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panion, I was always there to walk with the blonde; but when it was my turn to walk with Miss Kate, why then he stayed away."

"And you have already told me that he used to worm out of you all your confidences, and, on his side, to tell you nothing. I take it that he loved her more deeply than you had an idea of. It delighted him to hear of her, even though it were but to hear what she said to you; and to walk with any but her gave him no pleasure. That was real constancy!"

"I beg your pardon, my little madame. I would not miss seeing her on any account, even though the penalty was to pretend to flirt with her companion."

"Penalty! you shocking hypo

crite!"

"Well, Pips evidently thought it such; since, even for the sake of seeing Miss Kate he would not undergo it."

"Go away! you are a mere special pleader! But tell me, what was the end of all this? Did you finish by breaking the poor queen's heart? 'Good-bye, Miss Glover' (or 'darling Kate,' as the case might be). 'I'm leaving Oxford, and shall, I fear, never see you again think of me as a friend, but nothing more!' Or, 'Let it be as though we had never met!' That sort of heartless thing? Eh? So like you men, who throw away your plaything when you have done with it, heedless whether or no you break it in the fall!"

"Well, Minnie, I was not so heedless or so heartless. I loved that girl tenderly ere we had to part for ever. Although out of my own rank and sphere of life, she was a lady every inch of her: a lady in face, a lady in mien, a lady in mind, and a lady in accomplishments (for she had received an excellent education, could play and sing exquisitely, and had a fund of conversation far above the "chaff" of the ordinary run of "pretty girls.") And when a man

loves a girl as I did her, what does he desire? That she should be his; his, to be ever with him; his constant companion and his friend; his life's mate! And yet I could not ask her to marry me. I would have done so unhesitatingly, despite the difference of station; but I knew well my father's dying fears respecting me. I knew that it was for fear

of my making some mèsalliance that he fixed my coming of age seven years later than the usual time of life, and that he ordered that I should travel as soon as I left the University. I could not thus fly in the face of his dying precautions. In a rash moment I opened my heart to another friend-not lips-a man who was neither racketty in his ways, as the general run of our fast men were, nor licentious in his talk. And yet he lived with some of the loosest fellows in college. This man had a secret which I did not know till I told him mine. When I told him of my love for Kate Glover, he sympathised exceedingly; then told me of a love of his own who lived in a cottage all covered with roses at Woodstock, and lived there at his expense."

"Oh, Ernest!"

He tempted me in every way to follow his example. He was so softspoken-so gentle- so thorougly gentlemanlike in his demeanour, and spoke so lovingly-aye, so respectfully of her his mistress. He was a man whom, in the wildest company I had never heard joining in coarse jokes or questionable talkyet this was his life, and he did it all for love."

"Ernest! do not profane the name of love! That is not love which is not hallowed by heaven! Pardon me. For a young married woman, I am speaking very familiar-ly to you, a young unmarried man. And yet, having entered on such a topic, I feel that I must give vent to my opinion!"

I thank you for speaking to me sofrankly, Minnie.

I value the intimacy which enables you thus to hear and impels you to speak to me, more heartily than I can say. But I could argue with you, if time would permit us, the point which you have raised. The Major and Mrs. Montague, however, are coming our way, and I know that we ought to be starting. Let me say, though, in brief, that it is possible to feel the purest love that ever a man felt for - a woman-as I did then; and at the same time, to wish, as I was then tempted to wish, to make her his mistress, simply because the Fates forbade that she should become his wife."

"Then I presume," said Minnie, with flushing face and a voice of scorn-" that you were only saved from this disgrace by her indignant refusal!"

"No Minnie! Long and earnestly did I think and ponder the whole thing over in my mind, balancing it this way and that. I could not drive it from my thoughts, you know because I could not drive her from my thoughts; and with the thought of her, came that of how I might so devise as to be with her for ever. I had got to justifying to myself a proposal which I thought would not then be a dishonourable one to her or to me, by resolving that if I made it, and it were accepted by her I would be as constant to her as ever husband was to wife."

"Well?"

