mind frost, or even snow; she liked an easterly wind; she delighted in the wild northern blasts, and was amiable in a tropical heat which might have proved too great even for a negro; but rain, fog, damp-under these, whether they came severally or collectively, Edwina succumbed. It was of no use speaking to or trying to amuse her, or remarking that it might be finer to-morrow. For the time being she was inconsolable. Mental resources she had none; and accordingly the moment physical influences were against her, down she sank into a Slough of Despond from which it required something a vast deal stronger and more exciting than her usual surroundings to extricate her.

Rachel knew this so well, her experience of Edwina's depression and irritability was so long, that she never now tried expostulation or remonstrance; never suggested practising this duet, or trying that song; never asked her sister's opinion of a new design, or strove to interest her in any one of the score of trifles that make up the sum-total of most young girls' lives.

As a rule, it was best to let the fit have its way; the absence of all opposition prevented any of those ebullitions of temper which proclaimed Edwina her mother's own child. Sometimes when Lady Moffat herself was out of sorts on these occasions the pair exasperated each other to such a degree, there occurred sundry passages of arms that filled the elder girl with unspeakable shame and terror. Then would Edwina go to her own room, and, banging the door and locking it securely, betake herself to bed, no matter what time of day it chanced to be; whilst Lady Moffat would transfer the burden of her wrath to her firstborn, and pour out on Rachel's devoted head those vials of wrath

the younger girl was so apt to fling back undutifully in the face of her parent.

Let who would be wrong, Rachel never proved in the right; she always came in for the heat and the burden of whatever domestic quarrel or domestic trouble might be on hand.

'Poor scapegoat!' Edwina often exclaimed, coming upon her crying as though her gentle heart would break; but her sympathy evaporated in words; though Heaven only knows, lacking the ensample of that sweet unselfish nature, what the strong, handsome, hoydenish, boyish girl would have grown up.

'Why don't you say something, Rachel Edwina at length asked pettishly, closing her book and turning her head to the window, close beside which the elder sister sat quietly at work.

All was dull and gray without, but her face wore a quiet smile. As her needle flew in and out she was all unconsciously entwining with the pattern some tracery of her own future-fair fancies such as girls weave, dreams of the hereafter gentle spirits sometimes live to find realised.

Why don't you speak? Your best friend-if you have one, which I very much doubt-could not certainly call you a lively companion.'

'I thought you wanted to finish that novel,' explained Rachel meekly.

'Novel, indeed! I wish the author were here; I would give him a piece of my mind he would not like, I fancy!'

'She,' amended the other, looking at her work approvingly; it was a pretty triumph for a needle to have achieved, and the girl, perhaps, approved of it as well as the fanciful future she had stitched in with it.

'She' repeated Edwina, turning to the title-page. O, so it is! Well, she, then, Miss Particular; you are dull enough, gracious knows, but you are better than this trash.' 'Thank Rachel, laughing.

you, Dwina,' said

'I cannot think what possessed papa to drag me away from Scarborough in that erratic fashion,' I went on the other. 'It was not very lively there, except for mamma and that odious Miss Banks; but in comparison to this-' and comprehending Kensington Gardens, Holyrood House, the whole parish, and her present existence in one wave of her hand, Edwina left the utter monotony of the position to her sister's imagination.

'It is very lonely for you, poor dear,' acquiesced Rachel. 'Indeed it is. You see,' went on the frank young lady, with a portentous yawn, 'you are not much.'

'I am afraid I am very little,' agreed Rachel, and she meant the remark fully; for, save in the eyes of Sir John, her retiring manners, her quiet ways, had failed to find favour.

'Of course I do not mean that you are not as good as gold,' explained Edwina.

'And as heavy; I understand, dear,' said her sister.

'O, if you are going to be cross and disagreeable-'

'I, Dwina!' and the girl laid down her work and looked towards the fireplace in amazement.

'No, I did not intend to say that,' cried Edwina, in a fit of compunction. I don't know what I intended, but it is dreadfully dull here; horribly, frightfully, fearfully, unspeakably dull!' 'I wish I could make it better for you,' said Rachel.

'But you can't, so there is no

use in wishing. What news did Hal send you this morning?'

'Not much. Hal's forte, as you are aware, is not letter-writing.'

Still he did write, and at considerable length, too; tell me all he said.'

