not; he would wait; the cab must drive up in its turn. He was both impatient and undecided. He threw himself back in the cab with a sense of bitter disappointment. He was ill and weak, both mind and body, and felt bitterly annoyed; but he said to himself they did not know that I should come to-night.'

The driver took his seat on the box, turned his horse, and drove back to the tail of the long line of advancing carriages; and again the sick young man offered himself consolation in the thought that this reception was only inopportune.

The momentary anger was gone as the cab slowly neared the door; and that faith in coming home which belongs to the human heart thrilled him with an agitation which was almost joy.

Scarlet and gold, blue and silver, satin and costly fur, and a sweet perfume passed from the last carriage over the soft crimson-carpeted pavement up the low steps of the door. Then followed that common cab, out of which stepped a weary, travel-worn, and apparently feeble young man, with many wraps and a small quantity of not very aristocratic-looking luggage-all his heavy luggage remaining in the Indian steamer at Southampton. This was an arrival that caused wonderment in the dingy, gazing crowd outside the awning, and still greater wonderment amongst the powdered servants in the hall.

The sallow-complexioned stranger and his rather shabby luggage were admitted, and more scarlet and purple and blue and gold followed.

Mr. Henry Clitheroe-Northwood was the name he gave; and the looks of the servants showed that they knew him not. The blank faces that stared at him roused a sudden anger in him, who for the last ten years had been accustomed to the ready obedience of Hindoo service, and in a voice of comImand he desired to see Miss Northwood.

'Oh, I dare say!' mentally exclaimed the imperious servant to whom this command was given-yet it had its effect. A message reached the housekeeper's room, and anon a neat-looking young housemaid invited him to follow her upstairs-by the back staircase, of course, because the principal staircase was occupied by ascending and descending guests, down which came also a buzz and murmur of voices, whilst through the open doors swelled the sound of music and a rich voice sang 'La donna e mobile.'

'Miss Northwood, she sing,' said a

tall man out of livery, a Swiss valet, whom her brother had desired to inform Miss Northwood of his arrival; 'and I may not say no one come.'

An overpowering sense of neglect, where he had looked for loving welcome, stronger than anger, subdued him almost to the unmanly weakness of tears, as he followed the young maidservant up the back staircase, whilst a disengaged servant, who looked very like a groom, and had turned up somewhere, carried his luggage after him.

He was taken up one flight of stairs after another to an inferior back chamber, in which was no evidence of preparation. Yet the young woman said, as she lighted the gas

"This room was got ready for you last week, sir; only the housekeeper did not know when you were coming, else the fire would have been lighted.'

Now Mr. Clitheroe-Northwood burst forth into anger somewhat like an eastern despot; and the young woman and the groom-like servant with the portmanteau stood in silent dismay, whilst the housekeeper, who had followed in the wake, spoke in a mild mollifying tone.

'Yes, it was dreadful weather-and a chamber without a fire-and anybody coming off a journey! But neither Miss Northwood nor her ladyship said when he was coming. It was an inferior room, she must confess, but the Countess Paulowsky had the large room, and the next to it was occupied by Madame Duval, her ladyship's maid -but now she thought of it he might for sure have that room, at least for the night; and there was a fire in it, and all comfortable, for madame was particular-only she was very good-natured and obliging-and Miss Northwood or her ladyship would order another room in the morning; only she was afraid madam's room was untidy, because she had all the countess's things to look after.

She had been enabled to make this long speech and thus arrange affairs because the young man seemed unable to put his indignation into words strong enough to express it. Rejecting the offer of Madame Duval's room, he declared he would go to an hotel; and with some violent Hindostanee oath, which expressed his feelings better than English could do, he brushed past the two women.

One feature of the malady which, having prostrated him in India, now sent him home for recovery, was his