whose puritanical soul was scandalised by so much pleasantness between four walls. And this morning it seemed but vanity and vexation of spirit to its mistress also.

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The Ice-Queen is bored. for a comet, an aerolite, or phenomenon of some sort, to break the monotony of existence for her. A restless striving after achievement, that never quite dies in her, becomes a torment, perhaps a danger, in vacant, inactive hours, and revives the strangest wishes and fancies in her idle brain. Pity a Cleopatra, a Zenobia, born out of due time and in quiet English home-life.

She had something to look forward to to-day, however, something that induced her to spend the whole morning over her watercolour sketches that Mr. Romer praised so highly. Mr. Romer, of whom she had seen not a little during the winter in London, and who was expected at Hawkwood this afternoon. He had now been in England for eight months, on a visit which Diana intended not to come to an end.

Towards one o'clock she heard wheels approaching up the drive, and recognised the pretty appointments of Mrs. Damian's ponycarriage. Diana laid aside her brushes with a sigh. Death and periodical domiciliary visits from the Damians, whose little country home was within easy driving distance, were two inevitable evils it was useless to resist. And as there had been a longer interval than usual since she had been invaded by her relations, she prepared to receive them with a good

grace.

Mrs. Damian and Amy entered with a rush, the mother brimful of lively malice, her needle eyes hunting all over the room in search of something to prick.

'Alone, my dearest Di, and industrious as ever!' she began, with a gushing tenderness that put Di on the alert. It was the happiest inspiration to come today. You have generally a houseful; and Amy and I, who live as quietly as mice, never think of you but as in a whirl of distractions and festivities. Tell us all you have been doing. We are perishing for some news-something to amuse us, you know.'

Her abandon of manner would have blinded a stranger; but Diana had almost instantly surmised the truth,—that she had come, not to hear, but to communicate tidings,-something over which she was secretly exulting.

'What can it be? thought Diana satirically. Has the Princess of Trebizonde proposed for her son? or Amy's fiancé lost his elder brother?'

After a quarter of an hour's discursive conversation, Mrs. Damian came out with it, as it were accidentally,

'By the way, we bring a bit of news-good news, and that I know you will be glad to hear for our sakes.'

Diana lifted her eyes inquiringly. Mrs. Damian's twinkled maliciously as she said,

'Gervase.'

'Has fortune favoured him again asked Diana carelessly. 'You don't mean to say you have actually secured the little widow with the large jointure?"

'Nay,' rejoined the mother, 'better than that. The widow was a dear little creature, but underbred terribly underbred, you know. The long and short of the present matter is, that poor dear Otho's unfortunate investment seems likely to turn out well at last. You know what a wretched concern it has been. I never abandoned all hope myself;

but Gervase was so convinced it was a bubble that had burst, that only the other day he was going to part with the whole thing for a mere song, when a whisper reached him to wait; and she proceeded to detail the unforeseen circumstances which had so worked as to convert a comparatively valueless property into a substantial source of income.

'Fortunate indeed,' Diana responded, sincerely this time. The widow with her thousands was well enough; but I quite agree with you, that thousands without the widow is far, far better.'

'You know me, Di,' said Mrs. Damian impressively, that I am the least mercenary person in the world. Yet I cannot express what a weight this news has taken off my mind. I don't mind telling you now that I have been very unhappy about him ever since he went back to Germany.'

'On what account?' she asked curiously.

He is restless and dissatisfied. A perfect disgust for his profession seems growing upon him. He says he is sick of court cabals and petty intrigues, and that he is tired to death of being chiefly known as a leader of cotillons. The plain truth is, Di, he ought to marry.

But he is so fastidious.

One affair after another I have undertaken for him, and all have fallen through, as you know. Gervase will choose for himself. Now he is free to choose where he pleases.'

'Ah,' said Diana, 'even if his choice, like King Cophetua's, should fall on a beggar-maid.'

Mrs. Damian shrank aghast. 'What do you mean? Gervase marry beneath him! It would kill me. But you know how ambitious girls are in these days-or their parents for them-and Gervase is as proud as Lucifer-think

now how his position is altered for the better! If he remains in the service, it will be with surer prospects of advancement. If he leaves it, it will be to settle down. He is now a good parti for any woman in the world-may court and win whom he pleases.'

