goods and chattels to this house to-morrow, if you like, and live at free quarters here for the rest of your existence. But if George Weston is a pig-headed brute, who can't understand upon which side his bread is buttered, he must be got out of the way somehow. I don't care what it costs me; but he must be got out of the way. I'm not going to live the life of a modern Damocles, with a blundering sword always dangling over my head, in the person of Mr. George Weston. And if the man objects to leave the country without you, why, I think your going with him would be only a sisterly act towards me. I hate selfishness, Lavinia, almost as much as I detest sentimentality."

Mrs. Weston was silent for some minutes, absorbed in reflection. Paul got up, kicked aside a footstool, and walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets.

Perhaps I might get George to leave England, if I promised to join him as soon as he was comfortably settled in the colonies," Mrs. Weston said, at last.

"Yes," cried Paul; "nothing could be more easy. I'll act very liberally towards him, Lavinia; I'll treat him well; but he shall not stay in England. No, Lavinia; after what you have told me to-day, I feel that he must be got out of the country."

Mr. Marchmont went to the door and looked out, to see if by chance any one had been listening to him. The coast was quite clear. The stone-paved hall looked as desolate as some undiscovered chamber in an Egyptian temple. The artist went back to Lavinia, and seated himself by her side. For some time the brother and sister talked together earnestly.

They settled every thing for poor hen-pecked George Weston. He was to sail for Sydney immediately. Nothing could be more easy than for Lavinia to declare that her brother had accidentally heard of some grand opening for a medical practitioner in the metropolis of the antipodes. The surgeon was to have a very handsome sum given him, and Lavinia would of course join him as soon as he was settled. Paul Marchmont even looked through the Shipping Gazette in search of an Australian vessel which should speedily convey his brother-in-law to a distant shore.

Lavinia Weston went home armed with all necessary credentials. She was to promise almost any thing to her husband, provided that he gave his consent to an early departure.

Chapter XXXVI.

MR. WESTON REFUSES TO BE "PUT UPON."

UPON the 31st of June, the eve of Edward Arundel's wedding-day, Olivia Marchmont sat in her own room,-the room that she had chiefly occupied ever since her husband's death,-the study looking out into the

quadrangle. She sat alone in that dismal chamber, dimly lighted by a pair of wax-candles, in tall tarnished silver candlesticks. There could be no greater contrast than that between this desolate woman and the master of the house. All about him was bright, and fresh, and glittering, and splendid; around her there was only ruin and decay, thickening dust, and gathering cobwebs,-outward evidences of an inner wreck. John Marchmont's widow was of no importance in that household. The servants did not care to trouble themselves about her whims or wishes, nor to put her rooms in order. They no longer curtseyed to her when they met her, wandering-with a purposeless step and listless feet that dragged along the ground-up and down the corridor, or out in the dreary quadrangles. They knew that she was mad. What was to be gained by any show of respect to her, whose brain was too weak to hold the memory of their conduct for five minutes together? Of all the cruel calamities that can befall humanity, surely this living death called madness is the worst.

Barbara Simmons only was faithful to her mistress with an unvarying fidelity. She made no boast of her devotion; she expected neither fee nor reward for her self-abnegation. That rigid religion of discipline which had not been strong enough to preserve Olivia's stormy soul from danger and ruin was at least all-sufficient for this lower type of woman. Barbara Simmons had been taught to do her duty, and she did it without question or complaint. As she went through rain, snow, hail, or sunshine twice every Sunday to Kemberling church,-as she sat upon a hard seat in an uncomfortable angle of the servants' pew, with the sharp edges of the woodwork cutting her thin shoulders, to listen patiently to dull rambling sermons upon the hardest texts of St. Paul,-so she attended upon her mistress, submitting to every caprice, putting up with every hardship; because it was her duty so to do. The only relief she allowed herself was an hour's gossip now and then in the housekeeper's room; but she never alluded to her mistress's infirmities, nor would it have been 'safe for any other servant to have spoken lightly of Mrs. John Marchmont in stern Barbara's presence.

Upon this summer evening, when happy people were still lingering amongst the wild flowers in shady lanes, or in the dusky pathways by the quiet river, Olivia sat alone, staring at the candles.

