bobbing against her cheeks. I happen to know that the world is a good deal the better for her, though it knows nothing of her, and she knows very little of it. She has given assistance to hundreds of women, and has established an agency for finding employment for them."

"I declare she is going up to the council, and presenting her card to them with all formality."

It was still in the days before the decline and fall of crinoline; but the tall lady had not an inch; her rather shabby black silk fell straight to her feet, but she performed a series of curtseys before the council, and passed on perfectly unconscious through the bows and smiles of the little knot of noblemen and gentlemen who stood receiving the assembly.

Mr. Dalrymple, with Nelly on one arm and Miss Macnaughten on the other, followed. Mr. Dalrymple introduced the ladies, and they found their new acquaintance an agreeable and well-informed woman, who seemed to be well known even in that mixed multitude. There were others in the rooms to whom Mr. Dalrymple introduced them, and they were so fully occupied that they did not note how the time had passed till they saw the rooms begin to thin. They were sitting in the Turner Gallery, which had almost emptied while they discussed the merits of the - wonderful collection, when Nelly started, turned pale, and laid her hand on Miss Macnaughten's arm. Mr. Dalrymple had fixed his eyes on an approaching group. Nelly's had followed, and, recognising Mr. Palmer and Harry, she had started instinctively and become pale from sudden emotion.

The old man walked between his son and another young man, whom, of course, Nelly did not know. It was Horace Eden, who, as soon as he caught Mr. Dalrymple's eye fixed upon him, turned and caused the others to turn with him, saying, "I do not want to meet that man; he is one of my bitterest enemies."

"Indeed! That wasn't quite the way in which I treated my enemies when I was a young fellow like you," remarked Mr. Palmer, caustically, and he looked back and took a survey of the room, including Mr. Dalrymple and his party. Of course he encountered their eyes; and, recognising Miss Macnaughten and Nelly, went back on the spur of the moment to speak with them, leaving Harry and Horace in the doorway; the former not having caught sight of Nelly, who had shrunk back involuntarily when the first surprise was over. A sudden idea had struck Mr. Palmer; had he not made the stipulation of the two years' separation, and had he not power to remove it? Certainly it was only binding on the young people so long as he chose to enforce it; and it seemed to him that he need not longer enforce it—that the present was a happy opportunity for its termination.

To resolve was to act with Mr. Palmer. He advanced to the little party, shook Miss Macnaughten warmly by the hand, and was introduced to Mr.

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Dalrymple. Then he took Nelly's hand, and drew it on his arm, and said, "Will you come and be introduced to my son, Miss Macnaughten?"

"With pleasure," replied that lady, though her pleasure was mingled with surprise; and so saying she rose, and, with Mr. Dalrymple by her side, followed Mr. Palmer to where Harry and Mr. Horace Eden stood.

That the latter did not know what to do with himself—that he was in what he would himself have politely termed "a fix," was evident. His dark face flushed, and he hesitated as to whether he should walk away or not. Mr. Dalrymple noted all this, and saved him further embarrassment by a rather haughty nod of recognition, which he, of course, returned without the hauteur. All the while Nelly was trembling on Mr. Palmer's arm, and the paleness caused by sudden emotion had changed to a deepening flush of rose colour. There were tears, too, in the downcast eyes. It was painful to her to meet Harry thus publicly for the first time after their lengthened separation. Mr. Dalrymple noted also these signs. and tokens; and when he had heard Mr. Palmer say, "We must be going soon, but you can still have a few minutes' talk together," he understood it all. Moreover, he thought he saw a reluctance-a shrinking -on Nelly's part which he totally misread.

Mr. Palmer handed Nelly over to his son; and, after introducing him to Miss Macnaughten, he walked on by her side, leaving Mr. Dalrymple and Horace, who seemed to know each other already, to form a third pair; they therefore brought up the rear in silence. At length Mr. Dalrymple asked in a tone which would have startled Nelly, so severe was it, "Do you know that gentleman well?"

"I saw you had married about a year ago; it was to his sister, then?" "Yes."

"Was he a friend of yours before you married her ?"

"Yes, an intimate friend."

Mr. Dalrymple muttered something not quite complimentary, and silence again ensued. At length Horace Eden spoke again,

of

"My wife brought me a considerable sum money," he said, "and I hope that in time I shall be able to retrieve my fortune, and pay every one to whom I am indebted."

That is well," said his companion, coldly; "but pardon me for reminding you that it is not the loss of money which I grudge; but, as I told you at the time, the loss of trust. To be plain with you, Eden, it was the lie you told me, and not the loss you made

one, and that one is open to you and to me, Eden," said Mr Dalrymple, more softly. Then again there was silence between them till the others turned, and the whole party came together again previous to saying good-bye.

Mr. Dalrymple stood watching Nelly and her lover as they came up last. He could not convince himself that Nelly cared for this man, and before he had talked to him many minutes, he convinced himself that she did not. They went all together to the entrance; and when Miss Macnaughten's carriage was called, it was Harry Palmer who handed Nelly in, and before doing so he lightly kissed her cheek. Mr. Dalrymple felt a horrible inclination to commit a breach of the peace and knock him down on the spot, and he felt almost sorry that he had not done so when his quick ear caught a little sob from Nelly's corner as they drove away.

