sinking quietly, but surely, while his arm
would be far from her. Then an organ-boy
added his mite of torture, arid commenced
Angiol' d'amore, a song he had often heard
Margaret sing; he turned away as if he had
been stung, it suggested unfaithfulness, and
he tried to recall her actual words. No vow
had been given, though much had been
implied. So, being driven from the window by
the organ, he returned and faced his friend,
the fire, watching ring after ring of pale blue
smoke ascend, until he fell into a sort of doze,
then started up, looked at his watch, got his
luggage together, and hurried off in time to
catch the night-train for Town.

He got into an empty second-class carriage,
placed his carpet-bag under his head, spread
his plaid on the seat, stretched himself out
at full length, and, tired in body and mind, fell
asleep, and woke in London. The sharp
morning air, the murky atmosphere, the
huge pile of houses, broke on his eyes as he
yawned and shivered with that uneasy,
un-washed sensation which a night's travelling
generally leaves. There was not more time
than sufficed to swallow a cup of hot coffee,
and reach the South Eastern terminus for
the down-train to Folkstone.

A merry little French peasant woman was
waiting there, with her three children, to re-
turn to la belle France. Her coloured
handkerchief, gay ear-rings, and the foreign
appearance of the party, had of course
secured her the usual amount of staring with
which Britons always favour strangers.
Stephen handed her into the carriage he intended
to occupy, and then her small, dark,
black-eyed children. At each station they put their
heads out of the window, and exclaimed, in
high-pitched voices and most curious accent,
"How far is it from London, portair?"
Either their thirst for this knowledge was
insatiable, or they only understood the question
and not the answer, for they repeated the
experiment at every opportunity, to the intense
delight of the guards. The little vivacious
woman chatted away to Stephen; she told him
all her history, why she had been to England,
how she had found the people kind, but sad;
and not only ignorant, but absolutely
un-teachable, in matters of the cuisine. A sallow
lank gentleman, who sat opposite, just at this
point of the conversation suddenly directed
a small stream of tobacco-juice out of the
window, managing with exquisite dexterity
to avoid Sellon's nose by a hair's breadth.
Sellon looked up with an ireful expression.

"I guess I did that cleverly," remarked his
vis-a-vis.

"I'll thank you not to do it again,"
returned Stephen curtly.

"Do you practise spitting, sir?"

Stephen, still in wrath: "Not so near people's
faces."

"Well, now," rejoined the passenger, who
was an American, "I calculate I can paste a
fly four yards off."

Three days from that time Stephen was at
Marseilles, and was engaged there at
seaman's wages to work under the engineer in
the Peninsular and Oriental steam-ship Ava.
It sailed, and he sped on his way; if his
heart was heavy, his spirit was good; his
belief in Margaret's faithfulness was very
considerable; his belief in his own was
amazingly firm.

                            IV.

IT was perhaps a dozen years after this
that a lady, warmly clad in silks and furs,'
walked down the principal street of Wendon
one winter's day. She carried a small roll of
music under her cloak, and stopped at one of
the large cloistered houses that flanked the
cathedral in their well-bred gloom and
stillness. She rang the bell, and was quickly
admitted into the drawing-room. She opened
her music, laid aside her wrappings, and
revealed the face of Margaret Meriton. Full,
gay, handsome, and careless, with a bewitching
drollery about the mouth, and a rather
masterful eye. Presently, the door was
opened, and a tall and wilful-looking girl,
with a pair of flashing blue eyes, almost ran
in. She would have embraced Margaret on
the spot, but the latter drowned the effort in
her own significant way: she laid her hand
on the young lady's shoulder, saying, "Well,
Cecile, how is the voice, and how have you
progressed with the song ?"

"O, Miss Meriton, papa says I am hoarse,
and that I have a cold; but let me try."

For myself, I think it an undoubted fact
that schoolgirls pay greater attention to
lessons received from masters than from their
own sex; and I make no question that, when
the enlightened and platonic nature of the
age admits of youths being instructed by
female professors, the converse of the proposition
will hold good. At the same time,
there is another fact to be placed against this,
as has always been the case with every fact
since the world began; and that is, that a
woman of a certain age, who has self-control,
and has cultivated her powers of fascination,
can, if she chooses to do it, acquire an
influence over young girls which almost
amounts to idolatry on the one side, and
against which even a lover can hardly hold
his own. So, Margaret Meriton, who liked
to be charming, and was necessitated in her
character as music-teacher to eschew flirting,
made herself particularly charming to her
pupils, who all adored her after the fashion
of young girls. We may also suppose, if we
like, that she thought a little of poor Stephen,
and for his sake did not wish to lose her skill
in the art of being delightful for want of
practice. So the two sat down, and pro-
ceeded very amicably for some time. At last
the fantasy seized Margaret that Miss Vereker
should repeat a certain passage a given
number of times, as a penalty for a falling short
in the mode of performing it. The young