You, whose duty it was to save my poor father from dying unknown, and almost uncared for, in a foreign land! Where was your affection then? What did you do with your anxiety about natural ties of relationship then?"

"I am not accustomed to be addressed in this manner," shrilly broke in the old man, trembling all over with suppressed agitation, and rervously moving his feet and hands.

"What was his crime ?" I continued wildly. "Marrying poor mamma, who died of want and anxiety, far from her friends ?"

"You have no right to set yourself up as a judge over me," he muttered with querulous reproach.

"I don't," I said, rather more quietly, crying fast. should have said anything disagreeable but for you."

"I never

"I came here with the best, the kindest intentions," he whimpered. "I offer you a splendid social position, home, and that sort of thing, and you-you abuse me-positively abuse me."

"It's nothing but selfishness!" I exclaimed with fury. "You harden yourself in your pride, for twenty years, against your son and his child; and now, just because you want somebody to love you, you hold out your money as a bait. Your social position' did you say? And my father died in a garret! D'you think I've no pride ?"

"She abuses me," he repeated plaintively-" abuses me!"

"I don't!" I snapped out. "I can't help telling the truth." "I am your nearest relation," urged the Viscount after a pause, "therefore it is fitting you should live with me. You have been already too long under the control of that worthless man, Captain Tregarvan. These Ferrers people may be all very well; but I do hope that, as my granddaughter, you will carry out my wishes, and let this this fencing-master know that such a state of things must now come to an end."

"Not at all!" I burst out again-" A mere tie of blood, without the love that quickens it, to tempt me from the man who has sacrificed the ten best years of his life to give me food, shelter, education, unbound by any such tie? A mere relationship of descent to tempt me from the relationship of pity ?"

"I am your grandfather," he reiterated, "and would-"

"Why do you come to me," I interrupted bitterly, "with all these arguments, after twenty years of desertion and oblivion ?" 'A silence, unbroken for a minute. Then, in a piteous whisper close up to me,

"Can you not understand?"

The sight of those wretched white hairs bending over my hand moved me strangely, and I kissed the old man in a revulsion of feeling. "Let us be friends, grandfather; but don't ask me anything more."

And so we parted. Was I right, Jim ?

'It is agreed that I am to write to him now and then and report progress. Send me a line soon to say whether you approve of

what I have done.

It is getting very late, and I very sleepy; so good-night, my dearest and best of protectors.

Ever your loving

A year later.

MINNIE.'

'52 Hertford-street, Mayfair, W., 3d June 186—.

My solitary old Darling,-I don't know how I could better employ my Sunday morning than in writing to you, vu, que I am not at all inclined to go to church, even though it be St. Ethelfride's, and the music beautiful to distraction. The flesh certainly is much too weak, after the excitement of this last month, to do anything but take a day's rest. Not to mention that we are due at the Zoo about four o'clock, and that Captain Prediger will be standing by the entrance, to a dead certainty, as we arrive, which will entail a dreadful amount of fatigue in the way of fencing with soft speeches, and still softer" looks. Poor man! I have got such a killing thing in bonnets for his edification. And lace is his weakness! I'm sorry for him to-day. I remember last year wondering how I should feel when I was "out." Well, to tell the truth, I like it tremendously. It suits me down to the ground." Which sounds very dissipated and worldly, but is the fact. You know I was always fond of le clinquant. I am not changed in the least. And yet I fancy the fascination of it all won't last long-only as long as it remains a novelty. I mean to enjoy this season anyhow; go in for it heartily, and then (perhaps) become a useful member of society.

No sooner had we left our cards at the various houses Mrs. Ferrers considered the best form than we received heaps of visits and invitations. Polite, wasn't it? Among others came, to my awe, a high and mighty dame known to mortals as the Marchioness of Quincailler, accompanied by her daughter Lady Harriet Tynpott.

'A fine old lady, whose white curls give her aquiline features a great resemblance to the countenance of a solemn ram—an expression modified into lamblike beauty with Lady Harriet.

Eh, bien, the Marchioness explained that, being an old friend of my grandfather, he had written to beg her to lend me the shield of her patronage on my introduction into society. She proposed therefore that my début should take place at her next ball, and that she should present me at the first Drawing-room.

I will not weary your soul with a description of the dress I wore on the auspicious evening at Eaton-square. It was very chic, and awfully expensive. But then, one does not come out every day.

'I was a great success, you'll be glad to hear; my dances were

snapped up at once, and the amount of men who bothered my partners for an introduction, and then wanted to secure valses at future hops, was tremendous. That was the occasion, moreover, of my first conquest. Never once has Captain the Honourable Augustus Prediger swerved from his devoir since the night we met (son of Lord Sacristy, and a member of her Majesty's 6th (Ironclads) Dragoons pas mal, eh, for a first shot ?). Of course my greatest sensation, as far as I have gone, was the Drawing-room. That I need scarcely describe. We got on very well in the antechambers, as we came across some of our set; but when my turn came, I felt most shockingly nervous, and wished the Princess of Wales anywhere else. Nevertheless, I got through my "courtesy" all right, and was much fetched by an approving glance from his Royal Highness the Duke of Canada, who looked any amount of sudden deaths at me, and exchanged whispers with his chum and equerry Putty Whyte. By the way, talking of that said youth, Sir Pulteney was introduced to me only a few nights ago at Lady Vabontrain's, and asseverated that I was sure of an invitation to the state ball, the Duke was wild for a dance with me, and so forth. After which— farceur fieffé that he is he commenced a little business on his own account in the conservatory.