He took the first opportunity that presented to speak to Miss Macnaughten on the subject-it was not often mentioned between them-of Nelly's engagement.

"I don't believe she cares for him," he said. “Why, he is handsome enough.”

"He is not in the least like her."

not like you. You shall come and meet Mr. Harry Palmer; he will be often with us now."

Mr. Dalrymple did not relish the statement, but he accepted the invitation; and, after spending an evening in poor Harry's society, he said in confidence to his friend, "Well, I have not changed my mind; it is like casting pearls before a certain animal to give Nelly over to him."

CHAPTER XVII.

WAYS AND MEANS.

PATRICIA was prepared to dislike Nelly. Had she not been the cause of a breach between her and her brother, which, though it had been repaired at the time of her own marriage, had left a flaw in their friendship, which she at least never lost sight of? There was a craving for perfection in Patricia's nature which made her intolerant of flaws. Rather than have a flaw in anything she would give it up altogether. She was prepared to dislike Nelly as having exercised some undue influence over her brother; a very common failing among a man's female relations, and which had more than usual excuse in her case, because of the inequality of

position in which they had stood to each other. She debated in her own mind whether it would not be better for her, feeling as she did, to hold aloof altogether, when her father requested her and Anne

"I don't like him," said Mr. Dalrymple, plainly. "He is not a bad fellow, I assure you."

"I think he is a perfect boor."

on the subject, he strongly advised her against such a step.

And Patricia yielded, as she always did yield to her husband. It was part of her duty to yield to

"You have never told me what he is."

"A button-maker."

"What! a maker of buttons ?"

"Oh, Douglas, I thought you were above vulgar prejudices; but you seemed to know the gentleman who was with Mr. Palmer the other evening; who was he?"

"One of the greatest scamps in London. Mr. Palmer is not choice in his company: no, that is not quite just," he added, "for I was once on very friendly terms with him myself; but he has married a sister of Mr. Palmer's. He got into society-nobody knows how-and has cheated everybody right and left with one scheme or another; always contriving to be well paid for his part, and to sell out just in time. I found him out in a direct falsehood one day, and of course I tracked him, and gave him up to justice-of a private kind. His name is Eden."

"Oh, that is Eden! I am sorry the Palmers are connected with him, for they are thoroughly respectNow don't look contemptuous, Douglas; it is

able.

become all in all to her. He was astonished at the reserve of passionate sweetness in her nature; the reserve, for though spent freely on him, there seemed still more behind, and it was so exclusively his own. The man began to love her, as he had never loved before; to love her so that he longed to fall down at her feet and tell her what a wretch he had been. From acting a part towards her now he was free. It needed no simulation to heighten the tenderness that was in his every look and word What would he have given to cast off that slough of past deceit, and stand forth once more her lover, her equal!

But it was utterly hopeless. There was no way out of his entanglements, save one which he had not the moral courage to take. And Patricia was not forgiving, he could see that. She was intensely conscientious in all her words and actions. What a mistake he had made! What a mistake his whole life had been, seen in the light she threw upon it!

"Are we not spending too much?" she said one day; "I could not bear to be living above our means."

"I think we are rather exceeding, my love. It is so very difficult for a man in business to know exactly what his means are," was his guarded

answer.

"Is it? How ?" she inquired.

"Because all that he has made in a year may be swept away in a day. Sometimes the gains of a whole life may go," he replied.

"My father's business is not like that."

"No; he is a maker. It is the merchant who ventures most. A foreign firm may fail owing thousands and tens of thousands; or a precious cargo may go to the bottom, or may lie eating itself up in foreign warehouses, or rotting on foreign wharves."

"That is why you often look so worn and harassed," she said, laying her soft, cool, beautiful hand on his head, and smoothing back the hair from his temples. "We are living recklessly, if that is the case, and it is my fault. It is for me; you do not care for these things," and she took in the room and its upholstery and her own elegant attire at a glance. "And, Horace, neither do I care for them. You would love me just as much in a plain stuff as in this costly silk."

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Very well, dear," said Patricia; and her husband kissed her, and left her standing in pleased content, already thinking how glad she would be to practise this and that economy to save her husband's purse, which was his life so long as he had to labour, and give his days and years in exchange for it—and his soul and conscience too, if she had known all.

She was ready equipped for walking when Anne came. Before to-day she would have ordered round the brougham, which she hired from the nearest livery stable, though Miss Macnaughten's house was not distant more than a quarter of an hour's walk; and

"Horace," she said in a tone of tender reproachfulness, "do not say that; I know I am cold and haughty in manner, but I cannot bear humility from you. I am anxious about this matter," she added, going back to the subject of ways and means. "I could not bear to think that we were using what was not our own. Let us begin to retrench at once, if we are spending more than it is safe for us to spend. Do you think we are ?"

They were received into the pretty morning room, where the ladies were at work, and received with an ease and cordiality by the others which rendered Nelly's shyness less observable and less painful to herself. Patricia, who had been prepared to dislike her, and perhaps expected a showy, somewhat forward girl, would not allow that she was agreeably dis

"But I do not mean to save and scrape. I don't think I am cut out for that," she answered. "It is to make large, clear, definite reduction that I mean. First, let us quit this house."