'He said mamma was well, and Phil well, and Ralph well, and himself well; that mamma seemed to find Scarborough dull; that Lord Chesunt and Captain Battersley are gone, and that they all want to know what you did to offend his lordship.'

'O! he was offended. I am glad of that.'

Rachel looked at her sister with some curiosity.

How did you manage it, Dwina?' she asked.

'You know he had been too ill, he said, or so Captain Battersley said, for some days to leave his room; and yet that unlucky morning when papa came down there he was on the beach, bathchair and servant, looking about him, seeing what he could see. He was there when we returned from our sail, and made a remark to me I did not like about Mr. Lassils. He got as good as he gave, I can tell you. He won't meddle in my business again, I fancy, in a hurry.'

'But what did you say?' asked Rachel, in an agony of apprehension.

'Never you mind,' answered Edwina, resuming her lounging position; for she had sat bolt upright whilst referring to this passage of arms. Go on; tell me more that Hal writes.'

'The weather has been rough there lately,' proceeded Rachel, after a moment's pause, ' and they have not been able to go out boating more than twice since you left-'

'Yes; go on.'

I would rather not give it you,' said Rachel, looking at her with a troubled expression in her usually placid face.

And I would rather you did; and you shall! Rachel, have I ever refused to show you anything? Give me that letter like a darling; give it to me like a dear.'

'I think you ought not to ask me, Dwina, when I tell you it would grieve me very much to do what you want.'

'I think I ought to ask you, for it grieves me very much not to get all I want.'

With a sigh Rachel produced her brother's epistle.

'You will see why I did not want you to read it, Dwina,' she said. 'I wish Hal would not write as he does.'

'Poor boy, what an awful scrawl!' exclaimed Edwina, as she pulled the enclosure out of the envelope, and began to read:

"Dear Old Thing" Well, I'm sure!' commented the girl. "Dear Old Thing,-Thanks, ever so many, for your note and the needful. What a stunning girl you are very different from the future Viscountess, who never can

keep a sixpence to bless either herself or her friends with. Of course you know about the governor coming down so 'unexpected,' as the servants say, and the jolly row there was between him and the mater, who, between ourselves, has been going it since we came here. There seems, so far as I can gather, to have been a deuce of a shindy about £. 8. d. and other matters. He was quite right to whisk Eddy off with him. People were talking about her and the sickly-looking lord in a way that made me long to kick some fellow. By the bye, can you tell us what she said to Chesunt to make him so angry? We were not able to get it out of Battersley, but have heard indirectly his lordship declares the next time he takes the slightest notice of a pretty girl he will first make sure she has been brought up as a lady. Pleasant for us,

isn't it?

Lassils seems inconsola

ble at her departure. He was awful spoons; and I really think if the eighty thousand pounds had not been in the way, he would have stood his chance of getting 'No' from the governor. What he could see in her I am sure I don't know; we are all agreed she is far too fast. We did not want her out with us that morning she dished her goose; but she would come. Lassils seemed to like it, though.

"The mater is well, but inconsolable for want of her dear toady; and Winter has been having a bad time of it. We are all living in hopes the 'Banks and Braes,' as we call her, may soon return to cheer my lady up a little. Chesunt has gone, and Lassils is going. His fair charmer is expected in England, or has come; which is it? Sometimes I think she is a myth; so if you see a clerk from the War Office loafing around Palace

Gardens, you had best lock Eddy up. All the rest of us are well. It has been too rough to go sailing; but we have had some good rides about the country. I wish you were here. It is a crying shame you never go anywhere. Your loving brother,

"HAL MOFFAT."

'O, very well, Master Hal,' said Edwina, folding up this epistle, 'I am too fast, am I? and you wonder what people see in me. And you did not want to take me with you. Very well; just wait till you come wanting to borrow a sovereign next time, and you'll see whether you get it.'

'I don't think he would get it in any case, Dwina,' said Rachel, smiling. You are always as short of money as he is.'

'Well, perhaps I am,'answered Edwina, smiling too; and then she walked back to the hearth, and, laying her head on the mantelpiece, stood looking thoughtfully into the fire.

Rachel followed her, and, taking the letter from her unresisting fingers, tore it into very small pieces and threw them on the blazing coals.

'I ought not to have kept it at all,' she remarked-'not for a moment. Hal should not write about mamma in that way.'

'Pooh!' said Edwina. 'What does it matter? Every one must know she has not the sweetest temper in the world.'

'And to say that she and papa had quarrelled,' went on Rachel, pursuing her own train of thought.

