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CHAPTER XVIII.

'I have griefs enough;

Pray you be gentle, pray you let me be.'

OU are going with us to-day, May?' said Frances,

as she and Helen were about to get ready for their

visit to Dr. Milman's.

She looked prepared for disappointment, and May justified her expectations by replying that that evening had been fixed upon for her extra hour with M. de Brignola.

'Madame knew of the previous engagement,' returned Frances, looking blank.

'I do not suppose it is a matter of choice with her as to the time M. de Brignola gives his lessons,' replied May. 'When I met him in the hall this morning I begged off; but as he said that the arrangement had been made entirely with a view to my advancement, which meant to give me an opportunity of making up my deficiencies, if it were only in appreciation of his polite. way of putting it, I could not make any further objection. If I had, I do not suppose it would have been of any use, for when he once takes anything into his head he is as inexorable as an Ottoman Mushir.'

She laughed as she spoke, but soon after fell into a serious reverie, the most salient impression in which was, the interest

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expressed in M. de Brignola's manner towards her. For a moment she felt inclined to ask his aid in effecting her early return to Scotswood; but remembering that, for him to understand her difficulty, it would be necessary to make him a sharer in a family secret; pride and affection interposed as a preventive, and concluding that, if sorrow were necessary and inevitable, as he had said it was, such as hers was very hard to bear; she choked down tears that were now very apt to rise, and, turning to Frances, who was looking disappointed at the failure of her hope that she would enjoy the evening with them, added, by way of consolation,

'It is no use trying to resist M. de Brignola's absolutism.'

'Madame ought not to have arranged the lesson for to-day,' exclaimed Helen, with decision. 'I am not sure we should have accepted this invitation had we known that it would have been necessary to have left you alone.'

'Do not think of me,' returned May; 'and I am not sure it is fair to blame Madame de Bernonville for the arrangement: I dare say she is obliged to consult M. de Brignola's convenience. My conjecture that he is a gentleman or nobleman of fallen fortunes has been confirmed by ex parte evidence, for Miss de Febvre tells me that she used to meet him in Italy, where he was looked up to as one of the greatest men of the day; that people always thought it a victory achieved if they could secure him at their soirées; though, by-the-bye, that does not prove his fall in fortune. I dare say she knew of his being here through Dr. Coleridge having read some of my letters to darling Auntie,' she added, musingly.

'I was not aware that you corresponded with her,' returned Helen.

'She was so kind as to write me some particulars of Auntie's

death,' said May, colouring, as she thought of the unnatural reticence she had felt it necessary to practise of late.

Upon which Helen, who was not feeling in the most amiable of moods, remarked, shortly,

'Miss de Febvre always made a point of knowing everybody's news.'

'She used to make me think of a magpie,' said Frances, with quaint seriousness, 'running away with everything to her nest, then bringing out a bit at a time; and she had just a magpie's cunning odd ways.'

'She was very funny,' returned May, who had been won in spite of herself; for Miss de Febvre's kind thoughtfulness in writing to her had touched her; 'but you know she was educated in a French convent until she was fifteen, and I should think people shut up in that way get into a habit of only thinking about little every-day things; and after that she spent some years in Bologna, Florence, and Rome, always in convents. That is, perhaps, why she is not like other people.'

'Under any circumstances, we have no right to canvass her ungenerously,' said Helen, colouring, as she felt she might take a lesson from the usually thoughtless May. 'I should like to find an excuse for myself in the disappointment I feel at your not going with us to Dr. Milman's, but it would only be an excuse.'

Soon after this conversation, Helen and Frances started for the doctor's. They were quite at home there now, and entered his room sure of their welcome.

'One minute, my dear young ladies,' he said, as he gave a rapid glance down the list of killed and wounded in the 'Times' newspaper; then, turning to Helen, added, 'I hoped that we should have been saved further bloodshed. It is heart-breaking

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to think of the hundreds of promising young fellows that are being cut off through the madness of one individual; but ambition, inordinate ambition, whether it refers to rulers of kingdoms or rulers of consciences, always leads to mischief.'

Helen took up the paper; she too seemed interested, for before looking up she read through the list to the end.

'I have arranged to receive a party of workpeople in my dining-room this evening,' continued the doctor, changing the conversation by explaining the object for which he had invited their presence; they are pleased to come, and seeing them here enables me to get a talk with them I could not get in any other way. Have I been too bold in asking you to help me to give them some tea?'

Helen expressed pleasure at the hope of being of use, and at once followed with Frances, Annie, and the doctor, to a room in which they found an animated party, looking as if in anticipation of a pleasant evening; among whom Helen observed Pierre Moreau, the man to whom the accident had happened from the passing of the carriage wheel over his foot. It was evident he felt out of place in being waited upon as a guest while there was anything to be done that he could make himself of use by doing; and without putting himself unduly forward, he acted as the doctor's right hand in so serviceable and sensible a way, as to leave him free to go about and chat with his guests.

The party of ouvriers there assembled were not of the lowest class; many of them were intelligent, and, to some extent, educated; and Dr. Milman's object in these meetings was to counteract the depressing and damaging effects of too long working hours, by encouraging them in a search after knowledge, and to press upon them that it was their duty to nourish

the soul as well as the body, and not to relapse into mere working machines. For the fulfilment of this purpose he had chanced upon a happy way of interesting them, by giving them elementary lectures on the sciences, into which he so cleverly interwove religious teaching as to remind those who listened to him of the fact that his chief concern was, as their spiritual guide, to lead them to consider such truths as came more immediately within his province.

This evening astronomy was the chosen subject, and some diagrams were to be used for illustration. Pierre offered himself as manager of the magic lantern, and the doctor detecting that it would be a satisfaction to him to feel he was of use, readily yielded to his proposition. The key-note of the lecture was selected from a passage in the book of Job-' Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or guide Arcturus with his suns?'-as suggestive of God's greatness, in contrast to the littleness and ignorance of man. Upon that he dilated eloquently, and then went on to remark on the tendency of ancient nations generally, and even of the heathen of our own time, to worship the host of heaven; bidding those present Seek Him who made the seven stars and Orion.' To this succeeded a clear, short statement and illustration of the different systems introduced since the days of Pythagoras, with some useful reflections on the difficulty of arriving at truth, and an invitation to join in praise to Him who, since He first placed the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens, for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years, had, by His fiat, maintained the whole planetary system in such admirable working order. The fact that the lecture had been useful was deducible from the chastened cheerfulness on the faces of the audience; and

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