and I think that my humble one lies in being a good nurse, in an aptness for soothing and attending on the sick. Alfred lodged with an overseer and his wife (the man had something to do with mines), and though they were attentive to him, in their rough, free way, they had no idea of those cares and precautions necessary in illness. There is no

need, however, to linger over this part of my story. With the aid of warm weather, and the blessing of ONE, who helps in time of need, I got Alfred round again. By the end of August he was quite well, and

I went back to Seaford.

It was a long journey for me: travelling in those days was not what it is now but I halted at Shrewsbury. We had some very distant acquaintances living there, of whom we knew little more than the name, but my mother wrote to them to receive me, which they kindly did for a night both going and returning. I left Shrewsbury early in the morning, and reached Seaford about eight in the evening.

I never doubted that George Archer would be waiting for me, but when we arrived, and they came flocking round the coach-door, he was not there. Mamma, Lucy, and Mary, but no George. It was a lovely summer's night, the harvest moon near the full, but a dark shade seemed to have fallen on my spirit.

When the heart truly loves, it is always timid, and I did not inquire after him. Yet we talked a great deal during our walk home, and at supper. Chiefly about Alfred: the situation of his home, the sort of people with whom he lived, his parish duties, the family at Shrewsbury, all sorts of things; it seemed they could never be tired of asking me questions, one upon another. But when Lucy and I went up to our bedroom for the night, I put on an indifferent manner, and asked if they saw much of Mr. Archer.

"Not so much as when you were at home, of course," laughed Lucy; "his attraction was gone. And, latterly, very little indeed. Since the Seafords came, he is often with them. And he is reading with Lord Sale and Master Harry Seaford. They go to him every day."

"Are the Seafords at the castle, then?"

They came in July. Parliament rose early, the king went to Brighton, and all the grandees followed his example of leaving town; we get all the 'fashionable intelligence' here now, Hester."

"Did he know I was expected to-night ?"

"The king?"

"Don't joke, Lucy, I am tired. You know I meant Mr. Archer.

"Yes, he knew it.

We met him this morning, and Mary told him, and I wonder he did not go with us to meet the coach. Perhaps he is dining at the castle; the earl asks him sometimes. Very dangerous to throw him into the society of that resplendent Lady Georgina.'

"Dangerous?"

66

'Well, it would be, I should say, if he were not cased round with your armour.'

How much more nonsense, Lucy? One so high and beautiful as Lady Georgina !"

"That's just it, her beauty," laughed Lucy. "I'll defy the lowliest curate in the church to be brought within its radius and not be touched

with it. Nevertheless, I suppose you'll have your adorer here to-morrow morning, as constant as ever.'

It was the morrow morning when he came. No one was in the room when he entered, and he strained me to his breast, and kissed me tenderly. Oh, my two months' absence were amply repaid by his looks and words of love!

"I thought to have seen you last night," I whispered.

"So did I, Hester. I had been copying some music for Lady Georgina Seaford, and went to the castle with it, after dinner; and the countess and some of them kept me talking till past ten. I was thunderstruck when I took out my watch, for I did not think I had been there an hour."

In his coveted presence, with his tender words, with his looks of love, how could I conjure up uneasy thoughts? And what grated on my feelings in this last speech I drove away.

My mother had made acquaintance with the housekeeper at the castle, a Mrs. Stannard, a kindly gentlewoman. She had been to tea once or twice, and it was from her Lucy got what she called her "fashionable intelligence." One morning, about a week after I got home, she came in and asked if I would like to go to the castle and teach English to the little Lady Ellen Seaford.

I was electrified-frightened—at the proposal, and she proceeded to explain to my mother. This little child, the youngest of the family, had a Swiss governess, but just now had no one to teach her English. Lady Seaford was lamenting this, in the hearing of Mrs. Stannard, and the latter thought of me.

"I am not competent to be a governess; I don't know anything; I never learnt a note of music," I breathlessly interrupted.

"It is only for English, my dear," said Mrs. Stannard; "you are quite competent to that. They don't want music or any accomplishment. Your going to the castle for two or three hours a day would be like pastime, and you would be paid well."

So it was decided that I should go, each day, from half-past two to five, to give Lady Ellen Seaford English lessons, and I entered on my duties on the following Monday.

