box from his pocket. After having taken a pinch, he again gave a sharp look at his companion, and observed as he walked on:

"My prolonged absence from my native land has made my recollection of such matters a little rusty, but am I mistaken in supposing there is a title in the family?"

"My uncle is Lord Croftus-the fifth baron." "Ah! precisely: yes, yes. married a daughter of the Earl him with another?"

Then, was it not your father who of Seabridge? or ain I confounding

"You are quite right. He married the youngest daughter, Alice; and I am their only child, for lack of a better."

"Ah! Very singular," returned Mr. Grant; but he did not explain in what the singularity consisted.

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. LOCKHART's house at Hammersmith had been considered a good house in its day, and was still decent and comfortable. It stood on a small side street which branched off from the main road in the direction of the river, and was built of dark red brick, with plain white-sashed windows. It occupied the centre of an oblong plot of ground about half an acre in extent, with a high brick wall all round it, except in front, where space was left for a wrought-iron gate, hung between two posts, with an heraldic animal of ambiguous species sitting upright on each of them. The straight path which led from this gate to the front door of the house, was paved with broad square flagstones, kept very clean. In the midst of the grassplot on the left, as you entered, was a dark-hued cedar of Lebanon, whose flattened layers of foliage looked out of keeping with the English climate and the character of English trees. At the back of the house was an orchard, comprising three ancient apple-trees and the lifeless stump of a fourth; some sunflowers and hollyhocks, alternating with gooseberry-bushes, were planted along the walls, which, for the most part, were draped in ivy. The interior of the building showed a wide hall, giving access to a staircase, which, after attaining a broad landing, used as a sort of open sitting-room, and looking out through a window upon the back garden, mounted to the region of bed-rooms. The ground floor was divided into three rooms and a kitchen, all of comfortable dimensions, and containing sober and presentable furniture. In the drawing-room, moreover, hung a portrait, taken in 1805, of the deceased master of the estab

lishment; and a miniature of the same gentleman, in a gold-rimmed oval frame, reposed upon Mrs. Lockhart's work-table. The sideboard in the dining-room supported a salver and some other articles of plate which had belonged to Mrs. Lockhart's family, and which, when she surrendered her maiden name of Fanný Pell, had been included in her modest dowry. For the rest, there was a small collection of books, ranged on some shelves sunk into the wall on either side the drawing-room mantelpiece; and fastened against the walls were sundry spoils of war, such as swords, helmets, and flint-lock muskets, which the Major had brought home from his campaigns. Their stern and battle-worn aspect contrasted markedly with the gentle and quiet demeanour of the dignified old lady who sat at the little table by the window, with her sewing in her hands.

Mrs. Lockhart, as has been already intimated, had been a very lovely girl, and, allowing for the modifications wrought by age, she had not, at sixty-six, lost the essential charm which had distinguished her at sixteen. Her social success had, during four London seasons, been especially brilliant; and, although her fortune was at no time great, she had received many highly eligible offers of marriage; and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had declared her to be "a doosid sweet little creature." She had kept the citadel of her heart through many sieges, and, save on one occasion, it had never known the throb of passion up to the period of her marriage with Lieutenant Lockhart. But, two years previous to that event, being then in her eighteenth year, she had crossed the path of the famous Tom Grantley, who, at four-and-thirty years of age, had not yet passed the meridian of his renown. He was of Irish family and birth, daring, fascinating, generous, and dangerous with both men and women; accounted one of the handsomest men in Europe, a fatal duellist, a reckless yet fortunate gambler, a well-nigh irresistible wooer in love, and in political debate an orator of impetuous and captivating eloquence. His presence and bearing were lofty and superb; and he was one of those whose fiat in matters of fashion was law. When only twenty-one years old, he had astonished Society by eloping with Edith, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Seabridge, a girl not less remarkable for beauty than for a spirit and courage which were a match for Tom Grantley's own. The Earl had never forgiven this wild marriage, and, Tom having already seriously diminished his patrimony by extravagance, the young couple were fain to make a more than passing acquaintance with the seamy side of life. But loss of fortune did not, for them, mean loss either of heart or of mutual love, and during the five years of their wedded existence

there was nowhere to be found a more devoted husband than Tom Grantley, or a wife more affectionate and loyal than Lady Edith. And when she died, leaving him an only child, it was for some time a question whether Tom would not actually break his heart.

He survived his loss, however, and, having inherited a fresh fortune from a relative, he entered the world again and dazzled it once more. But he was never quite the same man as previously; there was a sternness and bitterness underlying his character which had not formerly been perceptible. During the ensuing ten years he was engaged in no fewer than thirteen duels, in which it was generally understood that the honour of some unlucky lady or other was at stake, and in most of these encounters he either wounded or killed his man. In his thirteenth affair he was himself severely wounded, the rapier of his antagonist penetrating the right lung; the wound healed badly, and probably shortened his life by many years, though he did not die until after reaching the age of forty. At the time of his meeting with Fanny Pell he was moving about London, a magnificent wreck of a man, with great melancholy blue eyes, a voice sonorously musical, a manner and address of grave and exquisite courtesy. Gazing upon that face, whose noble beauty was only deepened by the traces it bore of passion and pain, Fanny Pell needed not the stimulus of his ominous reputation to yield him first her awed homage, and afterwards her heart. But Tom, on this occasion, acted in a manner which, we may suppose, did something towards wiping away the stains of his many sins. He had been attracted by the gentle charm of the girl, and for a while he made no scruple about attracting her in turn. There was a maidenly dignity and straightforwardness about Fanny Pell, however, which, while it won upon Grantley far more than did the deliberate and self-conscious fascinations of other women, inspired at the same time an unwonted relenting in his heart. Feeling that here was one who might afford him something vastly deeper and more valuable than the idle pride of conquest and possession with which he was only too familiar, he bethought himself to show his recognition of the worth of that gift in the only way that was open to himby rejecting it. So, one day, looking down from his majestic height into her lovely girlish face, he said with great gentleness, "My dear Miss Fanny, it has been very kind of you to show so much goodness to a broken-down old scamp like myself, who's old enough to be your father; and faith! I feel like a father to ye, too! Why, if I'd had a little girl instead of a boy, she might have had just such a sweet face as yours, my dear. So you'll not take it ill of me-will ye now?— if I just give you a kiss on the forehead before I go away. Many a

