"I am in London, and I want to see you; write a line by return of post to the Carlton Club, and tell me where and when I may do so."

"BASIL MARSLAND. "Carlton Club, November 4th."

Basil Marsland in London! Lady Mary Venning wrote of him as being in Paris. Stella stood perplexedperplexed, and perhaps a little pleased, too, that he should be wishing to see her. The painful feeling that Basil's jealousy of Dorcas, on that night at Scarisbrook, had led him into saying things which he had never meant to be anything, had been rankling in Stella's heart and making her feel angry against him; there was a spark of the old pride living yet.

"Why does he want to see me?" she kept questioning with herself, as she slowly went up the stairs to her own room," he thinks I am a fool or a child, that he can trifle with, and order about, but he shan't-no indeed, he shan't-he has been cruel enough; I never want to see him again.

And having reached her room by this time, Miss Yeldham sank down into a chair by the table, and leant her elbows there, and hid her face in her hands, and cried bitter, scalding tears of disappointment, that the old, sorry love wouldn't die out or be lived down, that is, was only growing greater, and stronger, and more unmanageable than ever.

She wrote no answer to that London letter, she only folded it up carefully, and laid it by in the little old desk where her treasures were, where a few faded immortelles, the wraiths of summer flowers were treasured. But all poor Stella's little plans were disturbed and unsettled by that note of Basil's; to go back to Scarisbrook was to go back to Basil, and that was the one thing against which the girl's proud heart rose up in arms. To live down her foolish love, and conquer it was the one thing for which she lived.

Papa is so much better now," Lady Laura said that evening as she and Estelle sat together in the drawing-room. "So very much better that we are thinking of moving him in a few days, and we shall all go over to Rome for the winter. The

Venning's and Mr. Marsland will be there, we can chaperone you to them." But Stella only answered

'No, thank you, Lady Laura, I mean to return to Scarisbrook, at once. I had a letter from my aunt telling me I might."

"To Scarisbrook! my dear child, you would inevitably die of the loneliness and bleakness of Scarisbrook at this time of year."

"No, I don't think I should." Stella answered, quietly leaving off working, and gazing into the great red fire which blazed in the grate.

"But I know you would, my dear, you have no conception what a dungeon that place is in the winter, you had much better come with us to Rome.'

"No, Lady Laura, they do not want me there."

"They," of course meant Dorcas and Lady Mary Venning. Laura didn't exactly know what answer to make. It seemed very hard on the girl to condemn her to a lonely winter at bleak, deserted Scarisbrook, but what was to be done? Lady Mary had evidently conveyed to her neice that she did not wish her to follow them to Italy. There was a long

silence in the room, and then at last Laura said

"Do you know, Estelle, I have been thinking of a place where I think you would be very happy if you would go.'

Stella turned her face to Laura,

"Where is that ?" she asked drearily; it seemed now to matter so little where she went, or where her home was, it mattered as little to her as to others.

"You seemed to like Grace Marriott, that evening in the summer, when she and the Dean dined here." "I did like her."

"She is a good little thing, and if you do not mind a very quiet life I think you might be happy there, for they are good people."

But Stella opened her eyes in amazement,

"But, Lady Laura, I do not know them."

"I know that," Laura answered, working on quietly at her work; "but Grace took quite a fancy to you that night, she told me so, we talked of you in the evening and

a

and well, I hope you won't be angry with me, or think me rude for speaking so, but if you would go as companion to Grace, I know both she and the Dean would be so glad." Time was when such words would have wounded Stella like sharp cuts from a knife, but now things were changed; the world seemed going down with her every day lower and lower.

"Lady Mary might not wish it," was all she said, the colour stealing up to her face; she scarcely knew why. "I should not object.'

66

My dear, you must not misunderstand me. I would not allow you to do anything which might displease your aunt. If you go to the deanery, you only go as a visitor. Do you understand? No one could object to that."

where else she was ready to turn her steps, but not there.

"You have been so good to me, Lady Laura, I can never live to thank you enough. I don't know how to thank you." And the great tears came welling up from the old source of pain; the tears that sometimes spoke for her what her lips refused to speak. Laura bent forward and kissed her.

