thinness and pallor betrayed the delicacy which awakens a painful interest rather than admiration. The two other sisters, Patty and Minny, do not merit a detailed description; they were fresh-coloured, bright-looking girls, like each other, and occasionally flattered by the remark that they were growing like Susan. They desired nothing better, for Susan was perfection in their eyes.

'The carriage will be at the door before you are ready, Susan,' said Miss Alison.

'No; happily it has gone to be mended, so I escape that infliction. Papa and Mamma mean to take a conjugal walk, and I shall spend my afternoon in the Square with you, Ailie. You need not put on that considering face, and tell me that you ought to go to Lonsdale's after some new music. I will go nowhere but to the summer-house, and I shall look hard at the lilac-bushes, and try to forget that there are such things as streets and carriages.'

'In three weeks we shall be at home, that is one comfc: t,' observed Patty.

'A doubtful comfort,' rejoined Susan, 'for Uncle Ralph was the best part of going home, and now he is a lost man.'

Miss Alison shook her head reprovingly: 'You are working yourself into a perverse temper about Mr. Cornwall, Susan, and I warn you, that if we spend the afternoon together, I shall visit you with a lecture on toleration.'

'Very well,' said Susan, 'the sooner you begin the better. Do rebuke those young people for dawdling, when they ought to put their books away.'

'We have all done but Lily; those are her books,' said Minny.

'Were you waiting for me?' said Lilias, who was netting with the air of languor which can be infused into the most energetic occupation: 'I am not going out. I am tired, and Mamma said that I might stay at home if I pleased.'

I think the fresh air would do you good,' said Miss Alison.

Lilias looked up to the window, and replied that it was an east wind.

"That weathercock!' exclaimed Susan: 'I must make a voyage of discovery into the mews, to find the owner of the vane, and I will give him half-acrown to pull it down. You would be much better if you did not know from what quarter the wind

blows.'

'I should know quite well without the vane,' said Lilias; I can tell whether it is an east wind before I get up in the morning.'

That must be fancy,' said Susan; 'do you not think so, Ailie ?'

'Not entirely,' said Miss Alison, in a tone which did not encourage the discussion. The party presently dispersed to prepare for their walk, and Lilias was left alone.

The reply rankled in her mind, and quite destroyed the anticipated enjoyment of a silent and solitary afternoon. It was natural for Susan, rejoicing in the consciousness of strength and vigour, to make little allowance for ill-health, but Miss Alison also implied that she thought her fanciful, and Lilias resented the suspicion. Those two

words 'not entirely' were cause sufficient for a fit of crying, which made her eyes heavy and her head ache, and when the schoolroom party returned, her appearance justified Miss Alison in her belief that a breath, even of east wind, would have been less hurtful.

'It was quite hot in the summer-house,' said Minny, untying and flinging down her bonnet with a careless gesture, which called forth the admonition of her governess. She picked it up again with a hasty apology, but the bonnet gained little by the motion, as she continued to dangle it by the strings. Oh, Ailie, I forgot. But what was I going to say when you interrupted me? I think, only that summer has really come, and I hope it will not be gone before we get home. Hot weather is quite wasted in London.'

6

'We need not grudge it to the poor beings,' said Patty magnanimously. If they did not see the sun's face now and then, they might forget his existence. And besides, I want a fine day for Susan's breakfast at Fulham tomorrow. Susan has been so amusing, Lily, telling us about her ball last night. I wish that you had been there.'

'The sun must have been very glaring and disagreeable,' said Lilias.

No; we sat in the shade of the lilac-bushes, and Susan made acquaintance with that pretty fair-haired boy we saw the other day. He came to her at once, though he was so shy with us, and she strung lilac chains for him. Susan can do anything with children.'

'Susan is irresistible,' said Miss Alison, but

we have not time to talk over her perfections now. Go and take off your things and come back to practise; and if your head aches, Lily, you had better go down to the drawing-room, to be out of the way of our noise.'

After nourishing up a sense of ill-usage, Lilias was conscious that she did not deserve this indulgence, and she was unwilling to avail herself of it. She adjusted her tumbled collar, and disposed her hair round her face, so as to look less deplorable, saying that her head was better; but it was not so easy to efface the dark lines below her eyes, or to bring the colour to her cheeks.

"You had better go downstairs,' repeated Ailie; 'there is no one in the drawing-room, and if you keep quiet now, you may be fit for Italian reading after tea.'

The exertion of walking across the room made Lily's temples throb, so she acquiesced, and crept away to nestle into a corner of her mother's sofa.

The furniture resembled that of the schoolroom in its well-worn aspect. Mrs. Mordaunt complained that her girls, Lilias perhaps excepted, had been more destructive than the same number of sons could have proved; and certainly there were few remains of the ornaments and bijouterie of her bridal days. The chintz was well washed, the carpets and damask hangings were faded, and Mr. Mordaunt was too much straitened by the expenses of his daughters' education to find it convenient to renew their freshness. However, the young people were convinced that no drawing-room surpassed their own in its air of comfort and good-taste, and

Lilias thought her present position as luxurious as any one need desire.

She was not long alone, for a quick doubleknock was followed by the entrance of her cousin, Leonard Wray. He was a young barrister, who had just eaten his terms, and spent more of his leisure hours at his uncle's house in Charles Street than in his chambers, or even than at the Club. He glanced round the room without perceiving Lilias, but she called his attention to the fact of her presence just as he had taken up the paper. 'Oh, Leonard!'

You here?' he said, stooping to kiss the girl's forehead, since he was in no haste to forego the privilege of cousinhood, which the elder sisters had outgrown. 'What are you doing here all alone? You look like a limp Lily, as usual.'

'I am only resting.'

'Only resting? And how have you reaped the right to rest, I wonder?'

'It is so silly to alliterate!' said Lilias; and her cousin was amused by her pettish tone.

'I love my love with an L. Can you find nothing civil to say to me?'

'You have said enough for yourself, for Leonard begins with an L as well as Lilias, and I know that you think of yourself first.'

'Who does not ?' rejoined Leonard.

'Not Papa, I am sure. He is always working for other people.'

'Yes; because he has other people to work for. No doubt I shall be equally open-hearted when I am the father of a family, but meanwhile I find it