12 . November 504 Story, A Country 95 215 November Star-Showers 496, 637 Story, Grandmother's 220 77 How I got my Victoria Cross 103 Strange Affections and Habits of Animals. 95 How our Millions Circulate 234 Strange but True Ghost Story, A 627 Hufeland's Wit. 112 Olden Times, Relics of the 353 Suburbs, Terrors of the 573 Huntress of Armorica, The . 706 Old Ralph. 176 Such is Russia 276 Old Year, Burial of the. 724 Sugar-Grass, The 107 On the Cliffs 367 Summer Day at Hadleigh, A 831 On the Management of Bees 442 Summer Holiday in Mexico, A 12 344 Othello's Costume 272, 448 Sun, What we owe to the 410 Oysters and Dredgers Surprise, A Celestial 100 Oyster, Touching the 124 Sweets of Woman's Life 84 Switzerland, A Winter's Tour in 679 LIST OF ARTISTS' NAMES AND INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. BOWERS, GEORGINA-435, 504, 616, 662. BRADLEY, B.-97 (Extra Ill.), 140, 252, 279, 532, 603, 659. BRIDELL, MRS. LEE.-644. DU MAURIER, G.-239, 476 (Extra Ill.). DUNCAN, E.-344 (Extra Ill.) EDWARDS, MISS M. E.-141. ELTZE, F.-672. GILBERT, J.-(Frontispiece.) GRAY, PAUL.-169, 197, 225, 253, 281, 309, 337, 365, 393, 421, 449, 476 (Extra Ill.). GREEN, C.-71, 85, 351. HARPER, H. A.-55, 167, 294, 295, 392. HOUGHTON, A. B.-211, 687, 723. HUGHES, E.-183, 245 (Extra IU.), 407, 547, 585, 599. LAWSON, F. W.-113, 223. LAWSON, J.-127, 323, 699. MORTEN, T.-155, 308. NORTH, J. W.-99. PINWELL, G. J.-631. PRITCHETT, R. T.-28. SCOTT, T.-57. SKELTON, P. J.-194, 195, 196, 475. SMALL, W.-15, 379, 463, 491, 519, 560, 575. SULMAN, T.-335, 357, 447, 709. WADMORE, H. R.-415, 417, 487. WALLACE, R. B.-43. WARING, J. B.-566, 567. WOLF, J.-37, 111, 267. DIAGRAMS and MISCELLANEOUS.-8, 10, 77, 79, 81, 83, 191, 208, 209, 364, 440, 441, 460, 623, 625, 626, 632, 653, 654, 681. NOTICE TO THE BINDER. The Extra Illustrations, by Eminent Artists, on Toned Paper, should be placed as follows :— BY THE AUTHOR OF "GEORGE GEITH," "MAXWELL DREWITT," &c. CHAPTER XXXIX.-LAWRENCE AND PERCY. NEXT day the owner of Reach House removed himself and a few of his effects to Mrs. Pratting's first-floor, to those rooms wherein Lawrence Barbour had, at an earlier period of this story, surrounded himself with the "gobbelets" and carpet, the chairs covered in "Geneva " velvet, the sprawling Cupids, and the gimcracks, which excited at once Mrs. Jackson's admiration, and animadversion. When Lawrence changed his state and his home, he took those various belongings with him to Stepney Causeway, and the vases and the statuettes lightened up the old drawingroom where he had sung to Olivine in the semi-darkness, and the various trifles which he had purchased, in order to make his rooms look as much like her rooms as possible, now went to beautify a house, presided over by Olivine Sondes, instead of by Etta Alwyn. Only the French lithograph found no place on any of the walls. It lay, face downwards, at the bottom of a large packing-case, with much of that useless rubbish piled above it which a man accumulates in the course of time, and keeps he knows not why, for some indefinite use in a remote future. Long afterwards Olivine found the lithograph there; and, when she found it, she propped the picture up on her knees, by passing her arms behind it, and looked into the eyes that languished back at her from the frame, till her own were dim, till face and neck, and hair and trick of expression were all like a confused mist before her. While she sat thus preoccupied, one entered the apartment, who took the picture from her, and, placing it on the floor, set his heel on the glass, and breaking it into a hundred pieces, stamped the beauty and the likeness, and the form and the colour, out of that fair, false face. Olivine, my darling," he said, "did we not agree that bygones were to be bygones?" and he gathered up the fragments of frame and portrait, and piled them on the fire. "Yes; but I found it," was the answer; "and I could not help feeling sorry." "You will never feel sorry about anything concerning her again, I trust," he replied; and the leaping flame curled round the frame, and the fire consumed the picture. That time had all to come, however, when Percy Forbes transferred his quarters to Mrs. Pratting's rooms, which were plainly enough furnished to have satisfied Mrs. Jackson's economical tendencies. Half-a-dozen chairs, a much-worn druggetcarpet, a couple of China shepherdesses, moreen curtains, a stand of flowers executed in cut paper, a Pembroke table, a sofa covered in haircloth, and suggestive of the extremest unrest, were all the objects wherewith Percy was expected to feast his eyes and refresh would not be so cruel as to wish anything of his soul. the kind." Anything duller than the rooms, the house, the situation, and the weather, could scarcely | be imagined; but Percy was indifferent to one as to another. He was martyrising himself for Olivine's sake, and a man is but a poor lover who does not rather enjoy wetting his own feet, in order that the lady of his choice may cross the ford dry. This is the only sort of chivalry permitted to nineteenth-century cavaliers; and perhaps it is as true chivalry to bear discomfort pleasurably and in silence, to the end that the loved one may not be deprived of her accustomed luxuries, as it was to run a tilt at the sound of trumpets in the days when heroines were called Edelgitha and Rowena. Not that Percy's self-imposed penance proved agreeable to Olivine; rather the reverse, indeed. She and her husband and Mrs. Gainswoode all entreated him with much earnestness and a profusion of words not to leave Reach House; but the master thereof was inexorable. "He knew Mrs. Barbour ought to have the rooms to herself and her uncle," he observed, glancing somewhat significantly at Mrs. Gainswoode. "Besides," he added, " "my hours and my ways are not the hours and ways suited for an invalid: I should only be uncomfortable myself, and make every one else in the house uncomfortable also." "Then go to Stepney Causeway," Olivine suggested, eagerly. 'Do," followed Mrs. Gainswoode, "and I will return there and make your coffee for you." "Ah! madam," he said, bowing low, "I could never put you to such vile uses." 'You cannot think the pleasure it would give me," she answered. 66 Pray have mercy!" he exclaimed. "Remember what a lonely man I am, and do not drive me to distraction by placing before mine eyes the prospect of a bliss I may never realise." "Really, Percy, you are too absurd," remarked Mrs. Gainswoode. "I should have thought we were too old for any absurdity of that kind." "I should have thought so too," answered Mr. Forbes; whereupon Etta bit her lip, and colouring up a little, declared he was as great a teaze as ever. "That is only your kind partiality," observed Percy. "I wish she would go to make coffee for anybody," said Olivine, the first moment she found herself alone with Percy. "For me," he suggested. 'Surely you Percy Forbes laughed. "You dear women!" he said; "how charmingly inconstant, how deliciously changeable you are, the bosom friend of to-day is the bitter enemy of a month hence. Talk about men! Believe me, Mrs. Barbour, not being of the same mind for a week at a time is the prerogative of your sex." Perhaps so;" and she stood, bringing home the general proposition to her own experience, instead of arguing from her own experience to a general proposition. "Do you not think," she said at last, raising her eyes from the carpet, that if this be as you declare, it is so, simply because we love what we fancy, and dislike what we know ?" |