returned into the front room, leaving the door ajar.

Manton returned, with disgust depicted upon his usually happy countenance.

'Well,' said Lucy, 'what tickets have you brought?'

'A couple of stalls for the Octagon,' replied her husband, sullenly.

'I thought you would be too late for the Imperial. Never mind; you got some for another night, of course?'

'No, I have not. I was not too late at the Imperial, and there were plenty of places to be had. But the performance is changed. Here is the announcement circulated at the box-office.'

And Frank Manton read

'In consequence of the serious indisposition of Miss Mirabel, the highly successful play of "Love and Liberty; or, the Daughter of the Doge," is withdrawn for a short time, its place being supplied by the favourite drama of domestic interest, "The Monkey of Ethiopia; or, the Devoted Wife;" in which Miss Rosemary will sustain her original character of Finetta, the Ape Bride. Early application is necessary to secure places.'

'I thought you would not care to see that,' said Manton. It's as old as the hills, and all rot from beginning to end. But this is very unfortunate-Miss Mirabel's illness. The people who had come for seats were very indignant, and the general impression seemed to be that it was a swindle-that she was going to be married, or wanted to amuse herself out of town, at any rate. But I told them that the lady was incapable of any deception of the kind; and I'm afraid it's true. We ought to go and inquire; don't you think so?'

Lucy was amused and not a little puzzled.

'You seem to be very anxious about Miss Mirabel. Perhaps you had better go alone-I might be in the way,' she said, with a pettishness half assumed and half not.

'My pet, you surely will allow me, as one of the public, to take an interest in the best actress and the most beautiful girl on the stage!"

Here May, who could not help

hearing what passed, thought she had heard quite enough, and came forth from her retreat.

Lucy clapped her hands with delight on seeing her husband's astonishment.

'I wanted him to go into ecstacies about you,' she said to May; 'and so he would, I daresay, but for this awful bulletin about your health. But what does it mean?why are you cheating the poor public, who have done nothing to deserve it?'

May took Lucy's little plot in good part, but she felt very indignant with Mr. Mandeville's excuse, making no allowance for that gentleman's position towards the public, who would have been highly incensed had any other reason been assigned, and would certainly have thrown the blame upon his shoulders. When an artiste leaves a manager very suddenly, it is usually supposed that he is mean, and will not give her money enough. They would never have believed the simple truth-that the new actress had changed her mind, and intended retiring from the stage after three nights of such enormous success as that of 'Love and Liberty; or, the Daughter of the Doge.'

Both Lucy and her husband were at first incredulous of the fact; and when thoroughly assured, the former, at least, found one consolation.

'We shall see so much more of you now,' she said to May. 'Actresses seem to have no time for their friends; and it will not be my fault if we do not get up some private theatricals. Ah! but I forgot-who will dare to play with you?'

May said she was afraid that they would not meet much for some time to come, as she would probably accompany her father to India very shortly.

"To India!' cried Lucy. 'Everybody's going to India. Cecil Halidame is going by next mail, and we may be going at any time. Frank's regiment will be one of the first, very likely. How nice it will be if we are all together there!'

Lucy's ideas of 'everybody'

were very limited; but the mention of one of the expectant travellers agitated May not a little. She was afraid to think what were her own feelings towards Halidame, but she naturally could not disregard her father's warning; and the return of the necklace-which she could not help connecting with the hussar— added to the mystery which seemed to surround him. The latter occurrence, however, she was content to consider in his favour. It might be that he had kept the ornament in a romantic spirit of regard for her; and there are few ladies who would not consider such an indiscretion a fault in the right direction; while his sending it back was at any rate a sign that he had no wish to appropriate it to himself. Such were May's reflections upon Cecil Halidame's part in the transaction; and they show how important it is, in a doubtful case, to have a female advocate whose private partialities are in your favour.

May stayed that afternoon with the Mantons, but returned to Brompton Row to dine with her father. She found the captain in high spirits; for his Indian mission had that day been made secure, and he stood pledged to proceed to Calcutta in time for the commencement of the cold season. Sir Norman Halidame was also appointed one of the direction in India, and was to go out, if possible, at the same time.

The matter of the necklace, you may be sure, was duly discussed next day. Captain Pemberton was not nearly so much surprised as was his daughter at Lucy's refusal of the ornament. Indeed I may say that he was not surprised at all, he was evidently becoming a hard man of business. "There is one course open to us,' said he,' which I think would be a proper one-to offer the thing to the mayor, who may have an affection to it, and prefer it to the money which he has

received in compensation, which in the event of his acceptance will of course be returned.'

May acquiesced in this view of the case; so her father wrote to Mr. Cartwright, explained the new phase of the affair, and placed the necklace at that gentleman's disposal, with the necessary pecuniary condition. The promptitude of the reply was an example to all correspondents. Mr. Cartwright, by return of post, expressed himself to the effect that he considered his daughter rather than himself to be the person concerned, and as she had chosen to marry without his consent he did not consider himself bound to effect its restoration. If Captain Pemberton preferred the money to the necklace, he had better apply to Ensign Manton.