Was there any thing in her mind; or was she only a human automaton, slowly decaying into dust? There was no speculation in those large lustreless eyes, fixed upon the dim light of the candles. But, for all that, the mind was not a blank. The pictures of the past, for ever changing, like the scenes in some magic panorama, revolved before her. She had no memory of that which had happened a quarter of an hour ago; but she could remember every word that Edward Arundel had said to her in the Rectory-garden at Swampington,-every intonation of the voice in which those words were spoken.

There was a tea-service on the table: an attenuated little silver tea

pot; a lopsided cream-jug, with thin worn edges and one dumpy little foot missing; and an antique dragon china cup and saucer with the gilding washed off. That meal, which is generally called social, has but a dismal aspect when it is only prepared for one. The solitary teacup, half filled with cold, stagnant tea, with a leaf or two floating upon the top, like weeds on the surface of a tideless pond; the teaspoon thrown askew across a little pool of spilt milk in the teatray,-looked as dreary as the ruins of a deserted city.

In the western drawing-room Paul was strolling backwards and forwards, talking to his mother and sisters, and admiring his pictures. He had spent a great deal of money upon art since taking possession of the Towers, and the western drawing-room was quite a different place to what it had been in John Marchmont's lifetime.

Etty's divinities smiled through hazy draperies, more transparent than the summer vapours that float before the moon. Pearly complexioned nymphs, with faces archly peeping round the corner of soft rosy shoulders, frolicked amidst the silver spray of classic fountains. Turner's Grecian temples glimmered through sultry summer mists; while glimpses of ocean sparkled here and there, and were as beautiful as if the artist's brush had been dipped in melted opals. Stanfield's breezy beaches made cool spots of freshness on the wall. Panting deer upon dizzy crags, amid the misty Highlands, testified to the hand of Landseer. Low down, in the corners of the room, there lurked quaint cottage-scenes by Faed. Ward's patched and powdered beaux and beauties,―a Rochester, in a light periwig; a Nell Gwynne, showing her white teeth across a basket of oranges, --made a blaze of colour upon the walls; and amongst all these glories of to-day there were prim Madonnas and stiff-necked angels by Raphael and Tintoretto; a brown-faced grinning boy by Murillo (no collection ever was complete without that inevitable brown-faced boy); an obese Venus, by the great Peter Paul; and a pale Charles the First, with martyrdom foreshadowed in his pensive face, by Vandyke.

Paul Marchmont contemplated his treasures complacently as he strolled about the room, with his coffee-cup in his hand; while his mother watched him admiringly from her comfortable cushioned nest at one end of a luxurious sofa.

"Well, mother," Mr. Marchmont said presently, "let people say what they may of me, they can never say that I have used my money badly. When I am dead and gone, these pictures will remain to speak for me; posterity will say, 'At any rate, the fellow was a man of taste.' Now what, in Heaven's name, could that miserable little Mary have done with eleven thousand a year, if—if she had lived to enjoy it?"

The minute-hand of the little clock in Mrs. John Marchmont's study was creeping slowly towards the quarter before eleven, when Olivia was aroused suddenly from that long reverie, in which the images of the past had shone upon her across the dull stagnation of the present like the

domes and minarets in a Phantasm City gleaming athwart the barren desert sands.

She was aroused by a cautious tap upon the outside of her window, She got up, opened the window, and looked out. The night was dark and starless, and there was a faint whisper of wind among the trees, that sounded like the presage of a storm.

"Don't be frightened," whispered a timid voice; "it's only me, George Weston. I want to talk to you, Mrs. John. I've got something particular to tell you-awful particular; but they mustn't hear it; they mustn't know I'm here. I came round this way on purpose. You can let me in

at the little door in the lobby, can't you, Mrs. John? I tell you, I must tell you what I've got to tell you," cried Mr. Weston, indifferent to tautology in his excitement. "Do let me in, there's a dear good soul. The little door in the lobby, you know; it's locked, you know, but the key ain't taken away, I dessay."

"The door in the lobby?" repeated Olivia, in a dreamy voice.

"Yes, you know. Do let me in now, that's a good creature. It's awful particular, I tell you. It's about Edward Arundel."

