friends, for I care for you, and I even love you, almost as if you were a relation of mine."

"I suppose you won't," he observed," because you think I shall soon forget you. I shan't, though, I can tell you."

"No, don't; I should be sorry if you did. I shall never forget you, Valentine-never; and you cannot think how few people I have in the world to care for now."

"But we shall correspond then?"

"Oh yes, write often; and so will I."

Very well; but, D. dear, there really is no mistake about your deciding you won't be engaged?"

"Certainly not; don't I always tell you I

won't?"

"You know that I am engaged to you.”

"I know you say you are, and I give you leave to break off that engagement as soon as you please. There is Liz-ask her to come and sit with us; I want to take leave of her."

Instead of that he put his head out, asked her to go and fetch Mrs. Henfrey, and, as soon as she was gone, said, if I loved him as much as I had said, I ought to give him a kiss.

I replied, that if he would break off his supposed engagement to me then and there, I

would; and, with a good deal of laughter, he consented, and bent his fresh, boyish face towards me; whereupon I gave him a kiss,

and felt no more inclined to blush on the occasion than if it had been Tom.

66

There," he said, as he lifted up his head, "I've broken off the engagement-I've not only been engaged, but broken it off. Prentice shall know that before he is a day older! I've outdone him at last."

"Oh, Valentine!" I exclaimed, "how can you be so ridiculous?" But, at the same instant, Mrs. Henfrey and Liz appeared, Valentine left the carriage, Mr. Brandon put Anne Molton in; and I had no sooner taken leave of the two ladies, and noticed that Mr. Brandon looked very much out of countenance, than the train started, and, before I had time to collect my thoughts, we were several miles from Wigfield.

CHAPTER VII.

"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,—
Not light them for themselves;-for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not."-Shakspeare.

IT was a hot afternoon when Anne and I reached Miss Tott's small house. How close and confined it was! how dirty and faded it looked! how dim the windows! and oh, the blinds!

“I am sure I shall detest this part of London," I said, when Anne and I were left alone bedroom.

in

my

"I dare say this is the closest and dirtiest part, miss," said Anne in her ignorance.

Miss Tott was very kind. My restlessness and my craving for action excited her observation directly, and she took me to church-a particular church, that she liked because the service was so earnest, she said, and so beautiful. She also took me to Covent Garden to choose flowers to help to decorate it. The

services of this church, she told me, were so soothing to a spirit wearied with worldly dissipation and the fatiguing pleasures of society. Poor woman! neither she nor I knew anything about society. She led as dull a life as possible. I gathered that by dissipation she meant balls, parties, theatres, and all the crowd of a London season; but she could not afford anything of the sort, and I believe she thought she was soothed because some fashionable people, who really were overpowered with the fatigues of too much of this world's pleasure, felt that their minds were soothed.

I wanted not calm, but action. My mind was highly strung: I dreamed of the sea; I wanted my brother, and felt, day by day more keenly, how cruelly thoughtless it was of Mr. Brandon to have taken him away from me, just that he might more easily amuse him at the time. I wanted also to forget that scene in the wood. The fluttering of those leaves that let in wandering spots of sunshine I often heard quite distinctly when I sat silent, and the passionate tones of the noble voice that had said ignoble things. It seemed too near me now; too prominent; it was almost intolerable sometimes, and I craved the power to dismiss the mental

echoes of its lovely tones, and St. George with them, for ever. So in a very few days, having made up my mind that I could not be happy with Miss Tott, and that I should like to be near the British Museum, I sallied forth with Anne. We bought a map of London, called a cab, and were set down close to that veritable institution.

We stood on the pavement consulting our map, while the sentry looked on with a supercilious air. I decided that I would have lodgings in Russell Square or Gordon Square; so we proceeded to that locality, but did not find any families there who desired to take lodgers. We then bought a copy of the Times, and while we ate some soup in a pastry-cook's shop, we looked out for advertisements, and found several that seemed to promise what we wanted. As we left each of these houses, Anne said quietly, but without the least hesitation, that she was sure it was not at all the right place for me to live in, and she was also sure Mrs. Henfrey would agree with her. So I found I had Anne to please as well as myself, and we soon decided against them, and went home. tired but hopeful.

The next day, however, in a street near the