He was ready with an objection. The lease had yet nearly two years to run.

“We could sell the lease," she replied; " and even if we did not, it would be better to quit it. It is too large for me to overlook, and the waste of labour it entails is excessive. We could live in some little villa in one of the suburbs at a third of the cost." "And see nobody," he said.

"Do you call me nobody?" she answered playfully. Horace had never seen her so fully roused, nor half so beautiful.

"I was not thinking of myself," he said sadly; and at the moment he spoke the truth, though the excitement of society had become to him a necessity. "I have seen a great many people lately, and I don't know that I am much the better for it. These acquaintances never become friends, and one sees only

first cold salutation, and merely shook hands with her at parting, after a call of formal brevity.

She is not what I should have expected," she said to Anne; "but I cannot think how she managed to captivate Harry so completely."

"Don't you think her beautiful?"

"No, hardly. She is rather pretty; but she is quiet and ladylike."

Patricia was just, and her sense of justice would not allow her to condemn Nelly for imaginary faults; but a woman who, like Patricia, could not fail to know that she herself was beautiful, stands at a disadvantage before a quite different type of loveliness.

"No, I don't think her merely a pretty girl. She has one of those faces that don't fade, that only look the more angelic the more worn and aged and suffering they are. I am quite in love with her myself."

"That is so like you, Anne," replied Patricia, smiling; "but I will allow that she is not vulgar and offensive as your little friend Mrs. Jobson is; and I like the other ladies very much indeed, especially the elderly one."

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Can

In the church there are several mural tablets erected-some by comrades to the memory of a departed messmate, and some by parents as a record in marble of their child's good and noble qualities. One commemorates the officers and men, thirty-nine in number, who died of yellow fever on board H.M.S. Scout, between the years 1836 and 1839, on the West Coast of Africa, and at the island.

Opposite the church are the Marine Barracks, capable of accommodating about 150 men. By these sea-soldiers nearly all the work of the island is done. They are carters, farm-labourers, masons, lime-burners, bricklayers, carpenters, wheelwrights, and military guards. The barracks, two storeys high, are comfortable, airy, and well ventilated. In the upper are the dormitories in which the men sleep in hammocks; on the ground floor are situated the messrooms. The men have a readingroom and library supported entirely by themselves. They have also access to the church lending library, so that, taken altogether, they are very fairly provided with the means of mental recreation.

We must not omit looking in on "The Factory," where the men are at work, some as blacksmiths and engine-fitters, and others as assistants to the civilian artificers, whose duties are much the same as those of the workmen in the dockyards of England. All repairs of an ordinary kind required by the cruisers can be done at the island, and it is only in case of a breakdown of a very serious nature that ships require to be sent home. The working hours are the same as in the other departments of the establishment. Out of twelve hours, the officers and men have but two and a half for refreshment and rest. This brief period of cessation from toil may suit the African, but experience shows that it is not sufficient for the European unaccustomed to work exposed to a heat of 120° to 130° in the sun.

Passing the Barracks, we come to a building which stands almost in the centre of the little town, and which was once the object of attraction to all

ask for anything necessary for the comfort or luxury of life in a tropical climate that I cannot get here?" The reputation of this store had spread far and wide in the navy. To the officers who landed from the various ships, and who were strangers to the residents, it used to be a kind of club, where they met in the afternoon when they had finished their duty or completed their pleasure-trips. This was the case a few years ago, but the store has since been closed by an order from the Admiralty, and its place is now supplied by a canteen. In the store a visitor could purchase a very pretty case of Ascension curiosities, which consisted of two "wide-awakes" and their eggs, two or three turtles' eggs, a young turtle about three inches long, a land-crab, several shells peculiar to the island, and a few pieces of black and grey lava.

On our way to "the west end" of the town we pass the various officers' quarters and the officers' messroom. All the houses are low, and, except for the verandahs round each, ill adapted to the requirements of a hot climate. We next arrive at the Naval Hospital, or, as the authorities will have it, the "Sick Bay of the ship Ascension." The building consists of two blocks-one of stone, the other of wood. In the first are the dispensary, the quarters for sick officers, and the large ward for general diseases. The second block is called "the fever ward," but it is used for other diseases, and only set apart when necessary for contagious fever cases. The sick are generally patients from the West African Squadron-sufferers from low coast-fever, ague, rheumatism, and incipient consumption. To hasten their recovery they are supplied with all the luxuries that the island can produce, such as milk, fresh vegetables, and fresh meat.

About half a mile further west is George Town Cemetery. It is scarcely possible to imagine a more dreary spot than this "God's acre." All attempts to rear shrubs of any kind have hitherto proved useless, and are likely to continue so, since the soil is thoroughly impregnated with saltpetre, and exposed to the winds as they rush from the mountains through the ravines towards the sea. Hence the appearance presented by the cemetery is one of complete desolation. Not a blade of grass, not even a weed, grows there. The soil is of a light-brown colour with patches of white salt here and there, and nothing to relieve the weari