yesterday less of what people call generos- | Barrington; "but now that matter is disity. But if I had kept anything back, charit-posed of, I'll trouble you for a cup of able tongues would have swelled tens to coffee." thousands; and I fear, as far as my good name went, the sacrifice would have been thrown away. I desired to crush not cripple the wasps that were stinging me." "Yes, you showed your usual good sense there, even when for once you did a foolish thing; and then, doubtless, you remembered I should be greatly cut up if you had not-that George Barrington was rich, and his fortune as much yours as bis-eh, Hugh?" "Not exactly that, Barrington; but I assure you I felt I had friends I could count upon, and I neither contemplated giving up Lucy nor marrying her to starvation. I would sooner come to you and Rushbrook for a thousand or two, than leave my honour at the mercy of the men I parted from yesterday for ever. Nor should I borrow quite as a beggar after all; my Holbeins and Vandykes mean the thousand or two, and something more-a security to my friends, while I live -a provision for my wife if I die." CHAPTER XXXVIII. MARRIAGE, LOVE, AND LEAVE-TAKING. AFTER his violent divorce from all that had engrossed him in the most eventful years of his life; after his return from the City, infinitely more naked than he had entered it; after the wrench that tore his heartstrings from the remains of his paternal acres, Hugh had looked for consolation with Lucy. He was married now, and had seated himself by a domestic hearth, when it was become matter of grave speculation how he was to keep in the fire. He had no idea of hanging on in his altered circumstances to shiver through an English winter of discontent. He found his susceptibilities jar him at each step he took, for after all he was a mere mortal, and not a hero of romance. The people he had lived with had plied him with insidious flattery, yielding him insensible deference as to a consummate man of their world. It fretted his philosophy to find himself regarded distrustfully as a brilliant maniac, whose eccentricities it was impossible to count on; essence too refined for earth, hurried along "Upon my word, Childersleigh, for a man capable of such romantic actions, you have the queerest ideas of friendship. Had that loan you forced on me at Homburg as a vagrant from exalted spheres, of escaped your memory altogether, and the language with which you pressed it? Unless you mean our friendship to die a sudden death- and then the murder lie at your door, I wash my hands of it unless you mean that, I say, pledge yourself forthwith to come to me, and to no one else. Very likely Rushbrook would be glad enough, but then Rushbrook is always hard up, and would probably have to borrow. Now, thanks to you, I have a balance at my banker's I don't know how to invest, and I owe you that and a great deal more. And errors. one thing more I have to say- when you do come to bank with me, it shall be on condition you give yourself a fair chance, and don't spoil this new voyage of yours by starving the stores. For Miss Winter's sake you must act liberally by me. But of course you will. You can't seriously mean to hurt my feelings. Come, Hugh, say it's a bargain, and offer me some breakfast; for let me tell you it is no light proof of friendship, turning out at this most unchristian hour." "On my word, Barrington, it's almost worth losing a fortune to find such friends," exclaimed Hugh, stretching out his hand. "I'm not quite so sure about that. At least, for my own part, I should rather make the discovery cheaper," returned He had found but little difficulty in wooing Lucy to an early wedding-day. Never had courtship been more flattering, for each word and act of her lover's told her he left his fate and happiness in her hands. She had turned the current of his life, and stirred his nature to its depths. He had proved the strength of their sympathies, by submitting his convictions to her influences, and deliberately laying his most cherished project at her feet. Of course when Hugh decided to sacrifice wealth and ambition, Lucy went into scarcely smothered transports over their narrow means and doubtful future. The haze that hung over their destinies was the choicest sweet in the cup that Providence was filling to the brim. The wedding had been as private as - might be. The Childersleighs, the Hester-susceptibilities. He could regard them as combes, McAlpine, and Barrington, -the nothing but an alms bestowed on the destiguests. The sombre dress and subdued tute. demeanour of those who stood nearest to For Mr. and Mrs. Childersleigh