to soothe a too-awkward sense of her inferior station. But mammas who are not philosophers, who are furnished with enough knowledge of human nature for their purposes without observation, and who have mysterious little birds in their bosoms into the bargain, behold these matters with a different eye, and hear much undelivered discourse. Lotty wants to hear, one day after dinner, about that delightful singer, Mario, that the papers so enthusiastically praise, and whom Miss Dacre has just mentioned in a kind of frosty ecstasy, like strawberry-ice; and thereupon young Grovelly seizes upon the opera of "Lucia di Lammermoor," of all things, and goes through the story, singing Mario's bits in a voice little inferior to his, and a sensibility (he dwells much on the great tenor's sensibility) not at all inferior. Now, I remember his saying, only a year before, that he was tired of seeing the mere name of "Lucia" on the bills! Therefore, to me, who happened to be present, the whole thing appeared a simple display of the young man's vocal accomplishments; and in my heart I said (for I had a great liking for Lotty myself)— "Well, before I'd labour to dazzle a poor country girl with such a tremendous exhibition of my talents!" and so on. Not that Miss Leeson seemed much embarrassed-she was very quiet indeed; operating on an apple with her knife in such a fantastic manner that, at one moment, I cherished a demoniac expectation that, by the time he had exhausted his resources in one art, she would reward him with a specimen of more countrybred skill, in the shape of a carven pomaceous pig. However, this did not occur; but I had the gratification of observing that Grovelly became insufferably dull and stupid as soon as he had finished his display. Now that we know so much of the facts of the case, it seems more than probable that the ladies drew a large general inference from this scene; but that doesn't account for their prophetic souls divining this secret meeting, nor for the inroad of uneasy reflections which agitated Lady Grovelly (and her ladyship's slipper) all through the dusk of the summer evening. Lights had been brought in; but even light was too disturbing for her thoughts, and the candles were accordingly relegated to the farther end of the apartment, while the window was allowed to remain open, and the breezes still came sighing in. At length madame was startled from her reverie by precisely the most welcome of all sounds to her, under the circumstances: the mingled voices of Adelaide and Herbert in gay conversation. A moment more, and the young people strolled up the lawn and in at the window-Adelaide leaning on Herbert's arm, and making a most charming picture of herself, with her scarf tied over her hat and held under her chin, her brilliant teeth displayed like her pearls on a gala night, and her eyes full of animation. It was only on particular occasions that Adelaide looked like that. In fact, though I have since seen her under trying circumstances -at water-parties, at pic-nics in moonlit abbeys, when thirty-two and unmarried-I never beheld her so fascinating except once; and that was while she was talking with that battered old peer, Lord Cubee, in a balcony at Mrs. Smith of Smithtown's soirées. As for Grovelly, he, too, came on in a free, insouciant frame of mind-his hat slouched, brigand-like, over his forehead, and his dexter-hand thrust into his pocket; and as the sound of their mingled voices gladdened my lady's ear, so their appearance in this wise gave light to her eyes, and relief to her maternal heart. "And where," she said, "have you two been vagabondizing?" "Botanizing!" exclaimed my lady, looking perfectly innocent of a fact generally known and accepted, that "botanizing," when two young people of opposite sex are concerned, is an equivalent for "love-making." In that sense the word pleased madame mightily, surprised as she appeared; but as for Adelaide, she hardly knew how to take it, or whether to be angry or pleased. "Oh, I speak literally-we speak literally, don't we, Adelaide ?" said the young man, laughing, as he beheld the ladies exchanging glances-the one of inquiry, the other of ignorance. "Meeting me by the brook-bridge, lounging home" Miss Dacre interrupted him. "Slouching home, Herbert. You must not be permitted to take these liberties with the language." "Well, slouching, if you please!--by the brook-bridge, slouching home"In maiden meditation, fancy-free!" A bold stroke of Miss Dacre's, and not a judicious one. But perhaps she felt some resentment at her cousin's entering into explanations in this bantering tone. However, Herbert was carried away by some sudden revulsion of gaiety, and disposed of the interruption by a simple "Be quiet, Adelaide! It is only right that mamma should know all about it! Well, this maiden meeting me at the bridge, ma'am, took me forthwith to see a foundling verbena of hers, which she discovered, a mere slip of vegetation, heartlessly exposed by the gardener on a gravel walk; which she had planted in a comfortable corner; which she had nourished with fond and anxious care; and which she talked about with such enthusiasm, such charming tenderness, that I was fain to spread my handkerchief on the ground, and kneel to inspect and admire. Adelaide had no handkerchief; and I am afraid she must have soiled her dress!" "That's all, aunt !" said Adelaide, with mock demureness. "And very pretty too!" "Ah yes! youth and beauty, tenderness and flowers! But that isn't all. Shall I tell my mother what we said about the stars, Adelaide ?" "Shall I tell my aunt how rude you were when I did speak to you on the bridge, Herbert ?" There was the slightest droop of Adelaide's eyelids, the slightest tremble in her voice. He must have been very naughty indeed, surely! My lady, who had been well pleased with the conversation so far, on the whole, had here an opportunity to throw in an artfully-conceived remark. "I'll hear no tales that ought not to be told out of school!" said she. "Then Herbert mustn't be rude!" "And Adelaide must be forbidden to say pretty things. If she does not wish them to be repeated, she should not make such charming comparisons as that between her star-eyed flower, living by kindness alone, and blooming content in a secluded home-nook, and the cold, solitary, unmated star!" Now this observation, which created a slight sensation of awkwardness in Lady Grovelly, could only be taken by her niece either as downright rudeness or innocent badinage; just as she understood whether Herbert had imagined a drift in her discourse, or whether he regarded it as merely poetical and general. To put the case in another point of view, she had to be hurt or amused accordingly as she had feelings of affection for him, or had not. It was something of a dilemma, but we all know she did entertain feelings of that description; and therefore her most natural resource, perhaps, was to go to her piano, and play a tearful piece of music. She did that admirably; and music affords a great relief to a wounded spirit. So to speak, it taps the o'erfraught heart, and bids its grief exhale in measured sighs. You, Mademoiselle the Dear Reader, may be surprised at the changed aspect under which Herbert presents himself, within one short hour of that parting by the woodside. Is this the lover, so anxious, so angry, so wholly engrossed in his affection for our little maid? He alluded to suicide; is this like hanging himself? Ah, even Lotty, who flattered herself she knows him well (for are not lovers kindred souls? have they not their every thought, their every dream, in common? do not their hearts, their very pulses, beat in unison ?), were she present in the spirit to see and hear him now, I am afraid she might ask those questions too. For her part, she was so simple that she would have deemed herself utterly heartless, not to say sacrilegious, if any thought save of him had entered her head during the rest of that evening. Why, she would not willingly have touched anything with her hands, that had so lately lain in his; she would not willingly have opened her lips, for fear of disturbing the kiss that reposed upon them, like a sleeping butterfly; her cars, filled with his voice, resented every other sound; while as for joking, as for laughing with anybody else, she could not have conceived it possible. No. As she hurried home, and shut herself up in her bedroom to be alone, to think of him in the dark and undisturbed, so she imagined her lover, brooding, absent, solitary. Over and over again she said to herself, "Ah! he is thinking of me now!" as if, poor fellow! he could not possibly help it, and that though it must make him very sad-or sadly happy at best. For such is the nature of that foolish, beautiful sentiment called first love, to be melancholy in profoundest happiness. And now it has come to this, I may as well let you into the secret at once, and acknowledge that I do know what more passed between Herbert and Charlotte, after the conversation recorded in chapter second. You remember how stoutly she fought the unselfish fight against Herbert's solicitations and the persuasions of her own heart. Well, you did not expect that to last over their parting, did you?— You, who have been in love yourself, probably, know how hard it must be not only to resign a lover, but to leave him angry, reproachful, disappointed; you who can enter into the fascination of the hour, summer twilight; of the place, a grove, a copse, a plantation, filled with haze and heavy with the breathing of leaves, that rustled underfoot, and overhead, and all about. It was not according to the natural order of things that the meeting should end as it began. Herbert looked so glum when it came to good-bye by the gate there, that Lotty felt very like a culprit, and could but assure him that, whatever happened, she could not cease to love him for many a weary day; and, indeed, hoped he would let her down in his affections gradually and gently too. He only shook his head at that. He did not understand it, he said. "This playing at sweethearts may be very well for you girls," says he, “and I must acknowledge there are many amiable points about it; but we men have different ideas." Hard, injurious words, these, for our little maid; they smote her like so many smooth, cold pebbles from a brook; and, unhappily, she fell to arguing the question with him over again. Unhappily for her resolution, I mean; for she soon found how truly she had said it was mere self-delusion to debate the matter while they were together. And the leaves rustled underfoot, and overhead, and all about; the little dickey-birds had sung their last song out, and left all so very quiet; and Herbert was so moody, and she was so unhappy. And-"O youth, O youth! O life, O life! O love, O love! so golden fair!"