then gave a curious smile; her face said so plainly he could not.

Why, to her he seemed quite old! A faithful, ungainly friend might be his role: doing good to all, and liked by all; but the hero-that was absurd!

"I own it does seem slightly unusual to have a little lady of your age to talk to; except when I am among my own people,” he went on; "and, indeed, as I seldom go into society, I rarely meet older ones."

"But what amusements have you, then, after all your hard work?"

"I stay at home, in barracks," he answered, with a lurking smile on his face; "get through a little reading; have a pipe, by myself or with any other of us who happens to be there; and get hold of a paper."

Mab tried hard for some seconds to picture what charms such a mode of enjoyment could possess, but the premises in her little brain being too vague, she gave up

endeavouring to draw any satisfactory conclusions therefrom. So she proceeded to tell him confidentially of the routine of her old life (as she called it), which seemed so much

66

more real" than this one; till he fancied he

could see her up at daybreak, to see the sunrise from the common; or at noontide (when she was "much younger "), half-lying among the sedges of the little Nye, with her bare feet in the water, and all the wood rising thick and steep above and behind her.

When her father's carriage-wheels first sounded she sprang away eagerly, however, and he was left alone. But, somehow, the name of Goldenlocks kept repeating itself in his brain all the evening-little Goldenlocks!

As for Madame, she returned well-pleased; having gained her end, in having that certain, most important conversation with her aged husband, which Mab suspected. She never even troubled her head as to how her

little ruse had succeeded; if well-why, good; but if explanations proved necessary, it would only amuse her to invent them. She loved these little, and often unnecessary, stratagems for their own sake-they kept her hand in !

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CHAPTER V.

"Every white will have its blacke,
And every sweete its soure."

Percy's Reliques.

T had been raining heavily since morning,

IT

and only about four in the afternoon did the weather begin to show signs of clearing, and allow the visitors in the hotel. to hope for some fresh air before the table-d'hôte dinner at half-past six. Hardly an inmate but felt more bored hour after hour, as the rain came down steadily in great sheets, with a swishing, dreary sound.

Even the occupants of the billiard-room were depressed, despite the help of constant smoking and unintermittent play; and the

rolling of the balls sounded at last even monotonous in their ears. They were mostly middle-aged men, with an air of wellshaven prosperity about them; and when, with careful civility, they addressed any stranger, one naturally expected their first remarks (after the weather) to be of shares, or perhaps relative to cotton. But, though well-to-do, such an element could hardly be lively; and only the youngest among them, who considered himself one of the most intelligent and entertaining townsmen in his particular mercantile community, tried to sustain his reputation by painfully laboured little jests and jokes, which at times evoked some heavy laughs or as heavy answering gibes.

Some other groups were composed of more diversified elements, however there were one or two well-dressed, but little known men, who spoke of London as their dwelling-place with a vagueness which neither they themselves nor any other folk dreamt of changing into a clear definition.