the hope of winning her husband to love her more entirely as she wished: and then came back her father's reproaches-had she really power to judge herself rightly at

all ?

There was a tap at the door, and when she opened it she saw her father, pale, and much agitated.

"I don't know what to do," he said, in a low voice. "Hush! don't speak, or you may make her worse. She keeps on fainting; and I don't know really what to do. Dennis is very unwell, so I can't send for Mrs. Fagg; and Elizabeth does not like me in her room, I know she does not."

"Let me go," said Nuna, eagerly. "You!" He looked at her, and shook his head. "I don't want to vex you, my dear, but I really think you would do more harm than good. Nursing requires such unwearied attention and carefulness." "Yes, I know--I mean, I don't wonder at your distrust, dear, dear papa." She had got his hand in hers, and she kissed it with a fervor that startled him. "You have made me begin to see, to-night, how little I have lived for others. Won't you give me this chance of beginning fresh? Let me only try to do something really to make you happy. If nursing and care can bring Elizabeth back to you, then indeed I will try to save her.

As she spoke, her words grew calmer and sweeter; even her father saw that their first impetuosity had been caused more by the effort at uttering them than because she was unreal. She stood with clapsed hands; her eyes liquid with intense but restrained feeling, gazing into her father's face.

He struggled a few moments, and then nature rose up against prejudice, and all the petty hindrances that so often sever loving hearts.

He bent his head to Nuna's; he meant to kiss her forehead; but with her clinging arms round his neck, the poor lonely inan's soul found voice at last.

flounces were clear of the dirty gate. "I had made up my mind not to come to Bellamount Terrace till just before we go away, and yet here I am on this meddy day, too, and all because that foolish doll of a woman chose to interfere betweet. me and my father. I shan't forget her manner when she went away. I don't think I've felt so out of temper for months; and I don't forgive people who put me out of temper; it wrinkles my forehead and heats my complexion." Patty's be witching smile came here; it was too amusing to think that any falling off could come to her beauty.

Her smile seemed to irritate Roger. He had opened the door noiselessly, and any one less quick of observation would have been taken by surprise; but, as a girl, Patty's motto had been "never to be caught napping," and her observing powers had not grown dulled by luxury.

Roger frowned; and his mouth was so firmly shut, that a series of hard semicircles showed at each corner of it.

"How are you?" said Patty. She made no effort to kiss him; she shook hands instead. "I am afraid you have been ill again."

"Are you?" He led the way into the parlor. "I've been expecting you, Mad am Downes."

Patty did not seat herself. She walked up to the little picture on the mantel-she and looked first at it, then at herself in the misty looking-glass.

Roger watched her; and his anger suddenly burst bounds.

"You're a vain hussy, that you are, and always were. If your husband's foc enough to stand it, well and good. I wis him joy; he'd do well to remember that it's the vain woman as brings shame and disgrace to a husband's home far more than the froward or the sour ones."

Patty had flushed angrily at his words. but their stern sound frightened het.shocked the soft pleasure-seeking soul by the glimpse of broad daylight it seemed to let in. Roger checked himself; he seldom uttered long sentences, and fel half ashamed of having, as he thought "jawed like any woman:" but he has more to say yet that he meant Patty listen to.

"Is this what you sent for me to hear?” she said, with the old defiant movement of her head.

Patty gave a little shudder of disgusthe spoke so broadly. Roger saw it.

"Ay ay, I know all about it; you'd give your right hand, Madam Downes, if ye could put a wide sea atwixt us; an' I don't blame ye, not I."

"Father, how can you?" she began, but he interrupted her.

"Now you just listen, here." He pointed his bony forefinger towards her, a finger which seemed to have more knuckles than of right belonged to it. "So long as you keep straight, I'm content to let ye bide; but don't you go stirring up unhappiness atwixt man and wife, or I'm down on ye. Maybe I know more than you think for, and if Whitmore's fool enough to fret his wife's heart for the likes of you, why"—he scowled at her as he paused for breath-"it's just this: if you don't shut your doors agin him, you won't shut 'em agin me neither. I'll see this smart husband of yourn, and tell him more about you than you mean him to know."

He stopped; but he bent his eyes on her. It seemed as if he expected her to spring at him, or fly off into vehement anger. He had not, in any way, realized the steady hold which daily practice had given Patty over any show of feeling.

She stood a minute, with downcast eyes, choosing her line of conduct. All she cared to do just then was to pacify Roger; and the best way seemed to follow out the lead her feelings had taken at his words.

