ing, he was wont to say, more effectually removes the cares of the world or makes a man forget his own age, sooner than the society of young and beautiful ladies. He ought to have been born in the seventeenth century, and basked in the gardens of Vaux, or beneath the smiles of the ladies who charmed away the declining years of La Fontaine. When Desdemona's tea was taken to her cell, Lord Alwyne came with it, and the fraternity, even including Miranda, abstained from entering that pleasant retreat, because they knew that the talk would be serious and would turn on Alan.

But the

'I found myself growing anxious,' Lord Alwyne said. 'I hoped to learn that you had done something, that something had been done by somebody, somehow, to break it off. days passed by, and no letter came. And so- -and so I have come down to learn the worst: of course, nothing can happen now to stop it.' He looked wistfully at Desdemona. 'It is too late now.'

'Why, there are three whole days before us. This is Wednesday. What may not happen in three days?'

Desdemona, have you anything to tell me?'

Nothing, Lord Alwyne.' She kept her eyes down, so that he should not read her secret there. Nothing,' she repeated.

But there will be something?' 'Who knows? There are yet three days, and at all events we may repeat what I said a month ago-they are not married yet.'

Then I may hope? Desdemona, have mercy.'

She looked up, and saw on the face of her old friend a pained and anxious expression which she had never before seen. No man had ever spent a more uniformly happy, cheerful, and yet unselfish life. It seemed as if this spoiled son of fortune naturally attracted the friendship of those only who were fortunate in their destinies as well as in their dispositions. Misfortune never

He took her hand and raised it to his lips with a courtesy more than Castilian.

'I ask no more, Desdemona. Tell me another time what you have done.'

'You will have to thank Tom Caledon,' she replied. It is he, and a third person who is indispensable, whom you will have to thank.'

'Tell me no more, Desdemona. What thanks of mine could equal this service? Tell me no more.'

He was more deeply moved than Desdemona had ever seen him.

'I have been making myself wretched about the boy,' he said, walking up and down the room. 'It was bad enough to read of his doings with a pitchfork and a cart: it would make the most good-tempered man angry to be asked in the clubs about the Shepherd Squire, his son; but that only hurt Alan himself. Far worse to think that he was going to commit the -the CRIME of marrying a dairymaid."

'I suppose,' said Desdemona, that it is natural for you to think most of the mésalliance; I dare say I should myself, if I had any ancestors. What I have thought of most is the terrible mistake of linking himself for life with such a girl, when he might have had-even Miranda perhaps. You cannot expect me quite to enter into your own point of view.'

'I do not defend myself, Desdemona,' said the man of a long line, with humility, as if he felt the inferiority of his position. It is part of our nature, the pride of birth. Alan ought to have had it from both sides. I taught him, from the first, to be proud

I

of the race from which he sprung. used to show him the family tree, and talk to him about his predecessors, till I feared I was making him as proud of his descent as a Montmorenci or a Courtenay. In my own case, the result of such teaching was a determination to keep the stream as pure as I found it, or not to marry at all. With him the result is, that it does not matter how much mud he pours in, provided he can carry out an experiment. He fools away his children's pride for a hobby. To do this wrong to his children seems to me, I own, even a worse crime than to forget his ancestors.'

'I see,' said Desdemona, what I call a misfortune you call a crime.'

'Every misfortune springs from a crime, my dear Desdemona,' said Lord Alwyne, sententiously. This anxiety has made me feel ten years older; and when I thought I had lost my son I rejoiced, for the first time, to feel older.'

'You will find him again, dear Lord Alwyne,' she said softly, in a few days. In fact, on Saturday. Remain with us till then. Perhaps it will be as well that you should not meet him, unless he hears that you have arrived. And reckon confidently on going home in ease of mind, and ready to commence again that pleasant life of yours which has no duties and no cares, but only friendships.'

He took her hand again, and pressed it almost like a lover.

Always the same, kind Desdemona,' he said; 'Clairette Fanshawe was the best woman, as well as the best and prettiest actress, that ever trod the stage. Do you think, Clairette'-it was twenty years since he had called her Clairette-' do you think that we really made the most of our youth while it lasted? Did we, d'une main ménagère, as the French poet advises, get the sweetness out of every moment? To be sure the memory of mine is very pleasant. I cannot have wasted very much of it.'

'Perhaps,' said Desdemona, smiling -she had spent the greater part of her youth in hard study, and the rest in bitter matrimonial trouble with a drunkard-perhaps one lost a day here and there, particularly when there was work to do. It is unpardonable in a woman to waste her youth, because there is such a very little of it. But as for men, their youth seems to last as long as they please. You are young still, as you always have been. To be sure, your position was a singularly happy one.'

