hush!" said Margaret, "or I shall try
and show you your mother's indignant tones
as she says, 'That woman!'"

THE END.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN

AT THE PERA THEATRE.

THERE is a clumping of clogs about the
uneven streets, and two or three sedan chairs
of very great ladies move dripping along.
Invalided officers fresh from the Crimea, and
full of bad wine and good spirits, roll along
arm in arm, laughing and discoursing wildly,
being firmly persuaded of course that not one
of those young Perotes who are watching
them so eagerly as models of manners can
understand a word they utter.
Sometimes a deep growl of impatience may be
heard from some strapped down and buckled
up elderly beau whose eyes are not so
good as they were twenty years ago, and
who has either stuck in the deep bog of mud
which fills the middle of the street, or has
tumbled, umbrella and all, in an unsuspected
hole. Young ladies who have come out on a
matrimonial speculation are anxious about their
back hair and garnet brooches, amid all this
provoking rain and unmannered hustling. They
have, however, an opportunity of displaying
some remarkably neat twinkling ankles,
which contrast agreeably with the splay feet
and awkward waddle of the Greeks, MM.
Demetraki and Stavro Somethingopolis—two
semi-civilised natives who have been half-
educated somewhere in Europe, especially
with respect to billiards and ecarté—are
raving out atrocious French in frantic accents
to attract attention, and laughing at nothing
whenever their tongues tire, till the street
rings again with discordant echoes. They
are dressed within an inch of their lives in
the last style of some Smyrna Moses and
Son.

But way for a pasha, probably one of
the ministers who has been on an embassy
to Europe and preserved his taste for evening