Edward Arundel! The sound of that name seemed to act upon the woman's shattered nerves like a stroke of electricity. The drooping head reared itself erect. The eyes, so lustreless before, flashed fire from their sombre depths. Comprehension, animation, energy returned; as suddenly as if the wand of an enchanter had summoned the dead back to life.

"Edward Arundel!" she cried, in a clear voice, that was utterly unlike the dull deadness of her usual tones.

"Hush," whispered Mr. Weston; "don't speak loud, for goodness gracious sake. I dessay there's all manner of spies about. Let me in, and I'll tell you every thing."

"Yes, yes; I'll let you in. The door by the lobby-I understand; come, come."

Olivia disappeared from the window. The lobby of which the surgeon had spoken was close to her own apartment. She found the key in the lock of the door. The place was dark; she opened the door almost noiselessly, and Mr. Weston crept in on tiptoe. He followed Olivia into the study, closed the door behind him, and drew a long breath.

"I've got in," he said; "and now I am in, wild horses shouldn't hold me from speaking my mind, much less Paul Marchmont."

He turned the key in the door as he spoke, and even as he did so glanced rather suspiciously towards the window. To his mind the very atmosphere of that house was pervaded by the presence of his brother-inlaw.

"O Mrs. John!" exclaimed the surgeon, in piteous accents, "the way that I've been put upon. You've been put upon, Mrs. John, but you don't seem to mind it; and perhaps it's better to bring oneself to that, if one can; but I can't. I've tried to bring myself to it; I've even

taken to drinking, Mrs. John, much as it goes against me; and I've tried to drown my feelings as a man in rum-and-water. But the more spirits I consume, Mrs. John, the more of a man I feel."

Mr. Weston struck the top of his hat with his clenched fist, and stared fiercely at Olivia, breathing very hard, and breathing rum-and-water with a faint odour of lemon-peel.

"Edward Arundel !-what about Edward Arundel?" said Olivia, in a low, eager voice.

"I'm coming to that, Mrs. John, in due c'course," returned Mr. Weston, with an air of dignity that was superior even to hiccough. "What I say, Mrs. John," he added, in a confidential and argumentative tone, "is this: I won't be put upon !" Here his voice sank to an awful whisper, "Of course it's pleasant enough to have one's rent provided for, and not to be kept awake by poor's rates, Mrs. John; but, good gracious me! I'd rather have the Queen's taxes and the poor-rates following me up day and night, and a man in possession to provide for at every meal-and you don't know how contemptuous a man in possession can look at you if you offer him salt-butter, or your table in a general way don't meet his views— than the conscience I've had since Paul Marchmont came into Lincolnshire. I feel, Mrs. John, as if I'd committed oceans of murders. It's a miracle to me that my hair hasn't turned white before this; and it would have done it, Mrs. J., if it wasn't of that stubborn nature which is too wiry to give expression to a man's sufferings. O Mrs. John, when I think how my pangs of conscience have been made game of,-when I remember the insulting names I have been called, because my heart didn't happen to be made of adamant,-my blood boils; it boils, Mrs. John, to that degree, that I feel the time has come for action. I have been put upon until the spirit of manliness within me blazes up like a fiery furnace. I've been. trodden upon, Mrs. John; but I'm not the worm they took me for. Today they've put the finisher upon it." The surgeon paused to take breath. His mild and rather sheep-like countenance was flushed; his fluffy eyebrows twitched convulsively in his endeavours to give expression to the violence of his feelings. "To-day they've put the finisher upon it," he repeated. "I'm to go to Australia, am I? Ha! ha! we'll see about that. There's a nice opening in the medical line, is there? and dear Paul will provide the funds to start me! Ha! ha! two can play at that game. It's all brotherly kindness, of course, and friendly interest in my welfare-that's what it's called, Mrs. J. Shall I tell you what it is? I'm to be got rid of, at any price, for fear my conscience should get the better of me, and I should speak. I've been made a tool of, and I've been put upon; but they've been obliged to trust me. I've got a conscience, and I don't suit their views. If I hadn't got a conscience, I might stop here and have my rent and taxes provided for, and riot in rum-andwater to the end of my days. But I've a conscience that all the pineapple rum in Jamaica wouldn't drown, and they're frightened of me."

Olivia had listened to all this with an impatient frown upon her face.