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It must be admttied that Captain Longley made himself very agreeable to everybody, and could by no means have been spared. He was exceedingly clever, too; knew exactly what was going on in England; had seen active service, and explored savage countries, all of which he could describe brilliantly; had read every French and English novel, good, bad, or indifferent, and was so good-natured that you were sure to find him looking after all the most uninteresting women, whether young or old, at a party. Beside these, there was a constant ebb and flow of visitors from Paris. No two days were alike. The amusements were always well-assorted and elegant. The temper of the party was harmonious. What wonder that at Fontainebleau Kitty began to forget? An atmosphere of roses dulls the senses alike to pain and duty, and she was living in an atmosphere of the sweetest.

About seven in the morning Françine brought in a cup of tea, and, having opened the window, let in a puff of delicious air. Françine prepared her bath, and laid out her clothes, a white muslin morning-dress or something equally enticing; then, after the dawdling delights of the toilette, and half-anhour spent in plucking roses for the table, there would come the breakfast, and the long morning-drive, and the tea in the forest, and the late dinner, and the talk and music in the beautiful summer twilight, with scents of flowers and twittering of birds coming through the open windows.

Kitty thought of her old life at Fulham with a shudder. How dreadful it would be to return to the squalor of it, the hand-to-mouth struggle of it, the vulgarity, not to say coarseness, of it! Shelley House had been an improvement upon Paradise Place, but she felt as if she should find it hardly more bearable now, what with the disorderliness and noise of the children, and the absence of anything like elegance there.

For life to Kitty was as one of the fine arts to an enthusiastic student, ever revealing some new faculty in herself, and a fair field for its exercise. She looked down loftily upon ordinary men and women, who are content to go in whatever narrow road Providence has placed them, with self-complacent pity,

thinking, "Poor fools! poor fools! you act as if life were a lottery, instead of a campaign in which the strategist is sure to win ”—feeling so secure herself in her sense of youth and wit and ability.

Sometimes her exquisite strategy would be worsted by the merest chance. When, for instance, Myra came to her one morning, all blushes and perplexity, saying—

"What do you think, Kitty? I know Captain Longley wishes me to marry him.”

"Oh, dear!" Kitty said, forgetting to conceal her genuine. dismay, "Oh, dear!"

Myra did not seem to think the matter so deplorable, and began to discuss it seriously.

"There are two sides to the question, I dare say. Captain Longley is poor—that is, compared to me—and a wee wee bit younger. Then he has female relations. I hate a man's female relations. But, on the other hand, how clever he is, how good-natured, how amusing!-not handsome, perhaps—but only fools need to be handsome: and he is so chivalrous, that I believe he would jump into the white bear's cage in the Zoological Gardens if ever so ugly a woman dropped her parasol in it. Oh, darling! what is the matter? you are crying!"

Kitty dashed away a tear or two, laughing self-derisively. "What a supreme idiot I am!" she cried, still laughing and crying. "I wonder whether other people are always making such discoveries about themselves? No; I'm worse than an idiot, Myra; I'm a selfish, self-absorbed, self-interested wretch, that's what I am, and if I cry, is it any wonder?"

"What do you mean?" asked Myra, petting her.

"What do I mean?" cried Kitty, in a passion of grief and self-contempt. "Myra, you are as blindly unconscious of what is going on before your very eyes as a new-born baby! As if I could rejoice in the prospect of your marriage-I, who love you better than any one in all the world-I, whose very bread is the gift of your hands, whose life were worthless but for you! Don't you see how it will be with us two if you marry Captain

gley, or anybody? It will be happiness, a completed life

here her

to you. It will be death in life to me. But"voice grew thick, and she slipped down to a low stool, and hid her face in Myra's lap. "You must marry him since you wish it, and I shall still be bound to you as long as I live."

It was only natural that Myra should cry a little too, and, after having wept with her friend, try to reassure her by every possible means. Why should a marriage divide them at all, or, at any rate, for a time? And why should not Kitty herself marry by and by? Nothing should induce her to prove ungrateful to her dearest friend-nothing in the whole world. Kitty must smile and look happy, since there was so little to be miserable about. Of course, Myra would always keep a home for her; and Kitty was so attractive, so handsome, so universally worshipped, that it was quite preposterous to entertain any doubt regarding the future. And much more Myra said, with her arms round her friend's neck all the while.

