Drury Lane pantomime!" said Charlie without a moment's hesitation, "I have seen all the others,-Covent Garden,-Crystal Palace, -Alexandra Park-"

Yes, then we'll go. I wish we had Ludo with us. We shall get good places very likely, though these morning performances are for the most part crowded,-people often fail at last."

It won't be an awful bore to you?"

No,-more likely to such a blasé pantomime goer as yourself, I fear. We old people are glad to be made to laugh. And I've not seen a pantomime these twenty years."

And the two brothers walked off straight and quick to their goal. They did get good places, and both were exceedingly amused. Arthur had not been within a theatre since his marriage, so for four years; even stage effects and mechanical contrivances, with which Charlie was quite familiar, astonished him; and the boy was delighted to be his enlightener, and put him, as he called it, "up" to the "newest dodges."

Once out in the street, Arthur saw the time with some dismay. "I mustn't stop a moment. Good-bye, dear lad, you've had a pleasant afternoon ?"

"Jolly!" was the expressive rejoinder.

"And so have I. All you old home folks are very dear! If you'll do yourself justice at college the next two quarters, Charlie, Dulcie and I will run the risk of you as a third in our projected Swiss tour,-or will such practical geography and real scenic beauties be insufferable bores ?"

"Not they!" and Charlie gave a gratified and roguish look out of his blue eyes, "I'll make Switzerland my geographical, and Swiss history my historical studies for the rest of the holiday. I began a lovely map of France this morning,-but, you never even asked to see it."

Bring it over to Stepney on Wednesday. Hallo, there! that's my omnibus," and they wrung hands, and parted.

ઃઃ

"Well, Audrey,” cried Arthur an hour later as he tossed his five years old stepdaughter up in the air, "how are you all ?”

"Oh, you naughty, naughty man, we almost given you up; you mustn't go away agen, no, never, never!" and she clasped her arms round his neck, and looked into his eyes reproachfully.

'Have you been good children, given mother no trouble ?" and

Arthur laid the hand which was free on the fairer head of the elder boy, "that's well! Now run and get Aunt Dora's presents to show me; and then, after tea, I'll tell you all the wonderful things I've been seeing with Uncle Charlie. Very fairy land you'll think it."

"After all, home is home be it never so homely, Queenie," he said when the children were all in bed, and he had been telling her of his visit to Diana's nursery, and all the luxuries as well as love around this orphan heir, "and you're not tired yet of Stepney, are you?"

"No, nor ever until you are.-I think that you want a holiday, husband ?" and she looked at him a little anxiously; "but even this one night's variety has done you good."

you see."

And so it had; and he freely owned it, and that he felt set up now for a long time to come. "Still fond of variety as a child, "I believe, Arthur, that it is only true workers who know also how to play," and then she kissed him, and went up to her fretful baby daughter to whom Amabel and Kathleen had been sponsors by proxy whilst Brayscombe was still their home.

Death is not partiall, as the proverb saies,

The prince and peasant both with him are one;
The sweetest face that's painted now-a-daies,

And highest head set forth with pearl and stone,
When he hath brought them to the earthly grave
Beare no more reckoning than the poorest slave."

ANTHONY MUNDAY. A Dittie wherein the brevity of
man's life is described, how soone his pomp vanisheth
away, and he brought to his latest home. "The Mir-
rour of Muti Vitia." 1579.

THE Christmas holidays, in their turn, were passing away, when letters came in from Gibraltar full of good news from the travellers, and of the warm welcome accorded to Mr. Macdonald in Col. Erle's

own home. There was no room but for this one guest, for the dwellers on the rock are necessarily obliged to be content with close cramped quarters; so the two younger men had gone to an hotel, generally dining and spending their evenings with their elders.

"It was nasty of George not to let me go so far with them," said Charlie when this letter had been read aloud.

"I assure you I should not have been sorry," returned Arthur, who had been the reader after the mid-day dinner.

..

Ah, you begin to hate Miltiades and Co. almost as much as I do!"

"Begin to understand the daily martyrdom of many a poor head and under-master in trying to teach unteachable—or worse, don't-wantto-be-taught boys. This really is a very idle and ignorant fellow, Dulcie,—I think, next long holidays, you had better get a real tutor for him."

Dulcie looked grieved, even Charlie quenched, for both very well knew goodnatured Arthur would never have spoken such words in public without purpose, as well as previous great provocation. Nor did he add to them now, but turned back to the letter, and began to comment on George's description of a magnificent sunset effect, remarking the fellow was growing quite poetical. And then rose saying he had an appointment with George Saville at three, and meant to walk down to Queen Anne's Gardens in time for five minutes with Diana first; would not somebody come with him?

