governess-and for one moment the contrast of their destinies struck poor Lucy painfully.

"What but toil, anxiety, humiliation, and disappointment have I to expect ?" she said to herself. "What but ease, pleasure, comfort, and enjoyment await her?" but the next moment Lucy was ashamed of a feeling of envy and discontent, which her high and Christian principles condemned as sinful. "What," she said to herself," are all poor Augusta's blessings compared to the love of such a mother as mine? What comfort can she find in the caresses of a mother who only loves her when others praise and adore her, and who, if she is slighted by the world, will add to her distress by bitterness and reproach? Then, too, Augusta is conscious of the inordinate expectations and ambitious hopes her mother centres in her. She has herself imbibed a good deal of the restless wish to rise and to shine; this feeling embitters the transient pleasures of girlhood, and if, as is not impossible, her debut

next spring should be a failure, and no peer should lay a coronet at her feet, or some more brilliant or assuming beauties eclipse her, she will have to bear not only her own disappointment, but her mother's too! And maternal disappointment, in such a heart as Lady Hamilton Treherne's, is a very bitter, insulting, unamiable feeling, indeed. On the whole, I would rather be Lucy Blair, seeking to maintain my loving and beloved mother, than Augusta Hamilton Treherne, arrayed for a Court ball, and the object of countless absurd hopes, almost sure to end in disappointment."

CHAPTER II.

MR. GRINLAY SNARL AGAIN.

LUCY had scarcely taken off her bonnet, and arranged the tea-table a little, when Mr. Grinlay Snarl arrived, followed by a lad carrying a game pie of no ordinary dimensions. He seemed in high good-humour, and while the tea was being made, rocked himself in the American chair to his heart's content. After tea, he very authoritatively desired Lucy to read her MS., and Lucy, with an involuntary smile at his manner, and with the becoming

blushes of a literary débutante, proceeded as

follows:

"One bright summer morning, I was travelling by a branch train from Y- to Oxford: the carriage I was in (a first-class one) was quite full-so, indeed, were all the carriages, first, second, and third classes. It was glorious weather, and travelling is so pleasant in fine weather! When we were fairly off-farewells said-promises of writing given -hands waved while eyes could see them, and sighs lost in the screech of the 'fire king' when the cool gloom of the arched station was left behind, and the bright sunshine and fresh air gushed in, I began to look about me, and to speculate a little on the position in life, tempers, and characters of those-perfect strangers half-an-hour agoand now more closely located with me than any dear friend would ever be after a long intimacy, in other scenes. Opposite to me was a young man, apparently military, though

not in regimentals; of gentlemanly, interesting appearance—not ill, at least not haggard, sunken-eyed, hollow cheeked, or emaciated, but ghastly pale, with a quivering lip, a trembling hand, and a nervous, anxious manner. A beautiful girl, about eighteen, and a stout, fine, elegant woman-a middle-aged blonde, fat, fair, and fifty her mother, seemed to be of his party. The girl, very tall, dark, black-haired, with large, lustrous eyes, and Grecian features, was pale and trembling as himself; and they frequently interchanged looks of sympathy, distress, and impatience. The mamma was cat-like in her gentleness, and quite composed. She read her Monday Review' with earnest attention, now smiling, now pensive, occasionally smelt at her flacon, and took a bon-bon from her bonbonnière; her dress was scrupulously neat, rich, nice, choice, and appropriate; and it was evident that, whatever the cause of the wretchedness and restless anxiety legible in her