May thought the letter rather contemptuous, and did not like it at all. Captain Pemberton-he was certainly becoming a man of business-thought it natural enough, considering the quarter whence it came. 'What can you expect from people of the kind?' he said, with his old service contempt for selfmade men, coming to London or Manchester, as the case might be, with three halfpence in their pockets, and so forth. Fortunately he did not want the money, and the ornament was just the kind of ornament that his daughter ought to have. 'Had I not lost my fortune and given up my active career in the service, my child, such things would have been yours long ago as a matter of course, and now, when I am regaining lost ground to some extent, you may fairly claim an adornment of the kind.'

'You allude,' said May, who had seldom ventured to evince curiosity as to the past-for she had experience of her father's repugnance to be questioned on the subject-' you allude to times of which I know nothing. I can remember little before Shuttleton. I have some faint memories of a ship, and being in charge of a black woman, who I suppose was a nurse, and still fainter memories of a bright, beautiful country with a warm air, which of course was India, since I was born

there. I can also remember-very faintly indeed-a beautiful lady who was white, and must have been my mother, only you would never tell me so, or indeed talk about her at all. I think, papa-father-I am old enough now to be told more concerning her. I know that she is dead, and that is all I know. I have never seen even her portraitoh, I should so much like to see her portrait-to see if it is like a face I see sometimes in my dreams. You ought to show me her portrait, if you have one-and you must have one-why do you conceal it from me? There is some secret that you keep from me, and you cannot expect me to be contented in my ignorance, though for years past I have been obedient to what I believed to be your wishes upon the subject. My father, you must not expect that I can remain all my life satisfied to know no more of my family-of your family-than I can gain from my memories of a sunny land, a ship, a black nurse, and-of Shuttleton.'

May summed up her position with an energy that added to the evident confusion with which Captain Pemberton received her appeal.

'My dear May, my dear daughter,' said he, I was not prepared for your introduction of a very painful subject. I told you, years ago, that your mother was no more-no more to me or to you-and that there were reasons why I wished to avoid even the mention of her name. She was dear to me-dear as she can be to you in your fancy, even in your dreams-and I have had my fancies and my dreams for years past, and have not told them to man or to woman; and the tale to which they relate must not be told, even to you. You may know some day -perhaps through me-but you must not ask me now for painful revelations. You must be content to believe me when I tell you that your father's honour is unimpugned, that he has no fear even of the world's opinion, though he wishes to preserve a certain secret even from his daughter. But I am an old fool for talking in this romantic way'-here the conventional side of

the Captain's character asserted itself and what I have to say, May, once for all, is, that you must not question me on this subject. I have always done my duty towards you, and you must be, or ought to be, content with the assurance that, as regards your-your dead mother -my honour is unquestionable. Do you believe me, May, or do you not?'

May had not known her mother, but she knew her father well, and she threw herself into his arms.

'I do, I do believe you,' she cried; 'could anybody ever doubt your word?

You have ever been to me what a father should be. I was wrong, I was wicked, to ask for more from you. It is only at times -after long intervals-that I think of the difference between me and other people-other girls-and now, when I have no longer the excitement of the theatre, I return to my old musings. But I will do so no more, and I ask your pardon for having forgotten myself and what is due to you.'

And May wept upon her father's shoulder; and her father forgave her with a strong protestation that he ought rather to forgive himself; but he had his reasons, as he said, for not telling May more, and restrained his emotions, as became a business man who was going out to the East in the interest of a company. So May restrained her emotions also, as became a dutiful daughter.

The next month was passed in preparations for their departure, but some 'urgent private affairs' detained Captain Pemberton beyond the anticipated time; so Sir Norman Halidame preceded instead of accompanied him by the first mail in October. As I have my reasons, as a chronicler, for following Sir Norman, I will leave the Pembertons to make the journey at their leisure.

CHAPTER XXXII.

SIR NORMAN HALIDAME IN PARIS-A VISION IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE.

Asia is a pleasant place. Perhaps I am not paying proper attention to that important quarter of

the globe in giving it a mere topographical distinction; but our familiarity with far lands in these travelling times is apt to produce the proverbial effect of familiarity in general; and it seems almost as natural to talk of a man about Asia as of a man about town. Some of these days, I suppose, we shall be equally slighting in our reference to the planets, and even in these we have a celebrated authority for 'speaking disrespectfully of the equator.'

All I meant to say was that however pleasant Asia may be, we most of us, when bound in its direction, like to linger a little in Europe; and to account, therefore, for the fact that Sir Norman Halidame, in his journey to India, preferred the route via Marseilles to the route via Southampton.

The route via Marseilles naturally took him to Paris, and there he proposed to pass the two or three days that he had to spare. He had only two or three days, but they were sufficient for the occurrence of an important event in his life.