proposed the bride were not inappropriate to the crowning of a love whose course bad flowed by shoals and shocks, -the better omen, as Hugh whispered to his bride, that the broken waters would run smooth at last. Worn in mind and body, Sir Basil was there to give the bride away. The quivering lip and starting tear showed how keenly he felt the parting. As Lucy's eyes filled in sympathy, she would have reproached herself for her desertion, but when she looked on her husband, she remembered the claims he had bought so dearly. Sir Basil would have made handsome provision for one he had come to cherish as a daughter, but Hugh would hear nothing of it. He was hopeful of a speedy competency, and, in the passion of his independence, shrunk from laying himself or his wife under unnecessary obligations. Perhaps he might have thought it graceful to admit Sir Basil's paternal claims, and let him act in the matter as he pleased. But he had reason to know that "Childersleighs" had felt the panic; and Purkiss, who had been beggared by it, so far as his private means went, took care to put his father's proposals in so pleasant a light, that acceptance became out of the question. It was but too easy to parry them, for Sir Basil's mind had been weakened past insistance on anything. At Maude's instigation, he was content to vent bis affection characteristically in a long series of cheques; and Mrs. Childersleigh's trousseau was much better suited to ber position as her position might have been, than as it was. Lord Hestercombe's first movement had been indignation at the crowning folly which had sealed the surrender of Childersleigh by marriage with a beggar, when an heiress had become indispensable. But second thoughts, and the practical logic of Rushbrook, had brought his lordship to regard his nephew's conduct from a more chivalrous point of view. He dared not counsel the man who had given up all to honour to break his plighted word, because it was passed to a penniless orphan. That position once taken up, he behaved with cordiality and delicacy, and claimed the right of a near relative to act with the magnificence of a grand seigneur. His daughter volunteered to be twin-bridesmaid with Maude. The jewels presented by himself and the countess were so priceless, so sparklingly unsuited to the wife of an emigrant, that they ruffled Hugh's over-sensitive to reconstruct their fortunes in Queensland. The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer Tanjore was to sail from Southampton on September 28th — as it chanced, the very morrow of the day appointed for the opening of THE WILL. Before they sailed," if they cared to hear it, they would learn the destiny of the money that had been Hugh's first love and Lucy's rival. Hugh had been thoroughly off with that old love before taking up with the new one. With the property he had lately called his own, he had shifted his business cares on to the shoulders of the liquidators of the Crédit Foncier. Anticipating abdication, he had made over to Mr. Rivington the house in Harley Street. He had carried his bride to honeymoon it in one of those old-fashioned hostelries that still shelter in wooded nooks by the banks of the Thames, peaceful and rural still, in spite of excursionists by rail, and the rowing rowdyism of the river. An hostelry with deep thatched eaves, quaint casements, and eccentric gables, closeclipped hedges, and short-shaven lawns ablaze with scarlet geraniums. Thence he made those dashes to the City in search of an emigrant's paraphernalia, that sent him back with redoubled zest to their Arcadia, to their strolls through furze and heather, and their saunters in fragrant woodlands; to the lazy paddling up long reaches of the river, and the floating back in a golden baze of love and dreams. One thing weighed upon him, and that was the inevitable farewell to Childersleigh. There the past seemed to have buried its dead out of sight, and he shrank from wakening slumbering memory with her thousand stings. But there are bitter duties that are pleasures in their way, and leave-takings it would be sacrilegious to neglect; and one bright morning saw Mr. and Mrs. Childersleigh on the garden-terrace by the old yew hedge. On just such a morning by that very path be had approached his home the memorable day of the funeral. Then, for the first time, he had looked on his place as really his own, now it was gone from him for ever; all the interest he reserved in it was vain regrets and melancholy associations. The house, with its down-drawn blinds, seemed in mourning now as then, and its cheerless face was reflecting the depression on its