'I have not the slightest doubt but they did. At the best of times she would provoke a saint, but since we went to Scarborough you can't imagine how much worse she has been. You should hear her rating Winter. She tried it

with me, but I walked out of the room. If you had been there you would have come in for all of it.'

'Dwina, I do wish, dearRachel was beginning, when the sound of a thundering doubleknock resounded through the silent house.

'Hush!' said Edwina, holding up her hand.

'Who can it be?' marvelled Rachel; for they knew no one in town likely to call, and, indeed, were generally supposed to be absent from London.

Edwina stole to a door, not generally used, opening into a little side hall, and softly unclosing it, stood listening, her hand still raised to enforce silence on her sister.

'Mr. Lassils, I hope,' she said, in a whisper, parodying the wellknown story of the sailor and the tracts. Mr. Woodham, I fear. Miss Banks, by- and with a countenance expressive of the most extreme disgust she retreated from her position. 'Don't see her, Rachel,' she entreated. 'There, I knew that stupid Simonds would show her in! Tell him to say we are sick, dead, anything. There, now!'

'Miss Banks,' announced Simonds; and without leaving Edwina even the chance of retreat, that lady followed straight through the outer drawing-room, where Simonds had meant to leave her, and entered the inner apartment, to which, when Lady Moffat was at home, she considered herself privileged.

'Well, dear, and how are you?' she began, shaking hands with Rachel, whom she would have kissed, only that she had never yet got upon terms of what she called 'real friendliness' with the young people in Holyrood House. I felt I must come round and

have a peep at you. And how are you, Edwina? she added, catching a glimpse of the younger sister buried in her easy-chair. Have

you got a cold? she asked, glancing at the fur cloak and the girl's rueful expression of counten

ance.

Very ungraciously Edwina half rose from her seat and presented, or rather allowed Miss Banks to take, two of her fingers.

'You nasty rude little monkey, I should like to shake you,' thought the spinster; whilst Rachel, inwardly vexed and mortified, answered for her,

She

'No, she has not a cold. is only out of sorts. She is always miserable on a wet day.'

Like her mamma,' said Miss Banks genially.

'Mamma is not fond of rain either,' acquiesced Rachel.

'Mamma hates rain, and so do I,' amended Edwina, sinking back into her former position, and taking up the despised novel as armour defensive and offensive against Miss Banks' advances.

Perhaps it was because her sister treated the visitor with such scurvy politeness that Rachel exerted herself more than usual in order to place Miss Banks at her ease. Perhaps, also, there was something in the fact that for the first time she could speak freely and naturally without the fear of giving offence-a fear ever present when Lady Moffat chanced to be of the company. Whatever the cause, Miss Banks felt that she had never before seen the girl to full advantage, and she wondered more and more at the repugnance-for, indeed, it amounted to repugnance-which her mother seemed to feel towards her.

'I am going back to Scarborough to-morrow,' explained Miss Banks; 'so I called to-day that I might take back the

latest news from Palace Gardens with me, and also ask if you had any little parcel you wanted sent.'

'I think not, thank you,' said Rachel. Papa took charge of a little piece of lace I worked for mamma. Perhaps she showed it to you,' added the girl, with a faint colour rising in her cheeks, and a certain nervous hesitation in her manner.

'O yes,' answered Miss Banks. 'Lovely, lovely; just like gossamer.' She had seen Lady Moffat rend it in pieces; but there was no need to tell Rachel how she had picked up a morsel and lamented over its destruction.

'And how do you think mamma really is asked the girl, after they had talked for a few minutes about point and Mechlin and Spanish and other of the many styles she had studied so carefully at South Kensington. 'Do you think she is better; that Scarborough has benefited her as much as we hoped it would?'

'No, my dear, I don't,' said Miss Banks, who always said she was nothing if not candid (Mr. Lassils amended, 'worse than nothing always'); and to be quite frank with you—'

'Mamma is perfectly well. You must not let any one frighten you, Rachel,' interposed Edwina at this juncture, speaking without raising her eyes from her book. 'Mamma is as strong as I am, there!' and she snapped out the last word in fierce defiance of Miss Banks and all her words and statements.

Even Miss Banks was disconcerted by this sally. For a second she looked doubtfully at Rachel, who, blushing crimson, felt so ashamed she could not speak, and then proceeded with her unfinished sentence as though no remark had intervened.

'I am afraid she never will be