woman have I seen and forgotten, who'll, maybe, not forget me in a hurry; but your fair eyes and tender voice I never will forget, for they've done more for me than ever a father confessor of 'em all! Good-bye, dear child; and if ever any man would do ye wrong— though, sure, no man that has as much heart as a fish would do that— tell him to 'ware Tom Grantley! and as true as there's a God in heaven, and a Tom Grantley on earth, I'll put my bullet through the false skull of him! That's all, my child: only, when ye come to marry some fine honest chap, as soon ye will, don't forget to send for your old friend Tom to come and dance at your wedding."

Poor Fanny felt as if her heart were being taken out of her innocent bosom ; but she was by nature so quiet in all her ways, that all she did was to stand with her glistening eyes uplifted towards the splendid gentleman, her lips tremulous, and her little hands hanging folded before her. And Tom, who was but human after all, and had begun to fear that he had undertaken at least as much as he was capable of performing, kissed her, not on her forehead, but on her mouth, and therewith took his leave hurriedly, and without much ceremony; and Fanny never saw him again; but she never forgot him, nor he her; though two years afterwards she married Lieutenant Lockhart, and was a faithful and loving wife to him for five-and-forty years. The honest soldier never thought of asking why she named their first child Tom; and when the child died, and Mrs. Lockhart put on mourning, it never occurred to him that Tom Grantley's having died in the same month of the same year had deepened the folds of his wife's crape. But so it is that the best of us have our secrets, and those who are nearest to us suspect it not.

For the rest, Mrs. Lockhart's life was a sufficiently adventurous and diversified one. War was a busy and a glorious profession in those days; and the sweet-faced lady accompanied her husband on several of his campaigns, cheerfully enduring any hardships; or awaited his return at home, amidst the more trying hardships of suspense and fear. During that time, when the nations paused for a moment to watch France cut off her own head as a preliminary to entering upon a new life, Captain Lockhart (as he was then) and his wife happened to be, on that side of the Channel, and saw many terrible historical sights; and the Captain, who was no friend to evolution in any shape, improved an opportunity for doing a vital service for a distinguished French nobleman, bringing the latter safely to England at some risk to his own life. A year or two later Mrs. Lockhart's second child was born, this time a daughter; and then followed a few summers and winters of comparative calm, the monotony

of which was only partially relieved by such domestic events as the trial of Warren Hastings, the acting of Kemble, and the classic buffoonery of Grimaldi. Then the star of Nelson began to kindle, and Captain Lockhart, reading the news, kindled also, and secretly glanced at his honourable sword hanging upon the wall; yet not so secretly but that his wife detected and interpreted the glance, and kissed her little daughter with a sigh. And it was not long before Arthur Wellesley went to Spain, and Captain Lockhart, along with many thousand other loyal Englishmen, followed him thither; and Mrs. Lockhart and little Marion stayed behind and waited for news. The news that chiefly interested her was that her husband was pro moted to be Major for gallant conduct on the field of battle; then that he was wounded; and, finally, that he was coming home. Home he came, accordingly, a glorious invalid; but even this was not to be the end of trouble and glory. England still had need of her best men, and Major Lockhart was among those who were responsible for the imprisonment of the Corsican Ogre in St. Helena. It was between this period and the sudden storm that culminated at Waterloo, that the happiest time of all the married life of the Lockharts was passed. He had saved a fair sum of money, with part of which he bought the house in Hammersmith; and upon the interest. of the remainder, in addition to his half-pay, he was able to carry on existence with comfort and respectability. Marion was no longer the odd little creature in short skirts that she had been when the Major kissed her good-bye on his departure for the Peninsular War, but a well-grown and high-spirited young lady, with the features of her father, and a character of her own. She was passionately devoted to the grey-haired veteran, and was never tired of listening to his famous histories; of cooking his favourite dishes; of cutting tobacco for his pipe; of sitting on the arm of his chair, with her arm about his neck, and her cheek against his. "Marion has the stuff of a soldier in her," the Major used to declare; whereupon the mother would silently thank Providence that Marion was not a boy. It had only been within the last five or six years that Marion had really believed that she was not, or might not become, a boy after all; a not uncommon hallucination with those who are destined to become more than ordinarily womanly.

When the event occurred which widowed France of her Emperor and Mrs. Lockhart of her husband (much the worse catastrophe of the two, in that lady's opinion), the prospects of the household in Hammersmith seemed in no respect bright. The Major's half-pay ceased with the Major, and the widow's pension was easier to get in