late master's. The unlucky Marxby had passed with the multitude into the insolvent court. Pressed by shareholders eager to escape a call, the liquidators had forced the sale, and ! Childersleigh had been knocked down to a West End solicitor at the very moderate upset price-given him in a gift, that gentleman triumphantly observed, when the bargain was fairly closed. In the fulness of his self-gratulation he had made an offhand offer to take furniture, fittings, &c., at a reasonable valuation, an offer promptly closed with for reasons akin to those that had sacrificed the place. Her eyes timidly following her husband's, guiltily avoiding them when they turned her way, Lucy's heart was throbbing in painful sympathy with his. The crowding sensations that were grief to him were anguish to her. While all her being seemed unnaturally absorbed in his, for the first time since their marriage he moved utterly unconscious of her presence, and to the jealousy of her love the first shadow of a cloud seemed settling between them. Her self-reproach told her that in Childersleigh he might well feel resentfully to her, and for the moment she would have given the world to have recalled the past and influenced him different Patterson, warned beforehand, was in waiting to do the dismal honours, with a heart in sad harmony with the occasion, and a visage more melancholy than Childersleigh's own. The old man had no love-ly. What right had she to set her childish dreams to comfort him in his sorrow, and although the new purchaser had assured him his services would not be dispensed with, the light of his life seemed to be going out in darkness. His garrulousness was hushed, and inclination as much as natural delicacy kept him in the background. A self-posted patrol, he hovered round his master in the distance, to see that no profane stranger intruded on the leave-taking. impulses in opposition to the counsels of his sagest friends. She rested her trembling fingers in mute appeal on his arm. As he turned at the touch her doubts vanished, but only to leave her more bitterly self-reproachful than before. "Forgive me, Hugh; but, indeed, I fancied I had guessed the sacrifices I longed to share with you." — or, worse still, dishonourable unconsciousness. And then," he said, with an unclouded smile as he took her in his arms, "you can't have everything in this world; and, heaven knows, although we leave Childersleigh behind, I carry with me more than my share of Paradise." "I swear to you, darling, much as I feel What a heaven earth would be could we them, I never regretted them less than now. always appreciate all we have as keenly as While I am tasting the bitters of your teachwe do when on the point of losing it. Chilings, I know that the sweets are all to come. dersleigh Park lay flooded in the mellow It might have been the other way, but what lights of late summer. The scent-laden then? Better go to honourable exile than breeze breathing from the flowers was stir- live on here in ceaseless remorsering the masses of foliage in waving lines of beauty; the shadows of golden boughs were dancing on the turf below to the drowsy hum of the bees. Everything animate and inanimate seemed so thoroughly at home in the enjoyment of its existence, from the sheep that grouped themselves lazily in the elm-shade to the jackdaws that clamoured among the fantastic stacks of chimneys. Hugh envied the very swallows that dipped in the rippling water. They were going abroad like him, but, unlike him, they at least would be there again the succeeding summer. It was a relief to take refuge from the laughing beauty without doors, in the black ball and long dark-panelled corridors where the sunlight filtered so dimly through stained window-panes or heavy blinds. But as his eyes accustomed themselves to the obscurity, they lighted at every turn on objects that riveted them with painful fascination. Not a table nor chair, but had its story to tell; claims of its own to put in for a parting pang. Remembering he looked his last on them all, in room after room, he stood lingering upon the threshold. When Mr. and Mrs. Childersleigh emerged on the gravel, Patterson was hurt and scandalized at their smiling faces. Hugh, in his awkward consciousness that cheerfulness must seem singularly out of place just then, humbly strove to deprecate the old man's indignation. He did not, indeed, enter precisely into detailed explanation. But Patterson, under his impenetrable rind, had the shrewdness and some of the susceptibility of his nation; and, looking at the flush on the downcast face of the bride, something like the bleak smile