66

My poor little girl, I have only tried to help you in very little ways. I shall write to Grace now if you like." "Thank you."

And Laura went and sat down at her writing table, and began her letter. No more work could Stella do, she could only sit dreaming by the fire, thinking of this new life which was opening before her. She looked up at Raphael's Madonna, and round on the luxurious palatial room, and across at good-natured Laura, and then into the fire; and she thought of flaxen-haired Grace and her few pretty words, and the longing which had been in her heart on that summer night that Grace's home might be her home also. And she was content to try this new way of life, offering, as it seemed, a whole new store of quietness, peace, and kindness.

Ir poured rain all the next day, the big steady drops pattered against the windows, and dripped from the umbrellas of the foot passengers down on the flags, and ran in streams along the street. Aunt Cherry was in bed with her neuralgia, and Laura was spending the afternoon with Catherine Howard, and so Stella had the drawing-room to herself, no visitors were likely to interrupt her, and so, regardless of her complexion, Miss Yeldham sat down on the rug before the fire, and let the red light dance up and down as it liked, over her face and dress, turning the rich brown of her hair to ruddy gold. Things seemed to be all weaving themselves for her good at last, she thought, as she sat there thinking The world is a large place, full of minor worlds, her only sorrow was

was the first thing he said, standing holding her hand, looking down upon her with sort of eagerness in his face. "Are you glad to see me?"

Then she answered

"Yes," quite quietly, just lifting her eyes once, with a soft light in them, to his face; no one could have told by the girl's manner that this man was any more to her than other

"I thought you would be," he said then, almost heartily: those words did more towards calming Stella than anything he could have said; "he is so sure of me," she thought "so satisfied that I love him."

"I like to see old friends, it does one good sometimes," she said aloud, quite steadily. "Won't you sit down?"

He did sit down near her on a low chair, while she sat on the sofa, with her back to the light; and he said

"You have been a long time away. I suppose you are going to join Dorcas and Lady Mary at Rome now ?"

There was something strange in his manner-something strange, too, in his way of talking.

"No, I am going to stay with some friends of Lady Laura's.'

Stella spoke quite confidently, quite determined that he should not know how hard it was for her to begin over again the old hopeless life.

"Then you are not going abroad?" "No."

"And you do not intend spending the winter at Scarisbrook?"

"It is very little matter to me where I go," Stella answered sadly.

Basil walked from the fire to the window, and looked out into the rain. Stella didn't speak any more. She sat with her hands clasped together, an old trick of manner, and her eyes fixed on the red fire. Patter, patter, went the rain, dripping in a continuous little stream from the waterspout, tapping at the windows, too, and plashing on the balcony.

"And where do you go to ?" he asked at last. "Who are the people? and where is the place?"

He turned round, so did she.

"A clergyman and his daughter. Their name is Marriott, and the place they live at is called Silverstream."

She repeated it, like a child repeating a lesson.

It seems a very odd arrangement,' Basil said, half smiling, and then he turned his eyes to the street again. "Does Lady Mary approve of the plan?"

"She doesn't know anything about it yet."

He turned again and walked back, and this time he sat down, not on the chair where he had been sitting before, but down on the sofa close beside her.

66

"My dear child," he said, you must not go anywhere, or do anything without your aunt's leave. Come to Scarisbrook with me to-morrow, you can write from there to your aunt if you really want to go to these people; but you mustn't do anything without leave."

Poor Stella! One by one all the good brave resolutions were melting away

"She does, and she asked me to look after you."

Stella looked into the fire again; how hard it was becoming to turn her back on Scarisbrook.

"I have thought over it all, and Lady Laura and I have decided that I shall be happier with her friends." Basil stood up, and leant his arm on the chimney-piece, and turned his face to where she sat. Looking down upon her, and speaking impatiently, he said

"No one has any right to judge for you in such matters; Lady Laura cannot know how your inclinations lie."

in many things, but this temptation was too great a one, she couldn't stand against it. To go back to Scarisbrook with Basil and live over again the dreamy romantic days seemed such a golden dream.

