in broad daylight, if it would save my heart from breaking. I know what saints you swear by, Kitty, and your creeds and catechisms too."

"And what are they?" said Kitty, looking a little pale, but resolutely determined to play the victim.

"I suppose your creed is," began Mrs Cornford, "to love your neighbour as yourself, if he's rich, lives in a big house, and keeps a flunkey; and to fall down and worship one god only-Mammon the Mighty-and to him to sell your soul."

"I don't know why women should be so harshly judged," Kitty said, penitently, but proudly: "a man gets commended for trying to better his condition; I have only done that."

"You have only done that, I know; but there are more ways than one, Kitty, of making one's self smart at a fair; one's fine clothes may be bought, borrowed, or stolen"

"What do you mean?" asked Kitty.

"You have come mighty fine to the fair, Kitty, but I am much afraid you haven't paid for all your gewgaws in good money that rings when you try it."

'My dear Polly, how absurd you are!"

"Well, let us try your money. We'll say you've paid so many smiles, and so many sweet speeches for this jolly little boudoir ; will you swear them to be all true and genuine? Or, let us take the carriage you drive in,-what does that cost you? Have you a regular tariff of prices, or do you bargain hap-hazard for all these good things? And truffles—I dare say you eat truffles now-do you buy them by the gross, for a few little flatteries of extra flavour?"

Kitty did not know whether to laugh or to cry, whether to take Mrs Cornford's sarcasms seriously or in jest, whether to be indignant or humble.

She followed a middle course.

'Polly," she said, "if I did not love you, I verily believe I should forget all that I owed you in the old days, and be ready to hate you for saying such things of me now. But though I am foolish, and vain, and weak, I do love you-I do indeed love you, Polly, and you must not cast me off,”

And saying this, she came close to Mrs Cornford's side, and wound her arms round her neck, and kissed her on the cheek, knowing who so well?-that Mrs Cornford could no more resist her than all the rest of the world.

"You little, insinuating, artful, clever thing!" Mrs Cornford began; but her mouth was stopped by Kitty's hand.

"No, I'm not insinuating, and I'm not artful," she said; "I'm your dear, naughty prodigal, that's what I am; and though you scold me to-day, you'll kill the fatted calf for me to-morrow-I know you will, you darling."

"Not I," said Mrs Cornford, good-tempered in spite of herself; "not I, Miss Kitty Silver. If you come, which I know

you won't, I shall give you nothing but a brown crust, and lots of scolding. I live ever so high up in an attic, you know, in a dingy little street, and your love for me will hardly bring you there, I think.”

"As if I should not come to see you," Kitty interposed deeply hurt.

"Well, will you come in to-night? Perry has asked a chum or two to dinner, and we are going to the Opéra Comique afterwards."

Kitty hesitated.

"I should like it dearly; but Mrs Wingfield might object." "Come on Sunday, then; we'll go to Saint Cloud, and have dinner at such a snug little cabaret Perry knows of."

"We always go to church on Sundays," Kitty said, with some reluctance.

66

'Eh, go your ways, Kitty, to church and the devil!" Mrs Cornford said, rising to go; "and don't come to see me, till you turn poor and honest again,-which won't be yet, I fancy."

She put on her cloak, and would have gone away abruptly, but Kitty delayed her a little.

"I will come and see you, I will, I will," she whispered ; "give my dear love to Perry, and the children, and everybody, and say so."

And she kissed her friend, and clung to her,

"I shall tell 'em the truth, and nothing but the truth," Mrs Cornford said; "and when you see 'em you can add as much to it as you like. I shall tell 'em how I found you in a wonderful frock fit for a duchess, and a diamond ring on your finger, and a gold chain round your neck, and silk stockings on your feet. This is what I shall tell 'em, Kitty, without adding or diminishing,—and so I promise you. We live in the Rue de Trévise, numero quatre. It's a shabby place; don't tell the grand folks if ever you come there.

bye!"

Good

And with that Mrs Cornford went, leaving Kitty abashed, terrified, full of misgiving.

How should she shield herself from all the new difficulties and perplexities looming in the distance?

She could not break from these old, true friends; but how to cleave to them, how to be kind to them, without bitterest . shame and mortification? Why-oh, why had they come to disturb her peace?