Sir Norman Halidame fell in love. He had fancied himself in love several times before; but he had always found his feminine preferences resolve themselves into matters of taste, and to be not very distinct from the sentiment which led him to admire fair flowers and fine pictures and graceful and beautiful things generally; to furnish his house with the luxuries of art, and even to bestow some care upon the apparelling of his own handsome person. For Sir Norman, though far from being a dandy, in the vulgar sense of the term-though the term, by the way, has only a vulgar sense-was not indifferent to the latter consideration, and regarded an ill-dressed man or woman in much the same light as an illdressed dinner; the one, in his idea, being as injurious to the moral health as the other is to the physical. His mental training, as evinced in such matters, had perhaps been a little too fine. But after all, as he had been heard to say, 'A certain attention to conventionalities saves a man at least from some kinds of

degradation. There have been great villains among fine gentlemen; but they are comparatively free from vice, and never commit crimes except when they happen to be heroes.' I daresay Sir Norman was wrong in his generalization; but he was an example in himself of the beneficial effect of conventional refinement, and it may be that but for his delicate love of beauty, fastidious taste, and sensitive temperament, he would have turned out a hero, and done a great deal of harm in the world. As it was, we find Sir Norman doing no worse than proceeding to India by way of intoxicated Paris instead of sober Southampton, and improving the occasion by falling in love.

It was with such a charming object, too. He saw her first driving in the Bois. He then thought that nobody had ever looked so well in a carriage; but when she alighted and walked, it was his serious belief that nobody had ever looked so well out of a carriage, in which latter conclusion he opened rather a wide field for competition. She was accompanied by a lady, whose apparent age would warrant the supposition that the relative positions of the pair were those of mother and daughter. Not that she looked old enough to experience a Ichild of seventeen; but we must make allowance, of course, for the juvenile appearance of mothers of matured daughters in these days, when confessed elderly ladies seem to exist only in the imaginations of caricaturists.

The elder lady-I call her the elder in a strictly relative sense, as you would allude to the riper of a pair of peaches-was as beautiful in one way as the younger was beautiful in another. She was a beaming blonde, rich and ripe as a jargonelle pear, with an air when in repose that might have seemed languid were it not more evidently lazy, and with a form which might be accused of exuberance, but would be better described as characterized by a pleasant sufficiency. There was a happy good nature depicted in every trait, and the soft charm of her presence was nourishing to the eye.

The younger differed from her in every detail. Her hair was as dark as hair may be that distinctly refuses to be black; and her face was of that delicate fairness which is not ardent but essentially clear. Beneath her waved tresses it would irresistibly bring to your mind Macaulay's cabinet picture of

'April's ivory moonlight,

Beneath the chestnut shade."

The epithet ivory,' by the way, has been challenged by critics who find no more poetry in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome' than music in the blast of a trumpet; but its value is recognised by those who have seen moonlight in the South-granting, of course, that they are competent to see, and not merely make use of their eyes.

Her features were finely chiselled, and perfect almost to a fault, and her brown orbs shone with a light that was perhaps too seldom subdued. There was such a radiance in her presence that you might expect to see her in the dark, and she gave you the idea of a gem rather than a flower. Her form was light and graceful, with all the charm of a transient immaturity.

If you do not now know what the two ladies were like, it is not my fault; but perhaps you may be assisted by the remark of a gentleman who stayed to speak to Sir Norman, as he stood watching the pair as they walked by the side of the lake:

'A fine picture, is it not? But they are by different masters. One looks like a Rubens, with the brush of Lawrence gently passed over her; the other as if she had been designed by Guido, and finished by Watteau.'

'Must. I have exhausted worlds of leave, and then imagined new, but to no purpose. The Horse Guards expects every man to do his duty, and I have not done mine for two years, except a little at the depôt, in the intervals of fresh applications. I am now at the end of my tether, unless I take to that last resort, studying at the Staff College; and after giving that alternative mature consideration, I have come to a virtuous determination to scorn the action.'

His

The ornament to Her Majesty's Service who thus delivered himself was a gentleman of some six or eight-and-twenty, whose appearance indicated the precision which he loved to impart to his language. There was precision in his quick eye and compact features, and even in the cut of his short hair. dress was precision itself, and characterized by a strict accuracy in the minutest detail. His cheerful manner was conceived in a similar spirit. If he laughed it was because laughter was due to the matter in hand, and he would not refuse to the matter in hand that which belonged to it. He was incapable of being gloomy, and never allowed himself to be discomposed. His name was Milward, and he bore the rank of lieutenant in her Majesty's -th Regiment of Foot. How her Majesty's th Regiment of Foot bore him I am unable to say, but he did not seem to run the risk of fatiguing that gallant corps by being too much with it.

Mr. Milward graciously agreed to dine with Sir Norman, upon the invitation of that gentleman, and the pair proceeded to the Boulevards for that purpose. Once or twice the conversation turned upon the ladies they had seen in the Bois; and one of them, I suspect, was