"I will go if you think it right," she said, turning her face to him and looking into it with eyes full of pain, instead of pleasure.

"Of course I think it right," he answered, smiling. "To say nothing of my own selfish wish to have you back again; I didn't know how much I should miss you until you went. I can't get on without someone to keep me company; you gave me that bad habit. I usen't to mind being

over, has a royal liking for sport of all kinds, and in this book we see him calmly awaiting the rush of a huge wild elephant, and reserving his fire until the formidable beast is close upon him. Will not that thrill the hearts of loyal British maids and matrons, especially when they find the story told over again by the Duke in his own words? And then comes the narrowest escape of all, when the assassin's pistol is deliberately pointed close to the Duke's back, and the shot that is meant to kill him, glances one half inch aside and inflicts an ugly but superficial wound. With incidents like these to help out the extrinsic recommendations of the book, what more need be said in its favour? If the Prince himself had but played throughout, like Cæsar, the part of his own historian, nothing could have been wanting to complete the charm. That part, however, has been intrusted to fairly competent hands. In justice to the editors we may allow them the credit of having succeeded in their apparent aim. The higher criticism would be thrown away on a work of this nature, written without reference to any high standard of literary art. You cannot reasonably look for extraordinary graces of style or composition in a narrative which pretends to touch no finer chord of feeling than popular curiosity, touching a certain series of events in the life of a Prince, popular by right of his royal parentage. But, judging the book from this lower standpoint, we are bound to speak of it as fairly readable, as written on the whole with an easy avoidance of unworkmanlike defects. The diction is, for the most part, natural, straightforward, light, and grammatically correct. Slipshod and bombast are alike wanting; the spirit of "Jeames" nowhere obtrudes itself in the simple record of princely doings; and the writers are only funny when they quote from others. On the whole, indeed, this book is much better written than many of a far more pretentious sort. The style, keeping always on a level with the subject, rises at times into really picturesque beauty. Here, for instance, is a bit of description that brings the scene clearly, in a few unlaboured sentences,

* Page 85-6.

before the mind's-eye of the dullest reader. The Duke's party, looking out for elephants, are resting a while on the summit of a "kop" or high down.

"In a south-westerly direction there was a magnificent extent of country, varied and broken in a most picturesque manner; vast walls of cliffs rising from deep kloofs formed the boundaries of great highland tracts of country, beyond which rose higher and more distant ranges, one above another. Immediately below the hill on which we were seated lay a broad valley, intersected which the land below us on each side in the centre by a watercourse, towards swept down in broad easy slopes. There, in the open, quietly standing or slowly moving at times, were the elephants, their great tusks showing out very white and distinctly as they paced slowly about in the yellowflowering scrub in which they were half buried. It was the brightest sunshine, and they seemed to be in a state of drowsy enjoyment. Sometimes they appeared as dark spots, and then as they turned to the sun became of a light brown. A very large one continued to come across the open in advance of the rest, but always in a slow and deliberate manner, browsing as he went along, and evidently not alarmed in any way."

And here is a sunset scene enlivened by a foreground full of varied movement, in which royalty plays an appropriate if unusual part.t

"The scene was now most animated; people unpacking the waggons-Hottentots driv

ing off the oxen-everybody lending a hand to do something the Prince with

While

coat off and shirt sleeves tucked up, cutting and collecting wood for a great fire-some clearing away the scrub and grass, and preparing a place for the tents; others fetching water, or pitching the tents; the bullocks meanwhile all turned loose and wandering over the valley below. all this was going on, the sun went down with extraordinary splendour; sheeted masses of gold spread over the western sky and deepened to orange and crimson as the sun sank behind the great Spitkop Peak, leaving in deepest purple the wild and broken ranges that closed the view up the valley on the northern side of the Nek. The foreground to this was formed by the tents, with the waggons behind, horses grazing on the hill-side, baggage of various kinds lying about, groups of picturesque elephant-hunters and wild Hottentot retainers, waggon-drivers, boers in every kind of hunting-rig, with antiquated guns-all dimly seen by newly-lighted camp fires. The whole scene was indeed most strange

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