"If he can get her good-will," put in Diana.

'I have never known him fail there when it was worth the winning.'

The announcement of luncheon checked the repartees just as they threatened to become pointed. Luncheon, of course, was an important event in Sir Adolphus's day. The story of the fortunate turn in Gervase's affairs was told again, and the Baronet delivered himself of some laboured and effective felicitations. The topic occupied the conversation till the visitors took leave-Mrs. Damian with renewed expressions of pleasure and surprise at having found the master and mistress of Hawkwood alone.

Simple Sir Adolphus hastened to relate how their promised guests-the Topnottes-who were sufficiently great guns keenly to interest Mrs. Damian, had been unavoidably detained by illness.

'And Romer, whom we asked to meet them, coming this afternoon,' he ejaculated suddenly, turning to his wife. I forgot him. Dear me how very unlucky!'

Mr. Romer-to meet the Topnottes repeated Mrs. Damian, in a tone of infinite surprise.

At their particular request,' Sir Adolphus explained. The old lord contemplates some important alterations in his chapel, and wants Romer to undertake the design. But, upon my word, Diana, we should have done much better to put him off till next week,—when he must be here to see to the setting up of his foun

Diana took out her watch. 'Yes, why did we not think of it this morning? she said carelessly. It is late now;' and Sir Adolphus was left comparing clocks and watches and timetables, and making complex calculations about trains and telegrams, while the ladies exchanged affectionate adieux.

'I think Diana should be careful whom she asks to Hawkwood,' said Mrs. Damian, slashing the pony spitefully, as she and Amy drove off. I hear Mr. Romer is there constantly. He gives her lessons in London. They say she is for ever at his studio, and constantly seen driving with him in her carriage.'

'I do not believe it,' said the mild Amy; it is only horrid gossip.'

O, there's no accounting for tastes. I have known one or two others who had a fancy for the society of artists and singers, and did not mind compromising themselves in that fashion. But it is very infra dig.; and I never should have thought that Diana-'

'Mamma, mamma, for shame!' expostulated poor Amy, startled out of filial deference, as she not unfrequently was, by her mother's extravagances. How can you say such things of Diana? Why are you always so bitter against her?

He was in London, to give it a trial as a home, and had been treated there right royally. He was pressed with commissions, and from the highest quarters. Pleasant notoriety had turned his head a little. He seemed on his way to become the fashionable art-exponent of his generation, the spoilt child of rich people, great people, cultured people-to unite the prestige of a man of genius with that of a man of the world. A lure.

But for this he must melt himself down, to be recast in a different mould. So much he had already discovered, to his cost. The mainspring of society is selfrepression; the vitality of art is self-assertion and free expansion. Among men of genius the smooth, flexible, symmetrical nature, that can find in the madding crowd a congenial, healthful element, is rare. Val was as smooth as a gnarled oak, and as flexible as its branches. His unequal nature rose to great heights certainly, but at the expense of depression here and there. He had lapses of vacancy, irritability, and oddity -the reaction from extreme tension of the imaginative faculties -states of mental disorder, during which the effort to be pleasant and conversational cost so much as to unfit him for work the next day. Then he had a way of disappointing his patrons. The peacock was secured, a host of jackdaws were collected to come and behold; and lo, and lo, the perverse bird would not spread its tail for admiration! He must subdue these little insubordinations of spirit, if he were ever to occupy the position he dimly sighted, and that Lady Brereton wished him to occupy. His originality was of a kind to stand in

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his way. He must clip it and prune it and pare it. What would follow ?

Why, he said to himself, that a very few more years of this, and he, Val Romer, would have sunk into a most ordinary personage, an alderman of art-growing stout and sleek-modelling flattering likenesses at fancy prices of whomsoever could afford to pay. The strong prosaic tendency in his temperament would be fostered and become dominant, the ideal element sacrificed, the kernel of his merit gone. There are those who can only give the world their best work by keeping out of the world's disturbing influence.

What wedded him to it? For one thing, a friendship there-a relation, but for which he might have thrown up the game as soon as begun, simply because the new atmosphere disagreed with him, and the process of acclimatisation was unpleasant.

Some such thoughts were coursing through his mind as he drove from the station to Hawkwood.

'Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?'