of a November sun flickered over his own sorrowful features. "Deed but she's bonny," he muttered, sotto voce, as if the words had been inspired by conscience rather than sentiment. "Gin there were mair lassies like her there would maybe be mair fules than Mr. Hugh.” CHAPTER XXXIX. "RADLEY'S." 66 the former, "to look at you and Mrs. Childersleigh now, one would say you were pruning your feathers for the flight home again.' "So we shall, Hugh, but in the meantime when I go north next week, there will seem to be less sunshine at Baragoil." "Where you have little enough to spare, as Mrs. Childersleigh knows," remarked Barrington, striving to be cheerful. “As for coming to see you, Hugh, I never made a promise I meant more religiously to keep. I think I shall charter a steamer for the cruise to the antipodes. The Rushbrooks would join us, I know, but Lady Rushbrook to be won't leave Sir Basil. change of scene and sea air would set the old man on his legs again, and I verily believe we shall see the Killoden circie reunited in Queensland." I tell her THERE are hotels where the same rooftree covers the house of mourning and the "Well, so we are, McAlpine. At least house of mirth; where, as in the scene in we must be gone before we can come back, Rigoletto, a thin partition separates the and, moreover, after tossing about among corpse from the carnival; where sighs an- uncertainties, one is much inclined to find a swer to laughter, and the dirge blends with home in the first firm land you set your foot the joyous refrain. The old Falcon" at on. But you need not remind us of the Gravesend was one of them, with the vener-friends we leave behind us; be sure we able panes in its bow-windows scribbled shall remember and regret them soon enough over with memorial names panes through and often enough. And I don't forget your which so many streaming eyes have watched promise and Barrington's to come and look the sea-bound Indiamen melting into the us up whenever we may have a roof to offer river fogs. Radley's" at Southampton is you, and the sooner the bitterness of parting another; and houses, perhaps, in the course is over the sooner we shall have our merry of the year as many aching hearts as any meeting." city poor-house or hospital. In proportion even to its ample accommodations, it contained a most disproportionate amount of sorrow the night before the Tanjore was to sail for Alexandria. There were Rachels being reft of their children, who utterly refused to be comforted, and lifted up their voices till the passages echoed to their wails. There were children being orphaned, and fathers leaving all they cared for behind them, going to boil the family pot in sad solitude in the scorching tropics. Lucy Childersleigh, as she met upon the stairs close-veiled figures clinging convulsively to the arms of sad-eyed men, and pale-faced mothers looking wistfully after laughing| children they were seeing the last of for years if not for ever, became very melancholy, with a grateful sense of subdued contentment. As for Hugh, with the greater selfishness and callousness of men, he could hardly keep down that rising buoyancy of spirits which made Lucy so ready with her smiles when she felt tears would have been more in place. He had all but broken with the painful past, and was emerging at length from the night of uncertainty he had so long been groping in. Already he breathed the free air of the ocean, and raised his eyes towards the limitless horizon that stretched before them. To see them doing the honours at their late dinner when the meal was drawing to a close, you would never have taken them for a couple of poverty-stricken adventurers, whose bark was on the shore and getting up her steam. McAlpine and Barrington, who had come to comfort and see the last of their friends, began to think they might quite as well have stayed in London. Like Patterson, indeed, they felt rather aggrieved at the serenity with which the others bore up against the coming sep aration. "I tell you what it is, Hugh," grumbled Never complete again," murmured Lucy, while a deep shadow fell on her husband's features. Barrington bit his lip, and cursed his stupidity, and blundered on with good-natured presence of mind "No, Purkiss, I fear, will not be there, but that we must bear as we best can. He keeps his own secrets, and Sir Basil never meddles with business now-a-days, but by all accounts he will find it hard work to pull things round at Childersleighs'." I'm greatly afraid the destination of Miss Childersleigh's money is likely to concern him as little as us. Poor Purkiss! I don't know any one who would have