"The figure, oh youthful Chancellor of the Exchequer?'

"Well, let me see; hack, Pompey, Cæsar, custom-house and all, three dollars and fifty cents."

"Half a dollar more, by Jove, than I paid, after all."

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Yes, but you paid three to lose our luggage; I only three fifty to get it back."

"Macte novâ virtute puer.' Now there's just time before tea to get a clean shirt and a wash."

"Two-thirds of mankind have no shirts;' who lectured me for worshipping fine linen?"

"Ay, but that was when the portmanteaus were safe in the customhouse for the night. Now, remember, we start West to-morrow morning. We have been lingering about these Falls too long, and know them inside and out."

"I'll go and have our bill got ready." And so they went into the hotel together.

Left ruminant on the verandah, I put my feet on the rail, tilted my chair gently, and watched the twilight fading, and a star or two coming out over the rapids.

Rumination No. 1.-There is much to be said for travelling in pairs,-particularly if there is about half a generation between you and your companion. If you are of the same age, you are too much alike, and get no good out of one another. There should be three, if they are all of about the same age, to travel together satisfactorily. Unless, indeed, it be on a honeymoon ! But, with men, a full generation separates you too far. father, or young enough to be your son, A man old enough to be your lives in another world. He can't help it, or you either. However much you may love or respect one another, there is a gulf of inexorable years between you, and your intercourse has constraint marked on it.

Rumination No. 2.-Shall I go in and pay my bill too, and get off West by the same train to-morrow as my new acquaintance? Of all hotel bills I am not sure that American are not the least to my taste. Simple enough, no doubt. Four dollars, or four and a half a day clears everything, and saves trouble and arithmetic. But this same unaccommodating rigidity of charge becomes more aggravating than even the European franc for a bougie, if you often lunch and dine out, as a vagabond is apt to do. Does not democracy break down a little in this hotel system in the New World? A European table d'hôte is always cheerful, even if you are too proud or bashful to speak to your neighbour. An English coffee-room coffee-room probably doesn't satisfy your gregarious instincts, but is often cosy, and in any case you have your paper to fall back on. But this horrible length of meals,-breakfast seven to twelve, dinner twelve to six, and so on, -and the bare, comfortless room, with, go in when you will, small bunches and units of humanity dotted about the dreary length of tables, silent, bent on getting through, weighed down by the delusive variety of the carte. Where can it all end but in blue devils and dyspepsia?

Rumination No. 3.-What's this? Ah, one of the documents my friend has dropped.

Let me see. Ah, here it is again. The great West the path of empire, and Nevada recommended as the finest opening for the emigrant, and her mines as the most splendid investment for the capitalist. The most prudent man in Nevada, it seems, expects to get, and actually gets regularly, at least one per cent a month for his money. Wh-e-e-w! What would our old Iron Duke have said, with his 'high interest, bad security' dictum? These hifaluting descriptions remind one of the recruiting sergeant's picture of Mexico, which lured Birdofredum Sawin to enlist for the war. Let me see, how does it run?

West with our people. The Illinois Central, the Burlington and Chicago, the Union and Pacific, the Kansas, and I know not how many other powerful corporations, with untold quantities of land at their disposal, all tugging away at the old mother of nations-like the litter in some deep-strawed farm-yard at the mother of pigs. For a vagabond of some years' standing, who has only of late been a sojourner in his own country, it is reassuring to find that the indomitable self-reliance of his countrymen continues unshaken. Read our newspapers, and you may fancy that society at home is honeycombed, from top to bottom, and that Old England is going cheerily to the dogs; but who ever met an Englishman who had the slightest misgivings in the heart of him as to the future of the empire on which the sun never sets. Not even Mr. Carlyle, though he did write "over Niagara, and after."

On the whole, I think I will settle to go West to-morrow. So now, to get through the ordeal of supper. I must try to hitch up with my two countrymen -for, of all the human race, Americans at meals are the most difficult to break the ice with, and solitary feeding is an abomination. Then another smoke in the verandah, my bill, packing, and to bed for the last time with the Falls' lullaby in one's ears.

CHAPTER XLI.

PATTY'S ADVISERS.

WHEN Paul Whitmore went away, Mrs. Downes wished her husband would go downstairs with him. She wanted to get rid of Mr. Downes; she cared little that he should be courteous to the artist. The short interview between the two men had shown her there could be no friendship between them.

"So much the better-it makes me all the safer."

