solation for the heart's troubles is in the mind's

triumphs.

It was a day of incessant rain, and to any but the active mind, would have been one of unbearable ennui. But Mrs. Blair was busy with both her webs, and Lucy became intensely interested in, and engrossed by, her story. In order that she might not be disturbed, Mrs. Blair had ordered dinner late, and had quietly brought a glass of wine and some biscuits and placed them by her side. Lucy wrote on, on, on, till at six o'clock Dinah came in to lay the cloth.

And their simple dinner being ready to be put upon the table, Lucy, pale with thought and mental labour, intensely tired in body and mind (as one always is after hours of thought and mental concentration)-slightly bewildered too, and scarcely able to come back at a moment's notice from romance to reality-pushed her hair back from her fine intellectual forehead, and rushed into the inner room to bathe

her face and hands, smooth her tresses, and slip on another dress out of compliment to her mother.

Poor girl! she enjoyed that modest little repast after the labour of the day; and while her mother in the arm-chair by the fire took a nap, Lucy, as the rain had ceased, put on her bonnet and cloak, and slipped down stairs, let herself quietly out, and hastened to the post office some few doors off, in the hope that already some answers might have been sent to her advertisement.

She was not disappointed-there were already three letters.

Nor was this to be wondered at, for though governesses of all descriptions fill columns with their advertisements, few could, like Lucy,

undertake to finish her pupils in music and singing, and in Italian, French and German, acquired during a long residence in France, Italy, and Germany.

Lucy put the letters into her pocket, and hurried back. As she stood for a minute wiping her wet shoes before knocking at the door, she heard Dinah in the area cry out to a young man who cleaned the knives, boots and plate, “I say, Ben, look out and see if you spies Miss Blair's young man a-coming; it's just about his time, and they'll want tea directly he comes."

"I thinks I sees 'un," said Ben; "my eye, what a Guy he be! a more or'nary elderly looking young man I never zeed; I wonder such a nice young lady likes 'un."

"Likes 'un, she love the very ground he tread on," said Dinah.

"Lauk, there's no accounting for tastes. Then you're sartain shure he is her young man."

"As sure as that you're mine," said Dinah.

Lucy felt her cheeks tingle, and an inexpressible sense of shame and annoyance sent the tears to her eyes, but glancing towards the Strand, she saw the gaunt form of Grinlay Snarl approaching with rapid strides, and hastily knocking at the door, Lucy rushed up stairs and hurried into her bed-room.

She had scarcely time to light a taper and read her three letters before she heard Grinlay Snarl's knock at the door, and soon his heavy foot was on the stair, and his gruff salutation was answered by her mother's gentle and conciliating accents, while the next moment she heard him say, "I want to see Miss Lucy;" and her mother coming to fetch her, Lucy thrust her letters into her pocket and repaired to the sitting-room.

CHAPTER IV.

A BORE.

"I've got all my work done, and here I am at your service, Miss Lucy, and ready to hear what you've written of your new tale, when we've had some tea, and a slice of this cold pheasant," he said, taking one wrapped up in a sheet of the Monday Review' from his pocket.

"Lucy has been writing all day long," said Mrs. Blair," and has, I should think, half finished the tale, and I have quite completed the comforter I have been making for you."