he was the heir presumptive to Lord Bactsares,
who was an old bachelor, but Hartley
had no great fortune except in that
expectation. He grew very intimate at the
house; and, on one occasion, ourselves and
the three girls went to a tasteful breakfast
which he gave in his Temple rooms.
They were very high up, and on a most
forbidding-looking staircase; but, the view from
the windows was as beautiful as is to
be seen in London. The pleasant gardens
flanked by the quaint old buildings; the
broad, swift-flowing river, here spanned by
massive arches, here lightly cleared by the
suspension bridge; the long, sharp-pointed
steamers flitting upon its waters like huge
dragon-flies; the slow unwieldy barge drifting
diagonally across the stream; beyond,
and opposite the dark house of commerce,
with their crowded wharves and Babel
chimneys, and a looming smoke-cloud, as of
thunder, over all. I was wrapped up in the
observation of these things, perhaps, too
much to observe what was going on within
the room; for, my wife, when we got home,
asked my opinion upon "that affair between
Hartley and our Gertrude,"—as though it
had been delicately and discreetly mentioned
in the Morning Post as being already on the
tapis—to my intense astonishment. There
was no objection to such an alliance;
but, I recommended a little more
observation, and suffering things to take their
own course before our moving in the matter,
and she acquiesced in that opinion.
About a month afterwards, during which
period I certainly remarked that Mr. Hartley's
visits became very frequent, my wife
spoke to me again after a quite different
fashion.

"I think Jeannette has behaved most
basely," said she.

"Good gracious! Impossible! What can
you mean, my dear?"

"Look here! What do you think of
this?" cried she. "I caught her showing it
to him in the conservatory, and heard him
thanking her for the pleasure which it
afforded him in proving—but there, judge
for yourself." And she put into my hands
an exquisite water-colour painting of the
very view that had so charmed me from the
Temple windows. It was Jenny's treatment
and composition all over, I saw at a
glance.

"And a most beautiful sketch, and well
worth anybody's thanks it is," answered I,
with unfeigned admiration.

"His thanks 'for the interest in him betrayed
on the part of the painter,' mind you,"
replied my wife, raising her voice somewhat
higher than the occasion—I was quite close
beside her—seemed to demand. "Are you
blind? Are you deaf? Are you dumb?"
she added, as I sat speechless with astonishment
at her unaccustomed vehemency, "that
you have nothing to say against this traitress,
who has stolen from your daughter the
affections of her engaged lover?"

"Stop a little, my love," I urged, quietly,
"I have never heard that Gertrude was
engaged."

"Not actually, in so many words, but
virtually. Everybody was aware of it long ago,
except yourself."

"Should I then," replied I, very gravely,
"be the last to know of such a thing as this,
my dear wife?" And the good kind-hearted
creature—who is the best of women at the
core, although a little impetuous and hasty at
times in her conclusions—embraced me
tenderly as though she had committed quite a
crime. "But you are so unsuspicious and
confiding, my dearest husband," she said
(and indeed it was always a superstition of
hers to believe me the most imposed upon
and victimised of men) "that you don't perceive
how ungratefully you are being treated."

That same evening Gertrude herself poured
her sorrow into my ears; her sorrow, but not
her anger: she confessed that she had long
entertained for Hartley a more than kindly
feeling, which he had seemed to her to reciprocate
warmly; that this sentiment had arisen
before Jeannette's coming, and continued for
some time after it; but that of late it had
become plain to her, in spite of her endeavours
to disbelieve it, that the affections of the
young man were being withdrawn from her;
that they had been attracted to Jeannette
Smith—that is, Jenny—instead, and that with
her they now remained. She would not say
that artifices had been used to deprive her of
them; the superior accomplishments and more
striking manners of her adopted sister were
cause enough, she knew. Jeannette (I wish
she had said Jenny) was still dear to her,
but she (Gertrude) would, if I pleased, prefer
to reside with her aunt in a neighbouring
part of town until the marriage took place,
to remaining under the same roof with my
ward. Without a touch of malice, with only
the shadow of natural mortification, she
asked this favour, and I accorded it at once.
I was perfectly sure that her generous
statement was the true one: that, unknown to
herself, my Ward had fascinated the young
man from his allegiance; and that perhaps he
had never meant quite so much as Gertrude
in her own love had given him credit for.

Jenny herself, with many tears and the
sincerest sorrow, declared that Mr. Hartley's
attentions had distressed her more than they
had pleased her; that she had had in truth
a very great esteem for him, but out of respect
to my daughter's feelings, had striven to
conceal it. "For, what love," cried she, "O my
dear father, could repay me for making you or
yours unhappy, even for a day!" Perceiving
soon, she continued, that Gertrude had in truth
mistaken a polite and kindly acquaintance
for a lover, she had conducted herself more
naturally; that the young barrister's intentions
had on this declared themselves