Well, well, he was invited to meet the Topnottes: the most enlightened, as well as the most liberal, of art-patrons; and he was to superintend the placing of his fountain-no need to inquire further into motives.

'Ah, Mr. Romer!'-with an accent of surprise that took him aback.

'What! Did you not expect me?' he rejoined. 'I wrote-'

Diana, smiling faintly at his incorrigible simplicity, interposed reassuringly, extending her hand,

yes, we expected you. Only one disappointment always prepares one for a second; and I am sorry to say our other friends have failed. The Topnottes cannot come.'

Val expressed his disappointment more unreservedly than Diana thought strictly courteous; but such subtleties were beyond him. He took a chair by the fire, facing her.

Any news?' she asked presently. Arrivals from London are always supposed to come laden with intelligence.'

Val had an evening paper, which he at once produced. Men are so literal. The items of news it furnished did not seem to interest Lady Brereton in the slightest degree. Women are so per

verse.

They thawed by degrees as they sat there in the firelight, Val staring at the crackling logs, glancing at intervals at his host

ess.

Spring is cold in the country, is it not?' she said presently. 'Are you sighing for Rome and the Villa Marta?'

'The poor Villa Marta!' he ejaculated; it seems very far off to me now.' Farther off, somehow, just then than heaven or hell.

'The lemon-groves and cypresses and marble columns,' she said, with a little shiver. 'Don't you long for them?'

'Not at this moment, not on a cold day,' he replied, warming his hands over the logs.

'When do you go back there?'

'It is let till July,' he said evasively.

"Ah! Sometimes I fear you have had enough, or too much, of England-of London-already,' she insinuated gently.

It is too noisy for me,' he confessed, after a pause. 'I like to have plenty of room-room to think.'

'I understand,' she said. 'You mean the circle is too large, the crowd of thoughtless commonplace people thronging round you, to whom you are indifferent. But, after all, what does it signify how large may be the outside ring of one's acquaintances? They never really come near one. And the inner circle-of people who can really affect one's happiness-is everywhere and for everybody very small indeed. Whether in London or Rome, it is limited to a few.'

'Very true.'

'It seems to me,' she continued, talking fluently, frankly, to put him at his ease, that no amount of mere additions to one's visitinglist has any real effect on one's life, no more than fifty more or less in a theatre can matter to the actor in a play. But with the inner circle of friends that I spoke of it is different. Any addition to that makes an epoch in one's life, like the discovery of a new little world,' she concluded playfully, rising and crossing to the window, Val watching her graceful movements admiringly, as she leaned out, listening for the tread of her husband's horse. She had just caught the sound coming up the drive.

Then she returned to her seat, and flashed a look across at her guest, saying,

'Do you not think so?' 'Yes. An epoch, for good or evil.'

You are very cautious,' she

said. As for me, I don't forecast the worst that may happen. A new world or a new acquaintance may have perils. I could forget them in the charm of adventure and discovery.'

The occurrence together of Sir Adolphus and the dressing-bell left Diana with the last word of the dialogue, over which Val puzzled agreeably for the next half-hour.

Dinner was less smooth sailing. Diana had asked a few friends, of the outer ring'-the clergyman and his wife, a retired officer, an invaluable fellow-sportsman for Sir Adolphus on his shooting expeditions-good-natured people, always ready to officiate as padding, slyly nicknamed 'Adelphi guests' by the Breretons, but needed to-night to harmonise the circle. Sir Adolphus and Val did not get on.' The sculptor depreciated the ex-civil servant, whose merits he set off to the worst advantage. Feeble as a wit, faded as a beau, the host, contrasted with that piece of organic energy opposite, looked like a Roman patrician of the decadence entertaining his Visigoth conqueror. Sir Adolphus talked platitudes. Val hated them, and, forgetting himself, would come out with a set-down that would have taxed another's good-nature severely. But Sir Adolphus's was infinite, and he looked tolerant, feeling one must make allowance

for Romer.

Val, whilst dressing, had made fifty good resolutions. He would talk little, not lay down the law at all, give in to Sir Adolphus when he could, and, when he could not, maintain a dignified reserve. Why must the parson introduce the subject of politics? Sir Adolphus talked like a wellinformed dullard; Val, like a clever ignoramus, which is as