"Well, just at that crisis, when I was on the point of yielding to my own influences, a novel fell in my way. It was the life of a girl who, though purely brought up, had become a man's mistress out of a sincere love for him, which he-at first -as sincerely reciprocated. But, although he did not at the last absolutely tire of her, he tired of the restraint imposed on him by the tie which existed between them. He was fond of that fashionable life to which he had been born: and the

I had

more that he followed its engrossing paths, the less of his time did he devote to the poor little thing who was pining at home for his company. She had none to fall back upon; for her relations had cast her off, and she would not associate with others in her own position whose fast ways had no charm for her. The more she pined and got low-spirited, the more her gay lover used to think his little treasure a bore. At last she was relieved from her troubles. Her heart broke! and she died! This story, Minnie, had the greatest effect upon me. It opened my eyes completely to what might be. gone through the phase of thinking that anything short of a vow of fidelity for life to her I wished to place in a similar position, would be the vilest selfishness-a sort of onesided contract which would bind her without binding me. And then, as I reflected on, it struck me'What if some day I should tire of her or of her relations, and should long for a union with one from a more congenial sphere? or what if I should be pestered by relations to form a matrimonial alliance, if not on my own account, at any rate out of consideration to my "family "to keep up the name?' Could I resist the temptation, when it was in my power to cast her off like an old coat-when her youth and her girlhood were gone and to consider that I had done the generous by her in making her a handsome settlement? And even if I did not act thus, Minnie-if I was constantwhy (I reflected) should I condemn her children to a life-long shame? And so I made my resolve, though it cost me many a pang before and since. I went to her-not at the last moment, when I was leaving Oxford-but weeks before it. I told her that marry her I could not; trifle with her heart any longer I would not: I besought her to pardon me for having done so as long as I had; and pleaded my inadver

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"She answered like a queen : 'Mr. Fitzgerald, you are a gentleman! I thank God that my heart is yet my own! I thank Him and you too, that you have spoken these painful words for I will not deny that they bring with them a pang. I am thankful that you have said them in time. I like you very much. I have never dared to love you, knowing that between us there lay a gulf which seemed always as impassable as you have now declared it to be. You need not my forgiveness. You have not jilted me (as you seem to fear). You have saved me, as

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CHAPTER X.

A PROPOSAL.

We should not mind hazarding a small bet! We feel confidant that some of our readers will say that Ernest did not deserve all the "cockering up' which he received alike at the hands of Kate Glover and of Minnie Seymour; that he undoubtedly did jilt the girl, whatever she, with her woman's spirit, may have assured him to the contrary; and that he ought to have been ashamed to tell such a story of himself. The very idea, too, of telling another man's own young wife, not long married, that he had had thoughts of making the girl his mistress! What credit, too, was it to a man who had heedlessly set up a flirtation with a girl out of his own rank in life, to go to her in a fit of righteous remorse, one fine day, and say in effect: "I never ought to have flirted with you at all; how ever, now that I have done so to a considerable extent, be very much

obliged to me that I do not intend to offer to insult you; and in consideration of this, I hope you may soon get over the heartache which my sudden withdrawal may possibly cause you." So Ernest will be pronounced by these critics a heartless fellow. They will say, some of them, that if he wished to deserve the name of a gentleman, he should never have addressed this young lady at all; for did he not commence the acquaintance deliberately, with his eyes wide open?

As to his unbosoming himself to Minnie, Ernest's critics must remember that to him, just now, she was as a married sister. Perhaps there had already arisen between them an amounnt of regard which exceeded in piquancy that which exists beween brother and sister. Nay, we believe we have already admitted that such a regard was in existence betwixt them, and that it was gradually increasing in intensity. But as yet, neither of them was aware of the existence in either breast of more than brother and sisterly feelings.

And then, as to Ernest's culpability in his affaire de cœur with the queen-like young lady. Did you never hear, reader, of an old story, concerning a certain young man who behaved very foolishly indeed-got his father to advance his fortune to him, and then ran through it all? Having done so (you surely know the story), he returned to his father, quite sorry for having been so wild-only in his case the sorrow did not come till he had tasted the bitter fruits of his wildness. Well, though it would have been more creditable to him, of course, if his sorrow had come a little sooner, still the good-natured father never twitted him about that, but received him back again as if he had been a conquering hero.

But this father had another son, who had always been a most exemplary young man; very slow, and steady, and circumspect; in short, propriety itself, in every sense of the word. This young man regularly sulked when he heard of the grand way in which his brother had been treated. He thought that the returned wanderer ought to have been snubbed, and actually called his father to task for what he had done. But he got snubbed himself for his pains.

But we must proceed with our tale.

The Major and Mrs. Montagu, when they rejoined Minnie and Ernest, both seemed somewhat nervous and confused. The Major asked how the drawing was getting on, and after admiring it duly, begged with much fervour that he might have a copy of it.