valued it more, but the language of her will and the amount of his legacy do not make me very hopeful for him." "Queer, you should be talking it over this way, Hugh," remarked McAlpine, “as if you, of all men, had no concern in the matter." "That is precisely how it is. The one thing I am sure of is, that none of it comes to me. Any one else may hope, even Lucy there." Her So she may, to be sure," murmured her husband's arms, symbolically vesting McAlpine, meditatingly. "And why should him with all her newly-acquired goods and not the old lady have put her in? She had chattels; checked it; looked the proposed adopted her, as you all thought. She saw far transfer, and hurried from the room. more of her than any one else." husband threw himself back in a chair. It was not the weight of the money he succumbed to; what stunned him was this sudden upset of all his carefully elaborated plans. 66 An excellent reason why she should not," returned Hugh, laughingly. Look at the opportunities she gave herself of appreciating me, and see what has come of them. Besides, Mr. Hooker had his finger in that pie of that I am very certain." "Very likely-little doubt of that," assented McAlpine, relapsing into silence and profound reflection, as if he had found the end of a clue in his fingers, and was setting himself to disentangle it. "A rich man in spite of yourself, although you made such an undeniable pauper," observed Rushbrook, "and very hard it is upon you, I must say. Fortune never will give you a chance." You've taken your wife for better for worse, you see," chimed in McAlpine. "What, tea already!" ejaculated Hugh," You can't well help yourself; and, after consulting his watch as the door was thrown all, you must remember she didn't mean it, so you had better go and make it up with her." open. "Lord Rushbrook - Mr. Rivington," announced the waiter, bending himself double, with the handle in his hand. "By Jove, I said so!" exclaimed McAlpine. He had only thought it. Hugh himself turned slightly pale, and although he did stand up, forgot all about welcoming the arrivals, an omission which his wife, in blushing embarrassment, set herself to repair. "Thank you, Mrs. Childersleigh, as Hugh has nothing to say for himself; but the truth is, as Rivington found himself obliged to see you, on some pressing business, before you sailed, I thought I might as well have another look at you too." Rushbrook, who seemed unusually excited, paused, and then burst out, "Oh, nonsense, it's no use beating about the bush joy never burts - Hugh half guesses it, and McAlpine knows it all. Besides, you are both at one in your contempt for riches, as in most other things, and here I am pushing myself forward where I have no business whatever, and taking the words out of Rivington's mouth." Well," said Mr. Rivington, "I won't deny myself the satisfaction of making an announcement, which has given me no ordinary pleasure, although, as Lord Rushbrook says, I see you more than half anticipate it. I have to congratulate Mr. Childersleigh then in being even more fortunate than he believed himself, in having married a lady nearly as richly dowered with worldly wealth as with all other gifts." "You mean to say .P" and that scamp of a son of his were in the secret all along, and at the bottom of the whole swindle. They would have done anything in the world for the orphan, assured beforehand that their charity would have its reward in this life." "But why should Hemprigge have helped Hugh towards winning the money he meant for himself?" "He was too clever by half, and did not give Hugh credit for being half so clever, I fancy," suggested Rushbrook. "He grasped at too much, and hoped Hugh might help him to one fortune while he won another in spite of him. To do him justice, he soon found out his mistake, and did his best to retrieve it. What proves Hooker knew all about it, is his keeping himself out of the way to-day; but you ought to have seen Purkiss Childersleigh." "Why? I am sure he can never accuse Miss Childersleigh of not doing her best to prepare him against disappointment." 66 So one would have imagined, but drowning men catch at straws, and I fear "That Mrs. Childersleigh inherits every--I greatly fear the partners of Chilthing-some 160,000l. in round figures dersleigh' are floundering in very deep the house in Harley Street, furniture, plate, water. Poor Sir Basil doesn't trouble his and family jewels." head much about it, but Purkiss, who was Lucy made a movement, as if then and always thin, is shrivelling visibly into there she would have thrown herself into thread-paper. I watched him when Riving |