"Well, then, you'll tell me as a friendyou're an awfully good fellow, Gordonyou'll tell me as a friend: Do you think, now, that she's lost her heart to you?"

There was in this question and its attendant circumstances, something so ludicrous, that, despite the perturbation of James's mind, he found it exceedingly difficult to repress a smile.

"No," he said: "I do Not think that Miss Featherstone has lost her heart to me. "Or to anyone," was his mental reservation. "You don't, really, now? 'Pon your honour? And it's a great deal to ask, but I should go back in peace, and you're such a monstrous good fellow-now that you know of this, you'll be careful? In fact, you won't flirt with her any more, will you?" said Lord Joseph, in an almost beseeching

tone.

"It is not my custom to poach upon other

men's grounds," returned James, somewhat proudly: "That I have devoted myself rather particularly to Miss Featherstone of late, I do not deny. But, from this moment, she is nothing to me, or I to her, any more. Now, if you have said all that you wish to say, perhaps you will excuse me."

"I shall write to The, you know," said Lord Joseph, deeply grateful: "You'll tell So, if you mention having met me? Tell

her

her all about it, and how it was.

You're an

awfully good fellow. No offence ?"

"None in the world," said James: shaking hands with a smile, interpreted by Lord Joseph as a further proof of awful goodness.

"Stop a minute," he said. He then fumbled in his pocket: dropping, in the process, innumerable things; and presently produced a cigar-case, which he extended towards James.

"Have a cigar," said he, in the fulness of

his heart: "Uncommon good ones. Now do have a cigar."

This token of amity closed the interview. Lord Joseph was perfectly satisfied. He retired without the station, to smoke and to chuckle.

And James?

Afterwards, James found himself unable to remember where, at this time, he went, or what he did. He was conscious only of one great truth: which filled his heart; which filled the whole world-so it seemed to him-with sudden glory.

He was free. Free from his self-imposed chains. Free to act as he would; frée to love as he would.

It was as though every power within his soul, arose and cried "Hallelujah!"

207

CHAPTER X.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate-
That Time will come and take my love away:
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

HE had been, for several hours, in a

THE

humour reverse from agreeable: so said Cissy; so thought Olivia. She was, in fact, exceedingly displeased; with the world in general, and with James in particular. What business had he to go to Leeds yesterday, and to absent himself during the

greater part of to-day: leaving her alone? Alone, that was, to all intents and purposes; for the other visitors were gone: and Olivia and Marian and Cissy and Sir Philip and Lady Peers and their children, were but as so many nothings to The. In a very short time-less than a week-she would return to her mother. She wished, while still at Farnley, to enjoy the éclat of an engagement, publicly proclaimed, with Farnley's lord. She was impatient to avail herself of the opportunities that would then be afforded, for setting down Cissy, for condescending to Olivia, for outrivalling Marian; and, further, for looking round upon the place and its belongings with the complacency of one who, if not exactly their owner, was, at least, their owner's queen. "Vainqueures des vainqueurs de la terre.”

And thus The felt grievously provoked when Olivia observed, that James would