She pulled out her pocket-handkerchief and wiped her eyes: there were really some tears there; smarting, vexed drops that seemed to sting with sudden pain.

"I know I've not been always what I ought towards you, father; but I thought you didn't care, as some do, for outside show." A little sob here. "I thought, so long as you had the substance, I was of too little consequence to you for you to heed my goings and comings as some might;" then with a sudden change of voice, "I've doubled your allowance," she said reproachfully. "I should have thought that more to your taste than any make-up of dutifulness; and, I must say, it's hard you should listen to that woman against your own child."

Roger's face cleared; his mouth relaxed till his lips parted in surprise, and then

eyes.

"Thank you," he said; "tho' as I've told you before now, by rights, it ud been me as should have given the allowance; not you, Patty. You're wrong about Miss Nuna, she told no tales agin you; but if you have done as you say about the money"-he said each word deliberately, while he looked at her keenly-"why, I say again, thank you.”

Patty looked away; as yet she had not made the promised alteration. "But I mean to do it," she thought, "and that's all the same." She went to the mantelpiece and took up the little picture. "You don't mind letting me have this? I'll give it back some day. I want to get it copied."

"Take it." Roger was thinking whether he had said enough in the way of warning. At another time he might have suspected Patty's motive for removing the only link which could prove her connection with Bellamount Terrace; but he was far more intent on the remembrance of Nuna's sorrowful face than on his beautiful daughter.

"You'll not forget what I said awhile ago." Patty was putting the picture in her pocket; he could not see the frown his words called up.

"Mind you, Miss Nuna made no complaint; and don't go setting yourself agin her; but it stands to reason it ain't happy for a wife to see her husband going after one as he fancied afore he saw her."

"You're mistaken there." Patty's eyes sparkled with triumph. "Mr. Whitmore saw Nuna Beaufort before ever he set eyes on me; and she knows it. Do you suppose I care about a poor artist like that? not I. If she chooses to be a jealous idiot, it's no fault of mine. Mr. Whitmore came to paint my picture; well, it's finished, and sent home; and I dare say he has got the money for painting it; and I don't suppose he and I are likely to meet again; but I do think it is very hard that you should judge your own daughter to be all wrong, and Nuna Beaufort to be all right;" and Patty swallowed a little indig. nant sob.

"Well, well; if it's as you say, it's well ended." Even Roger was touched. “But don't think me hard neither; as you brew so you bake; and you know you was always for getting all the menfolk to yourself and robbing others. You keep

your door shut agin Miss Nuna's gentleman, and I'll keep my own counsel."

Patty did not utter a word when she rejoined her companion at the railway station; and Patience had grown so accustomed to her moods that she was aware this was not one to be rashly broken in

on.

Passion with Patty was not lasting; but it never passed away without leaving the fruit of a settled purpose. She had rarely been so moved out of herself, as by this discovery of Roger's motive in summoning her to Bellamount Terrace.

The resentment roused by Nuna's lofty coldness had been, smouldering-not forgotten; and now, as Mrs. Downes realized that this girl, whom she had hated all her life, who had robbed her--this was Patty's view of the only man she ever could have loved, had been at the pains to stir up her own father against her, the old hatred flamed out again. Patty reminded herself that one of the first joys of her inheritance had been the consciousness that, one day, she would have power to humble Nuna Beaufort. "She shall be humbled, too. She has brought it on herself. I'll teach her the difference between us ;" and she lay back in the carriage, thinking.

Patty had not owned it to herself distinctly; her conscience had grown tough, but still she had a consciousness of deep mortification. Paul had not called once since the last sitting; and a faint blush tinged the beautiful face as she remembered her efforts, that day, to fascinate him. She did not enter personally into this question; but in summing up Nuna's offences her foolish jealousy headed the list. No doubt Mrs. Whitmore had made the poor man's life miserable when she found out he had been painting her portrait, and he kept away from Park lane just for the sake of peace. "He shall come, though," she said, even if I her to come with him."

66

ask

Mrs. Downes turned suddenly to Patience.

"Tell Newton to drive to St. John street; I want some alterations made to that picture; and I may as well return Mrs. Whitmore's visit."

Patience began a remonstrance; but the words died away, there was so determined a look in the blue eyes.

Mrs. Whitmore was not at home.

"Mrs. Whitmore's gone into the country for some days."

"Where to, ma'am?" The powdered giant touched his hat.