"I will," answered Amabel, who was both at home and at leisure that day, "I have not seen Diana yet this week."

"That is an honour I did not expect, Amy," said Arthur, gratified; for Amabel had always seemed as much lost to him as to many others, since the "Nausicaa's" unexpected ordering to Australia five years back. And yet, how lost? not that she did not work for his children, and think of all that was kind and good for himself as for all others; but her real self seemed so far apart from this present life, meekly and dutifully as she had striven, and especially since her father's death, to keep up her real heart interest in all around her. She put her arm in his when they started, and they walked most of the way in silence. "You don't mind my not talking, Arthur ?" she said at last, "it seems such a comfort to be able, sometimes, to be still."

'No, dear, I like just to feel you beside me; for I am a sociable creature, not at all fond of doing anything alone.-So you'll find Lawson, from all I've ever heard or seen of him. I wish George or I could have married you—"

"But, after Easter, George will be in deacon's orders,—so can help-"

"Yes, but the Nausicaa's' due in the middle or end of February-" "But we could not marry in Lent."

"No? not after your fast of sixty months?"

"Oh no, Arthur, don't tempt me," and her mouth quivered.

"Certainly not, dear, to do anything against your real conscientious convictions. But of course our father's death, and his mother's, will of themselves necessitate the marriage being very quiet; and in the yast solitude of this crowded London, you might just walk to the church and back again, and no one be the wiser but the acquainted few."

“We have waited so long, we can wait a little longer still."

tour.

"Yes,-and after Easter it will be brighter and pleasanter for your You must take a good holiday in both your lives then, and work out the youth-quenching effects of this long strain upon your nerves and affections,” and he pressed the arm within his, and did not again break the silence.

Arthur's fellow-trustees had proved more than willing to accept Mr. Saville's offer; he could not really outvote them, and so was going to Queen Anne's Gardens to-day, determined to remain neuter, even in words, if he found Diana herself really wishing for the scheme.

"Do I wish it, Arthur? oh very much; I think it will be such a healthy and happy home for Lucius when he begins to trot about, and wants to pick the pretty flowers,' like your own little George; and he would be walking freely quite alone already were he not so very heavy."

"And you? do not you mind the rooms where you and George Saville used to 'spoon' so happily together, but five years back, being thus improved off the very face of the earth ?"

"Not as I now have himself!" she answered unhesitatingly.

"But the father has a country-house, and when his parents die will have another-"

"But Mark has let his little place at Chiswick,-and his parents,

oh, Arthur, we hope they will live, at least, to see Lucius come of if not married."

age,

"Sono contento," and Arthur lightly stroked her beautiful fair hair. "All the same, I don't like to see another man even cheat himself where, if not I, yet mine will be the benefited," he mused as he obeyed the summons to the library.

"Have you been very idle, really, Charlie ?" asked Dulcibella, when Kitty and Mary had gone up stairs after shutting the front door behind the others.

“Well—I did not know I had been worse than usual.”

Oh, my boy, why are you idle at all ?”

Because 'specks because I was born so!"

Then grace must conquer nature."

"Don't you preach at me, madam! I assure you I've had one good jawing already this morning," and he shrugged his broad shoulders and made a wry face.

"Not to much effect apparently,-nor did Arthur deceive himself by thinking so, or he would not have said a word, publicly, at all."

"Well, Dulcie, at the very bottom of my heart lies the conviction that I'm much wronged by being forced during these so-called holidays to work daily,-at my age,―at all.—I submit, not to make a fuss ;-but I do consider my good-nature is being imposed upon, and that I'm not bound to do more than I can help."

Dulcibella stared in her amazement, for he spoke as if in earnest. “Even a worm will turn, you know. And injustice rankles in even a young Briton's breast like a worm i' th' bud," and he kissed her, and then went away whistling, himself, but leaving her considerably perplexed.

Arthur escorted Amabel home, and was glad to find Dulcibella within, George Saville having thought of yet another kindness towards 4, Church Street.

"They're getting rather burdensome, and I sha'nt be sorry when his thoughts are once more absorbed in bricks and mortar !-But as this would give Charlie great delight I thought I was bound just to consult you―"

"What is it ?"

Saville's going down the Channel with his brother as far as Plymouth, and proposes to give Charlie the present of a fellow trip, 'as