I went up to the castle with fear and trembling, wondering what real lords and ladies were like, in social intercourse, and how they would accost me, and whatever I should answer; wondering whether I should have to sit in a saloon, all gilding and mirrors. The goose I was! The schoolroom was plain, almost bare, and the lords and ladies were just like other people; the younger ones free and unceremonious in their speech and manners to each other, as we children were at home.

The countess was a tall, stately woman, quiet and reserved. None of her children resembled her but Viscount Sale. She was wrapped in a thick shawl, though the day was hot, and looked ill. One day, in that first week, I think it was on the Wednesday, Lady Georgina came into the room while the little girl was reading to me, and I rose up and curtseyed.

"Don't let me disturb you," she said, in a pleasant, careless tone. "Miss Halliwell, I presume. Has my sister nearly finished reading?"

"Yes," interrupted Lady Ellen, shutting the book of her own accord. "I have read a page, and that's enough. The words are hard, and I don't like it."

The child had not read half enough, but I doubted whether it was my place to differ from her; and, at that early stage, did not presume to do

So. I stood in hesitation.

"Miss Halliwell," said Lady Georgina, bringing forward a huge portfolio, "do you know how to mount handscreens? Look at this pair I have begun. I am not making a good job of them. Can you help me? Mademoiselle knows no more about it than this child. Ellen, let my paintings alone."

As it happened, I did know something about mounting drawings on cardboard, ornamenting screens with gilt flowers, and such like, though I did not pretend to draw, never having been taught. But I must have had some taste for it; for, when a child, I would spend hours copying the landscapes on an old china tea-set, and any other pretty view that fell in my way. George Archer once found one of my old drawings, and kept it, saying he should keep it for ever. Ah me!

I told Lady Georgina I thought I could assist her, but that the little girl had only just begun her studies.

"Oh, her studies are of no consequence for one day," she remarked, in a peremptory tone. "Nelly, dear, go to Mademoiselle: my compliments, and I am monopolising Miss Halliwell this afternoon."

The child went out of the room, glad to be dismissed. She disliked learning English, and had told me her French was less difficult to her. "Do you cut the gilt paper out on a trencher or with scissors ?" asked Lady Georgina. "For the flowers, I mean."

Before I could answer, a merry-looking boy of fifteen, or rather more, looked into the room, and then sprang in. It was the Honourable Harry Seaford.

"I say, Georgy, are you in this place? I have been all over the house after you. Who was to think you had turned schoolgirl again? What are you up to here?"

"Why do you ask?" inquired Lady Georgina, without raising her head from the screens.

"Papa wants to know if you mean to ride with him this afternoon, and he sent me to find you."

"No," she replied. "Tell papa it will be scarcely worth while, for I must begin to dress in an hour. And I am busy."

"You can go and tell him yourself, Madam Georgy. There's Wells, with my pointer, and I want to catch him."

"Where is papa ?"

"Oh, I don't know; in the library, or somewhere."

The lad vaulted from the room and down the stairs as he spoke, and I saw him tearing after Wells, the gamekeeper. Truly these young scions spoke and acted as freely as common people.

When she

Lady Georgina left the room, I supposed to find the earl. came in again, she halted before a mirror that was let into the panel between the windows, and turned some of the flowing curls round her fingers. She caught my earnest gaze of admiration. Her sylph-like

form, her fair neck and arms-for it was not the custom then for young ladies to have these covered-her bright hair, her patrician features, their damask bloom, and the flash of conscious triumph lighting her eye. Very conscious of her fascinations was the Lady Georgina Seaford: I saw it in that moment. She turned sharply round to me:

"What are you thinking of, Miss Halliwell ?"

The question startled me. I was timid and ignorant, and thought I must confess the truth when a noble lady demanded it. So I stammered out my thoughts-that until I saw her I had not deemed it possible for any one to be so lovely.

"You must be given to flattery in this part of the world," she said, with a conscious blush and a laugh of triumph. "Another, here, has avowed the same to me, and I advised him not to come to the castle too often if there were a danger that I should turn his head."

Who was that other? A painful conviction shot over me that it was Mr. Archer.