Kitty heard to the end, passionately impatient. When Myra had done, she broke into a torrent of words, compared with which Myra's had been as the chirpings of a timid sparrow to the cries of an enraged eagle.

"Oh! yes, I am to smile and look happy! But you spoiled children of fortune don't know what life is to us outcasts."

"My dear Kitty!" Myra interposed, quite shocked.

"Yes; outcasts, pariahs, scapegoats of society-those are the proper names for us," Kitty went on, fiercely. "We women who have no home, no friends, no money, being born into the world without being consulted- -we must live, and life becomes a game of chess. We don't like work, we don't like poverty, we don't like vice; but we like ease and wealth and good repute, and we win them somehow. How? Oh! the difference between an estate inherited and an estate thus borrowed! The one is as strong and steadfast as a mansion, the other ephemeral as the spider's web hanging to its porch. You are the lady of the manor, I am the parasitic spider which has fed upon your bounty. What can I expect, but to be swept away when the mansion is made ready for a wedding."

She seized Myra's hands and held them to her cheek, laughing and crying.

"The worst of it is that spiders have affections," she cried. "As a sister, I love you, Myra, and do not sisters lose each other when they marry? Oh! lonely, miserable me!"

CHAPTER XXX.

A REPRIEVE AND A SENTENCE.

"OH! lonely, miserable me!" cried Kitty, with the tears streaming down her beautiful face. How could an insignificant little sparrow find withal to comfort a grand eagle? Myra could only reiterate her first words of affectionate consolation, drop a little kiss on her friend's hand, clasp her round the waist, and so on.

But she chanced to let fall the careless phrase which Kitty caught and clung to, as a drowning creature to a straw.

"And Captain Longley hasn't really proposed yet!"—and Kitty so impressed Myra with the dignity and advantage of being a little dilatory in love matters, that she decided to keep her admirer in suspense for the present. Having inserted the thin edge of the wedge, Kitty managed the whole affair beautifully. Captain Longley being made to see that, for some reasons or other, Myra wished to keep matters in a preliminary state a little longer, went back to Paris in a pet, and Kitty breathed again.

But she felt that her house was built on sand, and looked around for safer foundations. Her reprieve might be very short. She knew well enough that, when Myra married, everything must change for Myra's dependant, who was also her friend; and knowing this, was it little wonder that her cheeks grew thin, and that her nights were weary? Sometimes she felt ready to act the prodigal in good earnest; but then she had sinned against so many fathers, she knew not to which of them to go. The purple robe, the gold ring, and the

fatted calf awaited her in either case, and in spirit she leaned towards them, though in the flesh she halted and hung back. Had she cared one shade more for Perry or for Dr Norman, affection would have kicked the beam; she wished that she could care for some one, no matter for whom, and not live only in her ambitions. Balzac says, "La grande force sociale, c'est le caractère," and his words prove themselves true a hundred times a day. Had Kitty possessed a slipshod character, her life would have been a very ordinary story; as it is, she was so rich in will, in understanding, and in purpose, that even without the personal advantages that made her richer, she could, under no circumstance, have remained insignificant. There are times, however, when even success in the battle of life becomes a weariness; and Kitty, who had been successful beyond her expectations, lost heart now and then. Wealth was pleasant, and she felt as if she could not live without it now; but she wished it were to be had for the asking. Rank was pleasant too, and that was much dearer than she had bargained for. Affection was her weak point; she could not bear a dog, no matter however ugly, to love other people better than herself; and affection, when coveted thus largely and unreasonably, costs more than anything else in the world. She would sit for hours in her pretty room during these perfect summer mornings, thinking of all these things, and trying to find a way to be happier. Her friends were legion; which of them could help her now?

One of these reveries was disturbed in an unexpected fashion. She got a letter from Dr Norman. The letter lay for some time unopened, not from any dread of what he might have written, but from vexation that he had written at all. Why could he not leave her in peace for a little while? She was always comparing her own conduct with that of her lovers, much to their disadvantage, forgetting that they cared for her with their whole hearts, which certainly made the case a little different.

There lay the letter. Her little maid came in with a pretty gift of flowers from one of her friends, and a message-" Miss

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