Miriam sat; but little was gained from the hasty scrutiny, for the room was ill-lighted, and she was screened by Mr. Mordaunt's great arm-chair.

For a moment, Miriam's heart leaped with the strange, wild fancy that this meeting had been arranged, and though the shock was cruel in its suddenness, all might be forgotten in the after joy. But when the lights ceased to dance before her eyes, and she could again hear and see, Mrs. Mordaunt's nervous greeting convinced her of the folly of her first thought, and with the conviction came the shrinking dread of meeting Leonard before the curious eyes surrounding her. That he had not yet discovered her retreat was evident from a hurried glance at his grave and composed countenance. She took in all in that glance; the subdued manner, the greater earnestness of expression, even the alteration in his dress, which was in better taste than formerly, because it was less soigné.

'John only came in half an hour ago, and told us you were coming,' said Mrs. Mordaunt.

'Yes; if you required a longer notice, it was his doing, not mine. I had intended to dine at the Club,' said Leonard, and then turned from his aunt to Uncle Ralph, who, in his agitation, was restless enough to attract the attention of the whole room.

Are you here alone?' he asked, with a quick, keen glance. Uncle Ralph looked imploringly at Mrs. Mordaunt, and she at her husband, who made the required explanation in his most prosaic manner. 'No; the room is so dark that I believe you have not discovered Miriam, who came to town rather unexpectedly this afternoon.'

As he had predicted, no scene followed the announcement. Leonard stepped forward, and their hands met and parted, on his side with a few inarticulate words, on hers in absolute silence. Then dinner was announced, and Mrs. Mordaunt, disregarding the duty of marshalling her company, took Leonard's arm and led him off. In some order or another the others followed, acting on the instinct that it was kindest towards Miriam. All but Roger; he still lingered, and when she neither moved nor spoke, he said, with the tenderness so strangely allied with his rough nature, 'I don't want you to go down, Miriam, and yet I cannot bear to leave you alone.'

I would rather be alone,' said Miriam. 'May I send Ailie to you?'

'No, oh no; they must not fancy I am ill. Say that I only thought it best to go home to Clapham. I will go and get ready.' And she rose as she spoke, but was constrained to sit down again, as a shiver ran through her frame.

Roger, feeling very miserable and perfectly useless, did not think it expedient to indulge his inclination to remain, so he went downstairs, railing at himself by the way, as the author of the unlucky scheme which had thrown Miriam and Leonard so unexpectedly together. He seized on the place left vacant beside Ailie, and said, in an under-tone, She will not come down, and I had no right to stay. But I don't think she ought to be alone.'

Leonard sat at the further end of the table, and his sense of hearing must have been unnaturally sharpened, for he rose at the same time as Ailie, undeterred by his aunt's beseeching glance. Before,

however, either could leave the room, Miriam made her appearance; in that brief interval, self-control was regained, and she was perfectly composed, and scarcely paler than usual, as she took the place left for her between Mr. Merton and Patty, on the same side of the table as Leonard, and divided from him by a space which forbade even a mute intercourse.

The conversation of the most formal and illassorted party was never so constrained as that of this family-gathering, to which the younger Mordaunts were wont to look forward from one Christmas to another. The necessity, always so powerful, of keeping up appearances before the servants, impelled one or other to jerk out a topic at intervals, and even Miriam exerted herself to reply to some well-meant remark of Mr. Merton's. Her faint and tremulous tones made Leonard start and lean forward, and then throw himself back with a gesture of impatience, as Uncle Ralph, one of the objects intervening between him and Miriam, turned his anxious face from one to the other, in a way which effectually, though unintentionally, intercepted the view of both.

Mrs. Mordaunt rose to return to the drawingroom almost as soon as dessert was put on the table, and Leonard anticipated Roger's more tardy movements, and was the first to reach and hold open the door. But he gained little by his promptness, for Miriam passed out with the others without a word or glance; a faint whisper of her name floated by, and she did not look up to see whose lips formed the sound.

You will take me upstairs,' she said to Ailie,

A

who at once led the way to the schoolroom. small bright fire was burning, and Miriam cowered down before it.

'I am only chilly,' she said, shivering.

'Lie down on the sofa, and I will fetch a shawl to cover you,' said Ailie.

'No. I don't know why I came in here. My bonnet is in Mrs. Mordaunt's room, and I will get ready while you go down and ask whether a servant can call a cab and go with me now.'

'It is hard that you should be driven out in this way,' replied Ailie.

'It is not so hard as staying to meet him again. And yet I am at least I shall be-happier for what I know to-night.'

'Happier?' said Ailie doubtfully.

It

'Yes. I thought he had given me up, but now I feel that it is not so ; and I am selfish enough to rejoice in his love, although I never, never can be his.' 'Never is a wide word, Miriam,' said Ailie. was shocking how often that staid governess, of an age to know better, was led away by the instinct of romance.

'I am more cut off from him than before,' said Miriam, 'now that I am in a certain sense independent, and even able to support George. It would be dishonourable towards Uncle Ralph to retract the promise made when I could not help myself.'

Ailie felt that the noble impulse would only be sullied by human praise, and she kissed Miriam's cold forehead, and said no more. She was on her way back to Clapham before the gentlemen had left the dining-room.

226

L

CHAPTER XXIII.

Brama assai, poco spera, nulla chiede.

TASSO.

He, full of bashfulness and truth,

Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.

FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION.

EONARD detained Mr. Cornwall when the other

gentlemen went upstairs, and the interview must have been a stormy one, for when, after the lapse of half an hour, Uncle Ralph entered the drawingroom alone, it was somewhat with the air of a beaten hound. With his usual dexterity, he contrived to detach Susan from her lover; and he closed the folding doors, when they retreated into the back room, as a security against intrusion.

'Well,' he said, 'so Miriam is gone. She is more tractable than Leonard, who has been raving all this while against the cruelty of her relations, meaning me. I am sure I don't wish to deprive him of the satisfaction of thinking me an unnatural uncle, only if it all comes right in the end, as it must when they are so much in love with each other, perhaps he will not judge so hardly of me.'

'If it all comes right.' How was it that the issue which appeared right to Mr. Cornwall, could inflict on Susan a grievous and irretrievable wrong? Yet