She seemed quite a creature of impulse, indulged and wilful. Before she had sat twenty minutes, she pushed the drawings together, said it was stupid, and we would go on with it another day. So the little girl

came back to me.

It was five o'clock, and I was putting on my bonnet to leave, when Lady Georgina came into the room again in full dress. They were going out to dinner. An India muslin frock, with blue floss trimming, a blue band round her slender waist, with a pearl buckle, pearl sidecombs in her hair, a pearl necklace, and long white gloves.

"Nelly," she said to her sister, "I want you to give a message to the boys." And she bent down, and whispered the child.

"William or Harry?" asked the little girl, aloud.

"Oh, Harry," replied Lady Georgina. "William would not trouble

himself to remember."

She left the room again. What the purport of her whisper was I of course never knew. Mademoiselle Berri, the Swiss governess, was with us then, writing, and when Lady Ellen ran to the window and got upon a chair to lean out of it, she quitted the table, pulled the child back, and said something very fast in French, to which the child replied equally fast. I could not understand their language, but it seemed to me they were disputing.

"Miss Halliwell will hold me, then," said the little girl, in English, "for I will look. I want to see Georgy get into the carriage. Please hold me by my frock, Miss Halliwell."

I laid hold of the child by the gathers of her buff gingham dress, and the governess began to talk to me. I laughed, and shook my head. "What does Mademoiselle say?" I asked of Lady Ellen.

"Oh, it's about a little girl she knew falling out of a window and breaking her reins. It is all a conte, you know; she says it to frighten me. What do you call reins in English? There's Georgy: she's got on mamma's Indian shawl."

I bent forward over the head of the child. The bright curls of Lady Georgina were just flitting into the carriage, and something yellow gleamed from her shoulders. It was the Indian shawl. The earl stepped

in after her, and following him, in his black evening suit and white cravat, went MY betrothed husband, George Archer. My heart stood still.

"I wish dear mamma was well enough to go out again," sighed the little girl. "Georgy has all the visiting now."

She remained looking after the carriage, and I with her. We saw it sweep round to gain the broad drive of the park. Lord Seaford was seated by the side of his daughter, and he opposite to her.

II.

AUTUMN and winter passed away, and it became very close to the anniversary of the period when Mr. Archer first came as curate. There was no outward change in our position: to those around, the Reverend George Archer was still the engaged lover of Miss Halliwell. But a change had come, and we both knew it.

It seemed that a barrier had been gradually, almost imperceptibly, growing up between us. He was cold and absent in manner, when with me, and his visits to our house were not now frequent. He appeared to be rising above his position, leaving me far beneath. Mr. Coomes had latterly been ailing: it was rarely that he could accept the dinner or evening invitations sent to him, and since the earl's return to Seaford there had been much visiting going on. So the county gentlemen would say, "Then you will come and say grace for us, Mr. Archer," and he always went. It would sometimes happen, when they were going a distance, as on the above day, that Lord Seaford invited him to a seat in his carriage: and he was often, now, a guest at the castle. I have said he was a handsome man: he was more; he was well-informed, elegant and refined as a clergyman, he was regarded as, in some degree, an equal, by the society so much above him, and he was courted and caressed from many sides. Thus it was that he acquired a false estimation of his own position, and ambitious pride obtained rule in his heart. But not for all this was he neglecting me. No, no: there was another and a deeper cause.

:

Easter was later this spring than the last, and, on its turn, the Seafords were to depart for town. My duties at the castle would conclude on the Thursday in Passion week; and, I may mention, that over and above the remuneration paid me, which was handsome, her ladyship the countess pressed upon me a bracelet of enamel, which my mother said must have cost six or seven pounds. I have it still: but it is not fashioned like those that are worn now.

Thursday came, the last day of my attendance; and after our early dinner I set off to walk to the castle. A rumour was afloat that afternoon-one had been to our house and said it-that Mr. Archer had thrown up his curacy. His year had been out three weeks, but he had then agreed to remain on, waiting for something better, at a stipend of 1007. a year. It was impossible for Mr. Coomes now, in his failing health, to do the duty unassisted. I had been looking forward, with eager hope, to the departure of the Seafords, thinking that perhaps our old loving, confidential days might return: and now this rumour! It