'It was,' said Lord Alwyne; 'but you are wrong, Desdemona, in supposing that my life had no duties. My duty was to lead the idle life, so that it might seem desirable. Other people, hard-working people learned to look upon it as the one for which they ought to train their sons. But it wants money; therefore, these hardworking people worked harder. Thus I helped to develop the national industry, and, therefore, the national prosperity. That is a very noble thing to reflect upon. Desdemona, I have been an example and a stimulus. And yet you say that I have had no duties.'

CHAPTER XXXVI.

'Oh! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower.'

BROTHER PEREGRINE'S suit

resembled, by reason of its length, a suit in Chancery. It never made any progress. He always carried the same cheerful smile in his crowsfooted eyes, always appeared in the same imperturbable good-humour. He never seemed to notice whether the girl to whom he attached himself was pleased to have him about her or not, being one of those happy persons who practised, though from a different motive, the same cult of selfishness preached by Paul Rondelet.

He was

a man who would play with a child till it cried, when he would put the

plaything down and go away to find another. His business was to amuse himself What is my land to one who is home from India, but a delightful garden full of pleasures?' The society of this beautiful and coquettish girl, full of odd moods and as changeable as a day in April, was pleasant to him-what did he care whether he was pleasant to her? He congratulated himself openly on his superiority to Tom, because he saw so much of her.

But no progress. Plenty of compliments, pretty speeches without end; little presents of things from India, such as tiger-claw brooches, fans of scented wood, glass bottles gilded outside and filled with a tiny thread of precious essence, filigree work in silver, tiny chains of gold, bangles rudely worked all these things accepted as part of his wooing. But the fatal words, which she feared and yet wished to have done with, so that there should be a final end with poor Tom-these did not come.

There was plenty of opportunity. Never was a place so admirably adapted for the interchange of such confidences as the Abbey of Thelema, with its corridors, cells, gardens, and wooded park. And at this juncture everybody seemed busily occupied in whispering secrets. What did the man mean? The situation, too, was be coming ridiculous; all the worldthat is, the monastic world-watched it with interest. Also Mrs. Despard seemed, by her letters, to have some uneasy suspicion that all was not right. She even threatened to visit the Abbey herself, if only to expostulate, while yet there was time, with Alan Dunlop on his infatuated and suicidal intention. Most of her letters, in whole or in part, found their way to Tom-either they were read to him, or the contents were imparted to him in conversation.

'If she does come here, Tom,' said Nelly, which Heaven forbid, two things will happen immediately. You

will have to leave the Abbey the day before her arrival, and--and--that other event will be settled at once.'

'You mean,' said Tom. 'There is no occasion, Tom, to put everything into words.'

Tom became silent.

'I think I have put too much into words already. I wonder,' she went on, whether you like me the better or the worse for telling you truthfully.'

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Everything, Nelly,' said Tom, hoarsely, makes me like you better every day.'

I could not, after your beautiful speech at the Court of Love, which went right to my heart, Tom-I could not bear you to think that I was only flirting with you all the time. I liked you too well. Poor Tom! Do many other girls like you, too?'

They don't tell me so if they do. But of course they don't. How girls ever do like men, I do not know.'

'It is because they are not men,' said the damsel, wisely. People would call it unmaidenly, I suppose, to tell a man--what I have told you -particularly when the man wants to marry you, and you can't marry him. But you don't think it unmaidenly, do you?'

'As if you could do anything but what is sweet and good, Nell! But you cannot know how much

'Hush, Tom; don't put that into words, don't; it only makes us both unhappy.'

'Of course, I know,' said Tom, ruefully. I am next door to a pauper, and so are you, poor girl; and we are both expensive people; and there would be debts and things.'

Debts and borrowing, Tom, and not being able to pay back; and going on the Continent, and living in lodg ings, and staying with people who would invite us, to save money. How should you like that?'

'You always think of the worst, Nelly. There's Sponger, formerly of Ours, does that. Got two hundred &

year; goes everywhere, and is seen everywhere; stays with people. They say he disappears for two months every year, when he is supposed to go to Whitechapel and sweep a crossing where sailors are free with their coppers, I believe

Nelly interrupted this amusing anecdote.

'That is like Just as I Tom. you, was getting into a comfortable crying mood, when nothing does me so much good as a little sympathy, you spoil it all by one of your stupid stories. What do I care about Sponger of Ours ?'

'I thought you were talking about staying with people.'

Is the story about Sponger one of the stories which the old novels used to tell us kept the mess-room in a roar? If so, a mess-room must be an extremely tiresome place.'

This conversation took place on Wednesday afternoon. In the evening, to please Lord Alwyne, Desdemona improvised a little costume party, in which everybody appeared in some Watteau-like dress, which was very charming to the Sisters, and mightily became such of the Monks as were well favoured. They danced minuets and such things as such shepherds and shepherdesses would have loved. Brother Peregrine led out Nelly for a performance of this stately old dance; they went through it with great solemnity.

'Are they engaged!' asked Cecilia, watching them.