- when Herbert at length said "Lotty, you propose to turn over a new leaf to-night. I propose to tear it out! Say no more about it! Never say more about it! You are mine, and I'm yours, and-and give me a kiss!" -when he said this, I repeat, our little maid put her arms round his neck without more ado, and gave him a kiss, and went her way. So that, in fact, these young people are in a fairer way to shock the proprieties according to Mrs. Grundy than ever-which is just what you expected, Mademoiselle. Nor are you sorry for it, perhaps. Ah, my dear, so you applaud Romeo and his Juliet; but theirs proved a most unhappy business. However, now you perceive that the altered humour of our Romeo is to be explained on perfectly reasonable and natural grounds. We might both have preferred, indeed, to have found him more faithful to the sentimentalities of his position. And though a married man with a small family, and with certain well-defined views about gilding and gingerbread, I confess I do think Charlotte dreaming her foolish dreams in the dark, a much prettier object of contemplation than Herbert chaffing his cousin-under the circumstances. And I'm not prepared to say that our little maid might not naturally have felt hurt, had she known of his "goings on." But the young man's temper was singularly, nay, dangerously, subject to revulsions (you remember what has been said of a certain will-o'-wisp look in his eyes); and we must not forget that, all in a summer evening, his paradise of love has been lost and regained. Meanwhile, Adelaide croons over her piano-performing, in low tones but with undoubted accuracy, all sorts of wandering, languishing Weber-inspirations, all sorts of yearning love lieder. Whether the performer, in seeking to soothe or to express her own feelings (as the case may be), calculated upon any effect her music might exercise over her cousin's, we cannot know; but the probability is, that she miscalculated it. She did not know, perhaps, how selfish is human nature; nor dreamed that Herbert, instead of connecting the lieder and what not with her emotions (as he naturally should have done), rather chose to appropriate them as an accompaniment to his own. Such was the fact, however. As she played, another change passed over him. Hitherto, he had been lounging up and down the room at an easy swing—but presently the lounge became a measured pacing; his head drooped upon his chest, and he went and sat down by his mother's feet, with a brooding face indeed. It is now that a Weberian bit comes in-a waltz (I will not name it, for fear of consequences) which, with light and perfume, hath done infinite love-mischief in the ball-room: bringing young men to declarations, and unloved maidens to moist pillows. As this waltz-itself nothing but perfume, and a glory of wax candlesproceeds, the will-o'-wisps appear in Herbert Grovelly's eyes, and the shadow of a legion of armed thoughts traverses his lips. It is not a soft look, this, as might have been expected—it is a savage look: but extremes meet, Mademoiselle. Adelaide, content with the young man's silence, and construing it as she thinks best, plays on-with more expression than ever, if possible. Lady Grovelly has no ears for Weber, she has only eyes for her son; and his apparition at this moment strikes a profound dread into her heart. This, or something like this, is what she has been watching for, many and many a year. This, when you come to unravel it, is the Family Secret, turning up at its worst. "Come!" says my lady, astonished to find what an effort it cost her to speak without trepidation, "leave off thinking and talk to me." “Then Adelaide must leave off playing, I'm afraid.” "Why, does it affect you so very much?" mamma asks, laying her hand lightly on his shoulder, with some distant faith, not altogether unfounded, perhaps, that there may be healing in the touch. Absorbed as she was, Adelaide does not fail to catch these words, and a particularly soft passage in the music gives her an opportunity of listening to the reply. "Well, I won't say that," he answers; "for the fact is, Adelaide's strumming -I beg her pardon!-is rather of an accessory character, to-night; like the showman's music at a panorama." "And the panorama "Is in my head, ma'am." A startling reply to my lady. Had he said "imagination," she might have treated the answer lightly; "head" makes other sense of it. But, whatever she may feel, she rejoins, in a tone light enough— "And where may the scene be laid?" 66 Oh, Adelaide's fingers interpret that. The region of young love, of course." "Tom Tiddler's ground, Herbert; where grown children play at picking up gold and silver, and find it to be all so many stones and leaves when they grow older." "But the young ones are happy enough while it lasts !" "While it lasts!" "Ah! you are for making a drawing-room game of it, I suppose; and for having the young ladies and gentlemen begin by throwing down the genuine article in fair proportions." (Why, here we have madame's other difficulty, then !) "That, certainly, is my idea," says she, looking doubly anxious. “Then I'm afraid, to be dutiful, I must abstain from such amusements till I reach your years of discretion, dear mother; at present, I cannot agree with you— I cannot at all agree with you!” Adelaide's playing becomes so spiritual that it is scarcely audible. Her face is turned from the speaker, and its reflection in the mirror opposite may not be faithful; otherwise I should say there was no very spiritual expression about that: the lips are compressed, and the eyes have a deep, dark glow in them. "Well," says my lady, evidently embarrassed, "we'll have the curtains drawn, and ring for tea.” 66 Why, no, mother. This is a very good subject for conversation; and, as I'm your son, and you expect to have a daughter one of these days, and Adelaide las started the subject "I!" exclaimed his fair cousin, turning round upon her music-stool in beautiful surprise. "Who else ?" with a humorous, but, at the same time, an inquisitive look. Adelaide gives the least little shake of the head, and goes just without the |