Patty had studied her husband's character; his was just one of the natures she had power to read thoroughly, and she had realized painfully during the last half-hour that all his idolatry, all her beauty, would fail to keep her on the throne she now filled in Mr. Downes's mind, if he ever came to know about her origin.

"He's not up enough yet among great people himself to be liberal about such a misfortune," Patty sighed, "and he's "and he's right. If one wants to climb, one must do it boldly; there's no use in stopping to see who one kicks down as steppingstones, and people can't climb high who have any drag to pull them down. Paul will never speak about Ashton to my husband, I know he won't; and I don't mean ever to see his wife, and I don't fancy," she smiled, "that Mrs. Whitmore will hear a single word about me or my portrait."

While Patty stood thinking, Mr. Downes had been bending over the canvas. He looked at his wife

"That is a clever young fellow, Elinor; but he has a very objectionable manner : he wants deference-I think you must keep up your dignity a little more, darling. Mr. Whitmore scarcely seems to feel that it is a privilege to paint such a face as yours. I came up to tell you that Henrietta has come to luncheon the truth is, I asked her

:

yesterday. I-I am very anxious you should see a good deal of Henrietta, darling; she knows everybody, and there is a certain style about her, and-and-" Here Mr. Downes floundered; a rising flush on the lovely pink cheeks warned him that he was getting into trouble.

But Patty's natural coolness saved him from the petulant answer a more sensitive, more loving wife would possibly have been betrayed into making. She looked at her husband and smiled.

"Mrs. Winchester is your cousin, Maurice. I hope she will always find a pleasure in coming to see me. Shall we go down to her?"

Mr. Downes pulled out his long whiskers; he had expected a different answer, and, not being a quick-witted man, he was disconcerted. He could not find fault with his wife's words, and yet they did not satisfy him. Since their arrival in Park Lane he had become aware of an increasing sense of disappointment. His wife was charming, he had never seen any one so beautiful,-she had far less of girlish ignorance than might have been expected from her age and secluded education, and yet he was not satisfied. He did not know what he wanted. thought that he wished the playful archness which gave Mrs. Downes her most bewitching expression, should be used for him as well as against himfor his wife was never so gay and charming as when she made him give up his most determined resolutions; but he was not even sure about this.

He

"She is thoroughly sweet-tempered," he said, as he followed her downstairs : "most women dislike their husband's relations ;" and then he sighed—he was actually silly enough to think that, perhaps, if Elinor were not quite so easy-tempered, she might be more loving.

Mrs. Winchester rustled all over as

she rose and shook hands with her cousin's wife.

Mrs. Winchester was a finely-formed woman, with a face that had once possessed the beauty of a fresh complexion, and large bright unmeaning blue eyes, but to freshness had succeeded the peculiar coarseness which told of open-air driving in all weathers, and habits of luxury. Mrs. Winchester looked now like a Juno rather the worse for wear; and, conscious of her losses, she strove to hide them by an elaborate costume and a judicious use of powder and pale blue ribbon.

Mr. Downes kept silent; he left his wife and her visitor to entertain each other, but the talk soon flagged. Mrs. Winchester occupied herself in criticising the trimming on Patty's dress, and in taking stock of the rings she wore; her eyes travelled carefully from the bow of the tiny shoe to the waves of bright sunny hair; not in rapid glances, but in a practical, methodical fashion. Mrs. Winchester was taking notes, and meant to remember them.

Mr. Downes grew impatient of the silence. "Elinor has just given her first sitting to your artist, Henrietta."

"Your artist!" The cousins were looking at each other; neither of them saw the lightning in Patty's dark blue eyes. Anger is so terrible in blue eyes. There is a steely brightness in it which brown eyes have no power to render: in the last there is the glow of passion; in the other, the glare of stern displeasure. But Patty's feelings had not reached such a pitch as sternness.

"Good gracious," she thought, "if those two are going to discuss Paul, I'd better stop my ears. De Mirancourt said, 'When you are bored, think of something pleasant.""

Mrs. Downes forced her attention away, though she longed to listen; and reminded herself that in a fortnight she was to be presented at Court, and that she should certainly make Mrs. Winchester look very passée as they drove along side by side. But Patty

was only a woman, though she was so clever; and she could not help, after a minute, gathering up the crumbs of talk

between the faded Juno and her husband.

"But still, Maurice, you must acknowledge he is a remarkable person-not much appreciation for style, and that kind of thing, you know; but he quite amuses me these fresh unconventional people are so original and amusing. I expect your wife, now, would quite take his fancy."