"And I another, Minnie! I know you will not refuse your friend," said Mrs. Montagu.

"Why this sudden run upon the

products of my pencil?" thought Minnie, wondering.

"We both of us wish for reminiscences of this lovely spot," said the Major; "because to both of usmay I not say both of us?" he asked, looking towards Mrs. Montagu, who nodded assent-" to both of us it will ever bring back the remembrance of a very happy moment in our lives."

Ernest and Minnie looked at each other with inquiring smiles. Could it, then, have come about so soon? they wondered.

"And what makes this spot so honoured?" Ernest asked, mischievously assuming an air of the most complete unsuspicion.

"Tell them, Major," said Mrs. Montagu.

"Mrs. Montagu has just promised to make me the happiest man in the world," said the Major.

Minnie hugged her friend with a cry of joy, and Ernest cordially wrung the Major's hand; and then there was a general shaking of hands, succeeded by some happy chaffing.

"I shall have to become your chaperone now, Mrs. Monty," said Minnie. "What fun! I have always, up till now looked upon you as a sort of chaperone to me, although I am a married woman."

"Fitzgerald, I shall already, with an eye to business, begin by securing your services as my best man. I know you will not refuse," said the Major.

"Most assuredly not! Nothing would give me greater pleasure!"

"How strange it all seems!" said Mrs. Montagu. "To think that, a week ago the Major and I did not know of Mr. Fitzgerald's existence, nor he of ours; and now we are such fast friends!"

"Esto perpetua?" said Ernest. "Long live the happy friendship !" "Yes; a week ago, what would you have thought of it," said Minnie, "if a little bird had told you, 'You will meet in Cairo a young Irishman who will take you all for a delightful trip, which will hasten an inevitable dénouement"(here Mrs. Montagu gave Minnie a playful slap, and the Major actually blushed)-"and who will finish up by helping to tie the nuptial knot, my dear Mrs. Monty, between the Major and yourself."

"I think I ought to propose, and Mrs. Montagu to second, a vote of thanks to Mr. Fitzgerald, to be carried by acclamation," said the Major.

"Hip-pip, hip-pip, hurray !" cried Minnie. "Vote carried nem. con. Mr. Fitzgerald called on for a reply."

"I shall begin by moving a vote of want of confidence in the Major, seeing that he persists in calling Mrs. Montagu Misses Montagu."

"Hear, hear, hear!" laughed Minnie. "You see, Major, if you don't stand up for your own rights, we must do so for you! It must be 'Laura,' now and in future; though she may go on calling you Major, if she likes; for it's a nice sort of pet name."

"I suppose,” said Ernest, "it is premature to ask now about the time and place for the happy event."

"As for the time," said the Major, "I hope that will be as soon as possible after we all get back to England. Mrs. Montagu must choose the place; but I can only say that even if it is not considered etiquette for the wedding to take place at the home of the bridegroom's brother, I can answer for it as certainly as if my brother were here to speak for himself, that the present company would all be most welcome to his house in Shropshire as soon after the event as the honey-, moon will allow."

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"Our life shall be all honeymoon!" said the Major, taking the hand of his affianced, and looking at her with a frank affection, which augured a happy future more certainly than the warmest protestations of some youth of half his age could have done. At five-and-forty, people know their own minds better than at threeand-twenty.

Four very happy souls returned that afternoon to the dahabeeh, at Badrasheyn. Minnie and Ernest were scarcely less so than the newly-engaged pair. For the happiness of so dear a friend as Mrs. Monty was to Minnie something quite her own. And for Ernest it was enough that Mrs. Monty and the Major were Minnie's friends. That was a sufficient passport to his heart. He seemed to have known them both for an age. Moreover, it filled him with delight to think that his little extemporised expedition had been the means of bringing things to so auspicious a crisis. And, independently of the thoughts of their two friends, Ernest and Minnie were so supremely happy in each other's society! The very fact of being together made them feel so both of them: even if they were not to articulate to each other for half an hour, it would be the same. When people are fond of each other, conversation is not an indispensable. The mere magnetism of being in each other's presence is quite sufficient to produce the calm, luxurious, sunny feeling which whispers within one"How truly happy I am!"

But had not things arrived at a strange pass, when these two young people, a married woman and an unmarried man--both of them (as may have been seen by their conversation on their way to Memphis) highly moral and religious-were going on from day to day, becoming more and more fond of each other? Aye, and when they continued to become so, after he had just been making to her a confession of the

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