Patty sat thinking; a plan had been growing in her scheming brain. Lord Charles Seton had told her of his meeting with Paul Whitmore, and he had also expressed a wish to have the artist's companionship in an excursion he had planned for the coming autumn.

At the time, Mrs. Downes had paid little heed to the proposal. She had looked at Lord Charles's sketches, and praised them; and felt rather bored at having talk to him about anything except herself; but now this remembrance came back vividly. It was just the clue she wanted; she could amuse herself, and punish Nuna by the same stroke; and Mrs. Whitmore's absence from St. John street placed her completely at Patty's mercy.

"There is no prestige in being admired by Paul; but I like it: his appreciation of beauty is quite of another order to Lord Charles's; he shall come to Park Lane while she is away, and I'll take care she knows of his coming; and Paul shali go abroad with Lord Charles, too. Why should we not all go together?"

She ordered to be driven to Queen's Gate; and then she went on planning. It seemed to her that she must not trust Patience. It must have been from her companion that her father knew so much of her proceedings.

"Miss Coppock,"-Patty looked grave: she began to be aware that Patience su pected her smile,—"I must call on Mrs. Winchester, and I promised Mr. Downes I would drive out with him at six o'clock. I would not keep him waiting on any account, so you had better take a cab and go home with my message."

It would have been simpler to leave Patience in the carriage; but Patty's nature was incapable of simplicity, either in thought or action.

CHAPTER LVI.

COUSINLY.

MRS. WINCHESTER sat in state in her vast drawing-room, at the opposite end to that by which Patty came in.

Some people of timid nature and excitable nerves feel dismayed when they have to make these solitary pilgrimages to the point where the mistress of all the

state and splendor they traverse awaits them.

Even for her cousin's wife, Mrs. Winchester made no forward movement; but, as Patty approached, she rose from her lounging attitude, rustled out her ample skirt, and gave a little nod of welcome.

Mrs. Winchester was proud of her rooms. She considered decorations of walls and ceilings in any purely artistic fashion simple waste; her rooms ought to be as much like everybody else's rooms as possible; and everybody sat and walked upon representations of birds, and flowers, and Cupids, and even birds'-nests full of eggs. Therefore, it was the right thing to do.

you only trust all to a good upholsterer," said the faded Juno, "you are sure to be fashionable, and have things as they should be. Why, I left even my mantelpiece, and the hanging of my pictures, and the arrangement of the old china, to the upholsterer."

She said this to her cousin's wife, by way of suggestion; for she considered Maurice Downes far too much inclined to take up with eccentric ideas of taste..

"Yes," said Patty sweetly, "I see what you mean; everything in your room looks as if it had been done for you right off, it all looks so new and nice. What does your protégé Mr. Whitmore say to it all ?"

"I don't know anything about Venus's dress, I'm sure. I don't think Venus is meant to be talked of, at all; one only looks at her." Patty's eyes were beaming with mischief; but she grew grave as she remembered that she must not irritate her cousin too much; she had not accomplished the object of her visit.

"Now, when will you come and see my portrait? Lord Charles Seton dines with us on Tuesday. Can you come? should so like you to meet him."

I

"Lord Charles Seton ! of course I will, my dear Elinor. I had promised the Stephen Winchesters; but Charles must manage to go to them alone, and I will come to you. I know so many friends of Lord Charles Seton's, that it will be pleasant to meet him."

You

Patty smiled. Mrs. Winchester had tried more than once to be asked to meet some of her cousins' titled acquaintances. "And I know Lord Charles will be pleased." Patty looked as if a signal favor had been granted. "Can you bring Mr. Whitmore ?" she said, carelessly. "Lord Charles wants to meet him, and I don't quite know how to manage. see, we don't visit Mr. Whitmore; and Maurice would not, I think, like to invite a person of that kind in such an intimate way. We only have artists and those sort of people at large parties; but, if you were to bring him as your friend, it would be quite different; in fact, you must manage it for me, dear, for I have quite promised Lord Charles."

Mrs. Winchester was proud of Paul's friendship; she had even called on Nuna, and had pronounced her charming; but she was ashamed to be less exclusive than this wife of Maurice's, whom she yet be lieved to be a nobody after all.

"I can bring him, of course, my dear; he will be quite flattered; and it will be, no doubt, a great advantage to him in all ways."

Even then, Patty could not spare her husband's cousin.

"Yes, it must be such a great advantage