His cousin left off speaking, but Mr. Downes stood listening; he wished to give her opportunity to explain her last remark; then seeing the lady sink back gracefully into her chair, he turned his head stiffly towards her-slowly as well as stiffly, as if he were striving not to impair the upright set of his collar.

"I suppose you mean in common with the effect produced on every one else; otherwise I am at a loss to conceive how my wife should have any special charm for this Mr. Whitmore."

It was just at this point that Patty roused, or rather that her interest forced her to listen.

What had gone before to cause her husband's words? She met his eyesconscious that her own were full of eager terror, and that she was blushing.

Mr. Downes was delighted. He thought his wife had been annoyed by Mrs. Winchester's remark, and to see her thus appealing to his protection against his cousin's sneer gave him an exquisite sense of pride and power.

At that moment he would have done anything she asked.

"How silly Maurice looks when he smiles in that way," Patty said to herself, quite restored and composed now that she felt safe again.

"You dear Maurice," Mrs. Winchester smiled, in a large, encouraging mauner -she was not quite so rich as Mr. Downes, and it was delightful to have a chance of patronising him,-" don't you see what I mean? Artists always admire natural beauty far more than that which is trained and conventional. Don't look ashamed, my dear Elinor; you will lose your freshness quite soon enough." Mrs. Winchester's silk

a

flounces rustled again in little chorus of applause.

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Patty gave her a sweet, innocent glance. 'Oh, dear, I hope not! I want to keep fresh and natural for a long, long time; it must be so dreadful to look faded, and to have to think of what is becoming and all that; it would soon make me quite vain, I'm afraid."

Mr. Downes was startled; it was impossible that his wife could be acting, she spoke so simply and heartily, and yet when he saw the discomfiture in his cousin's face, he wished Elinor had said something less personal.

"She couldn't mean it, of course, it was a chance shot," and then he laughed to himself, "Poor Henrietta! I am afraid it came rather near the mark."

"When you come down to see us at Brookton, my dear, you will be quite in your element," said Mrs. Winchester; "you may be as wild as you like at Brookton,-milk the cows, you know, or anything that takes your fancy. Ah, Maurice, when will you settle down at Hatchhurst, and be the model landlord Charles is, with his cottages and his prize pigs?"

Mr. Downes had grown angry; he waited to swallow his indignation before. he spoke, and his wife answered—

"I must come to you to teach me a good deal first, Henrietta; if you know how to milk cows, I suppose you understand all the rest. You see I have spent so much of my life at school that I am alarmingly ignorant on all these homely subjects; but I've no doubt I shall like Brookton and the prize pigs immensely. I don't think Maurice looks old enough for a model landlord, do you? We'll wait to go to Hatchhurst till we want repairing, won't we, dear?"

She said this with the arch playfulness her husband loved so much; she laid her hand on his arm, and glanced up for the smile which she knew was waiting for her.

"Little fool," said Juno, in a puffet; and then aloud, "My dear child, you don't imagine that people live in London all the year round, do you?"

Oh no ;

but then we shall prefer to go abroad. We like variety and amusement. I'm afraid your grand countryhouses full of dull English people would bore us terribly, wouldn't they, Maurice?"-she had caught a glimpse of frowning between her husband's eyebrows-" although we had the occasional relaxation of milking, you know." Her laugh rang out merrily; even Mrs. Winchester believed that though her young cousin stung, it was by chance, and that she was as free from guile as a road-side nettle.

"You are so young, my dear, you don't know how very pleasant such gatherings are, besides the introductions they lead up to. Why, I expect Lord Dacre and his brother, Lady Elsland and her two daughters, Sir John and Lady Pierpark, and many others of the same class."

"But are they amusing?"

Mrs. Winchester looked gravely at her cousin Maurice; her own father had been a rich manufacturer without any ancestry to speak of; she thought as much of a title as poor Mrs. Bright did. It seemed to her that any one sufficiently audacious to despise a title must go wrong, and she was sure of Maurice's sympathy on this point.

"Elinor is joking," he said; "we shall both enjoy a visit to Brookton, but I want you two to plan some dinners and entertainments; in fact, whatever you please. It seems to me quite time Elinor should show herself in her own house."

Luncheon was announced, and Patty made no answer to her husband's suggestion; she was thinking

"I was in too great a hurry, after all, and yet I don't know. So long as one's husband has a certain position, nothing else matters really when people have once seen me; it does not signify who or what he is, and he is very presentable. Poor fellow ! does he really think my life is going to be shaped out between him and that fat vulgar woman ?"

The "vulgar woman," going on before on Mr. Downes's arm, was saying

"She'll do famously, after a bit, you