'I got to know Lady Vabontrain through Mrs. Morant, who is in London, and still very fond of me. I enjoy her dances more than any others I have been to; she seems to get such jolly people together; that is, they are of course the same people one meets everywhere, with the difference, I suppose, that the bores and dowdies are excluded; so the rooms are not crowded, and every one is happy. Gus Prediger very nearly committed himself seriously at Lady V.'s. I think her splendid fizz and the gardenias in my hair had something to do with it; but he certainly was only saved from hopeless and irretrievable disaster by Putty Whyte, who turned up at the critical moment to claim me for the "next."

'I am dreadfully disappointed, Jim, that you won't hear of our coming over to see you till next year. It's all very well to say, "Come as soon as you like after the day you're eighteen." I think it's very cruel of you. Why not run over to London, and bring Mahomet to the mountain, if you won't agree to anything else?

I have just had my photo done by Elliot and Fry. I hope you'll like it as well as you did the last. Everybody here admires it; but you know, Jim, there is no admiration I really care for but yours.

'Mr. Dane came to dinner with us last night, and bestowed the light of his presence and conversation chiefly on poor dear little me. He begged and implored me "for about the space of three hours"no, twenty minutes-to give him my physiognomy, but I sternly refused. I didn't quite see it.

And now, my darling old Jim, after all this trash, to pour out all my gratitude for the magnificent present I received last night, and the dear letter enclosed. To think that you should have had

that sweet old snuffbox broken up to make earrings for me! Thank you a thousand times for your kindness. It is not so much the value of the diamonds (which are lovely) that I am thinking about; it is the continual proofs of an affection and generosity which I feel myself unworthy of, but can never forget.

I shall wear them at the first opportunity, and they shall talk to me about you all the evening.

'Ever your loving and good-for-nothing

MIN.

P.S. We went to Hurlingham yesterday afternoon to see the Oaks Sweepstakes shot for. Who do you think took it? Sir Harry Vesey, the man who fenced with you at Malaise. They say he makes 2000l. a year by pigeon-shooting, pyramids, and écarté. Shady, very.'

Captain Tregarvan looks long and earnestly at the sweet haughty 'A year more to wait! Will she be changed in heart, as in form, I wonder?'

face.

Winter again.

'Norman Place, nr. Malton, Yorks, 28th January 186—. 'O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida, hear me ere I-break my praiseworthy intention of confessing my sins. But first, let me tell you how it came about.

'We arrived here a fortnight ago to spend a week with Lord Vabontrain. The house was quite full, and festive nights succeeded jolly days, so that when our time was up, and Lady V. pressed us, as she alone can press, to stay on, we were nothing loth to give way gracefully, and make up our minds to go on enjoying ourselves.

'Well, we had all sorts of fun-dancing every night, charades now and then, billiards very often, and scuffling continually.

'I don't know what it is, the atmosphere of the dissipated old place, I suppose, with its mysterious little staircases and affectionatelooking bow-windows; but anyhow, I never felt so inclined for making determined attacks upon the happiness and equanimity of the male sex. In fact, as I have continued my passage of arms with Gus Prediger, who has been here all the time in full glory of annihilating velvet and bijouterie, and as Reginald Dane, Esq., has considered it his duty to make an attempt at cutting out that pride of the service, I have been compelled to try my hand at driving a pair. Which up to this day I have succeeded in doing with amusement to myself, and— Well, I think they like their coachy. Yesterday morning it rained tomcats and bulldogs; we were at our wits' end for something to do. Tired of billiards, sick of bagatelle, proof against the charms of "cross questions and crooked answers"--que

faire ? "Happy thought" from me. "My kingdom for a battledore and shuttlecock!" We soon routed out an ample provision of both, and (it is now useless to conceal it from you any longer) we careered helter-skelter up-stairs, old men and matrons, young men and maids, and romped like children for an hour and a half on the old oak landing. We ceased from exhaustion. We ceased from exhaustion. But O, such fun!

That afternoon an absurd incident occurred, which I shall laugh over to my dying day. It was on this wise. Passing through the hall, on my way to the library, I espied Gus Prediger flattening his nose against a window at one end, and Mr. Dane, ditto ditto, at the other, looking out at the steady drizzle. I went on my way rejoicing, and making myself comfortable with a book, occupied a few minutes in wondering which of the two would come after me first— I think the betting was 6 to 4 on Gus-when two gentle creaks, and the two opposite doors of the room opened simultaneously, revealing R. D. coming in from the hall, and Captain Prediger, who had gone round by the drawing-room, on desperate deed intent. They both gave a little start at seeing each other, hesitated, and then came forward, looking as casual as they possibly could, and retiring with newspapers to remote corners of the room. Fancy poor little me in the middle, and those two great men glaring at each other like that in dead silence! It seemed so irresistibly comic to me that, after struggling for a minute or two with my feelings, I burst out all at once into a mad fit of laughter. Dane followed suit, and soon Gus came in with his noodle's haw-haw! No one said a word, and I went off into a fresh fit at the absurdity of us three sitting there cackling at nothing in particular. I was very angry with myself for being so silly, but I positively could not help it. Mon Dieu, comme je bavarde! To the point.

This morning, as I was returning from an expedition to the stables with Bella Marmont, we came across my Captain doing a weed on the terrace.

"Let's go and have a look at the dairy," I proposed.

"Can't," said Bella; "I must run in, and write letters till post

time."

Upon which G. P. offers himself as escort, and we toddle off through the park. But here I will draw a veil over the harrowing scene. I will stop in time. I was just about to give you a circumstantial account of my first-offer. There-it's out; somebody actually wants me to commit matrimony! As soon as we had invaded this pretty tile-paved show place, and found ourselves alone-I suppose the dairymaids were all busy churning-he broke into a regular romantic speech about-well, you know what I mean. How I am floundering! In a word, he asked me to marry him; and I refused, unmoved by any amount of lamentation and gnashing of teeth.