'I cannot tell, my dear,' said Desdemona. The man is a riddle. Nelly does not look at him the least as a girl generally looks on an accepted lover. What does it mean?'

'I had a letter to-day,' Cecilia went on, from Mrs. Despard. She says that Alan's conduct has alarmed her so much that she thinks of coming to to take her daughter home I suppose she thinks that we are going to follow Alan's example, and marry the dairyman's son, as he is engaged to

the dairyman's danghter. It will be a great loss to us.'

Greater changes are going to happen,' said Desdemona. Am I blind? When do you go, my child?'

Cecilia blushed prettily. She was a very charming girl, and her little idyl of love had gone on quite smoothly, else I would have told the story. The commonplace lot is the happiest; yet it does not read with much interest.

'John- 'she began.

'Brother Bayard,' said Desdemona, 'I shall always know him by that name.'

'Wants to take me away at once; but I shall insist on waiting till the autumn.'

May you be happy, my dear!

"You have consented to create again,

That Adam called the happiest of men.'
Cecilia laughed.

What you said the other night accelerated things. Desdemona, I should not be surprised if you were to receive a great many confidences before long.' And no jealousies among the Sis.

ters ?'

Not one. We are all to be happy alike.'

'That is as it should be,' said Desdemona; and that is the true end of the Abbey of Thelema.'

'Only we are sorry for poor Tom, and for Miranda, and for Alan. We had hoped that Miranda

'Alan is not married yet,' said Desdemona.

Meantime, Nelly observed that her partner was feverishly excited and nervous. His performance in the dance was far below his usual form, and for the first time since she had made his acquaintance he was not smiling. That looked ominous.

'I have been,' he whispered, in agitated accents, when the dance was finished- I have been in the Garden of Eden for three months, thanks to ❘ you. Let me have a quarter of an hour alone with you to-morrow. Can it be that I am to take a farewell at the gates of Paradise?'

'I will meet you in the breakfastroom at noon to-morrow,' said Nelly, quietly.

Farewell at the gates of Paradise? Was the man really beginning to affect that self-depreciation which to girls not in love seems so absurd, and to girls who are in love is so delightful? He could not be in love as Tom wasnot in that fond, foolish way, at least; there would be no sentiment, she said to herself, on either side. Then why begin with nonsense about farewell? Certainly there would be no sentiment; she would accept him, of course, as she had told Tom all along. It would be a bargain between them he would have a wife of whom Nelly was quite certain he would be proud; she would get as good a house as she wanted, a husband comme il faut, an establishment of the kind to which she aspired in her most sensible moments, and a husband who had his good points and was amusing. It would have been better, doubtless, to have a Tom Caledon, with whom one could quarrel and make it up again, whom one could trust altogether and tell everything to, who would look after one if there was any trouble. But, after all, a real society husband, alife of society with people of society, must be the best in the long-run. Nelly felt that she should look well at her own table and in her own drawing-room; her husband would talk cleverly; she would be tranquilly and completely happy. And as for Tom, why of course he would very soon forget her and find somebody else-she hoped with money to keep him going. Poor Tom!

A life in the world against a human life; a sequence of colourless years against the sweet alternations of cloud and sunshine, mist and clear sky, which go with a marriage for love; a following of seasons, in which, year after social success grows to year, seem a less desirable thing against the blessed recurrence of times sacred to all sorts of tender memories-was this

the thing which Nelly had desired, and was going to accept consciously? I suppose it was her mother's teaching, whose book was

'The eleventh commandment, Which says, "Thou shalt not marry unless well."

That sweet womanly side of her character the readiness to love and be loved-had been brought out by Tom, and yet it seemed, as an active force, powerless against the instructions of her childhood. It had been awakened by one brief erratic ramble into the realm of nature that evening on Ryde pier-after which poor Nelly thought she had returned to the dominion of common sense. She hid nothing from Tom; she was as confiding as Virginia to Paul; but it did not occur to her that her decision, now that a decision was left to her, could possibly be other than that indicated by her mother.

She said that it was Fate. Just as the charity boy knows that it is perfectly useless, as well as unchristian, to envy the prince who rides past him on his own pony, so the girl, Nelly had learned, who has no dot may as well make up her mind at once that she cannot hope to follow the natural inclinations of her heart, and choose her own husband for herself. She must wait to be chosen, in this Babylonian marriage market, by the rich.

As for the other Sisters of the Abbey, they were all portioned, and could do as they pleased. Therefore Nelly looked with eyes of natural envy on this Sister, who could listen to the suit of a penniless officer; and on that, who, rich herself, was going to take for better or for worse, and oh! how very much for better, a lovesick youth richer than herself. For them, the life of pleasantness, the lifeof which we all dream, the life which is not rendered sordid by money cares, and mean by debts, and paltry in being bound and cabined by the iron walls of necessity, the life of ease had been attained. Men work for it;