CHAPTER XIX.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION.

IF Laura's visit had been a thorn in Kitty's side, it may be imagined that Mrs Cornford's was two thorns; and they pricked mercilessly. All the pleasantness of this Parisian phase of life was gone, snuffed out in a moment like a wax light exposed to sudden blasts.

Kitty's gilded cage held an unhappy bird for a time; poor bird that only asked less love and more oblivion at the hands of the world, and bewailed its unhappy fate with fallen crest, drooping pinions, and joyless eyes.

Whichever way she looked, she saw nothing but small ignoble perplexities. At present Myra knew almost nothing of what Kitty's early life had been; why should she ever have known but for these too fond, too faithful friends who would not be so kind as to forget her for a little while? She should be sure to meet

Perry,-dear, disreputable Perry,-in the first picture-gallery they might chance to visit, and should have to choose between the painful alternative of cutting him dead, or bringing a dreadful scandal upon herself; or she should be slowly driving by Myra's side, or, worse still, with some of Myra's friends, perhaps with fastidious Sir George Bartelotte and his daughter along the Boulevard, and come upon the old vagabondish, darling, but terribly unwelcome crew, drinking beer and playing dominoes outside some fourth-rate café. Kitty's heart sank within her as she forestalled the catastrophe of such a meeting. Mrs Cornford would nod and put up her eye-glass to stare; Perry would look unmistakably aghast and forlorn; the children would turn scarlet with excitement, and gape and ejaculate, "There's Kitty! oh, goody, how smart she is!" How could she bear it? How could she flee from it?

She wondered how far it would be wise and safe to trust Myra; for trust her, in some degree, she must, or break with her. There was no other course left open that she could see.

So, when Myra came in, a little curious, a little vexed, and half inclined to be out of temper with Kitty for having friends of whom she knew nothing, the syren threw her arms about her more than sister, and said, plaintively-

"O Myra! nothing could have happened so unfortunately for me. The Normans have come to Paris."

What, in Heaven's name, does that signify? Dr Norman knew your decision on a particular matter long ago."

Seeing Kitty's face cloud a little, she asked, point-blank"Isn't it so? If not, it was naughty behaviour on your part."

"I didn't lead him on to hope, and I didn't quite give him up. I can't bring myself to blurt out unpleasant truths-for the life of me, I can't. Don't blame me, Myra," poor Kitty pleaded; "it is my idiosyncrasy-not my fault."

"And it is my idiosyncrasy, not my fault, that I blurt out unpleasant truths always; and, pardon me, dearest, but though I love you, I can't trust you a bit-not a bit-if you have really acted towards Dr Norman thus."

Kitty was supreme at acting little tragedies, and here was a great occasion. In a moment she was at her friend's feet, a pale, dishevelled, penitent, distracted thing.

"Now, or never, you shall know all," she said, moistening Myra's hand with her tears; "and then you shall judge me according to my deserts. It is not only Dr Norman whom my affection for you has led me to deceive, but there are others— one, a man whom I half promised to marry years ago—when I was very young and they all love me so much, and want me so much, that they have followed me here; and now I shall have no peace."

"Well," Myra said, after the manner of a child lecturing her doll, "of course, it's you who have done the wrong, and who must suffer for it. If I could bear some of the blame, I would."

"Oh! you don't know half the misery of it yet," poor Kitty groaned, still in her penitential attitude. "My oldest friends, those who brought me up, and to whom I owed everything when a child-though dear, generous, unselfish souls-are, or rather would seem to you, desperately vulgar--Heaven forgive me for saying so! I-I should be the most heartless wretch if I dreamed for a moment of giving them up; but I must choose between them and you."

And with that climax, she rose from her knees, and dashed to the window and back again, and stood by the mantelpiece, sobbing out

"No

"Between them and you-between them and you!" "That is sheer nonsense," Myra said, with warmth. thing shall induce me to give you up-till you marry; and I suppose you do not wish to marry this desperately vulgar lover who has followed you to Paris?" she said, archly.

"He is not vulgar, though I don't wish to marry him; it is of the others I speak."

"Oh! never mind the others. We can ask them to come one day by themselves, and show other innocuous civilities." Kitty shook her head.

"We have been too intimate to come to that. Think for a