"I suppose you mean we all are. Maurice seems delighted with yours. Pray, when am I to see this portrait of yours, Elinor?"

"That is exactly what I came for." Patty had managed to avoid Mrs. Winchester's hints about seeing the picture in progress. "I thought, you know, you would judge of it so much better in the frame; the gilding, and all that, improves a picture, just as dress improves a passée

woman."

"Any woman, you mean?" Mrs. Winchester felt rather as a soft comfortable mole must feel, when he meets a hedgehog unawares.

"Oh dear, no." Patty's smile grew sweeter at the discomfiture in those lustreless, colourless eyes. "Some people look actually charming in a dressing gown. Why, there's Venus; I suppose the reason that she's always shown undraped is, because she was too really beautiful to need any adornment in the way of dress."

Mrs. Winchester looked at the beautiful face with severe horror.

"I don't know anything about Venus's dress, I'm sure. I don't think Venus is meant to be talked of, at all; one only looks at her." Patty's eyes were beaming with mischief; but she grew grave as she remembered that she must not irritate her cousin too much; she had not accomplished the object of her visit.

"Now, when will you come and see my portrait? Lord Charles Seton dines with us on Tuesday. Can you come? I should so like you to meet him."

"Lord Charles Seton! of course I will, my dear Elinor. I had promised the Stephen Winchesters; but Charles must manage to go to them alone, and I will come to you. I know so many friends of Lord Charles Seton's, that it will be pleasant to meet him."

Patty smiled. Mrs. Winchester had tried more than once to be asked to meet some of her cousins' titled acquaintances.

"And I know Lord Charles will be pleased." Patty looked as if a signal favour had been granted. "Can you

bring Mr. Whitmore?" she said, carelessly. "Lord Charles wants to meet him, and I don't quite know how to manage. You see, we don't visit Mr. Whitmore; and Maurice would not, I think, like to invite a person of that kind in such an intimate way. We only have artists and those sort of people at large parties; but, if you were to bring him as your friend, it would be quite different; in fact, you must manage it for me, dear, for I have quite promised Lord Charles."

Mrs. Winchester was proud of Paul's friendship; she had even called on Nuna, and had pronounced her charming; but she was ashamed to be less exclusive than this wife of Maurice's, whom she yet believed to be a nobody after all.

"I can bring him, of course, my dear; he will be quite flattered; and it will be, no doubt, a great advantage to him in all ways."

Even then, Patty could not spare her husband's cousin.

"Yes, it must be such a great advantage to be considered your friend. Very well, then, I count on you for Tuesday."

"What a fool that woman is!" she thought, while she leaned back in her carriage. "Give a footman a title, and set her beside him, and she'd worship. It's only the title; she don't care for anything that goes along with it. Well, perhaps she is only like the rest of the world."

Mrs. Downes went home and wrote a note to Lord Charles Seton. She must see him before he met Paul; she was determined the two men should go abroad together; and she was also determined on accompanying them; but it was necessary that the proposal should not seem to be hers.

"Of course I have only to say, I wish it, and Maurice will agree; but then, there is that tiresome, suspicious Patience, and I want her to be taken completely by surprise. She might write to Mrs. Whitmore, and upset everything."

CHAPTER LVII.

PATTY'S LETTER.

"NUNA, dear, don't be away long," said the weak weary voice behind the bedcurtains, "I miss you so."

Nuna gave a pleased, grateful smile, and moved quietly out of the room.

She had only been a few days at Ashton, but she had grown quickly used to her new position. She had taken her place by Elizabeth's bedside on that sadly anxious night, and she had scarcely left it since. When her stepmother regained consciousness and recognized her, Nuna checked the broken words that faltered from the sick woman by a loving kiss; and the sentence just uttered was the first expression of thankfulness she had received; but Elizabeth's eyes had spoken, and, in the new atmosphere of love and confidence in which Nuna found herself, her being seemed to expand; her power of thought and care for others developed with the suddenness with which such a power grows in a loving nature, from which it has not been actively claimed. For the first time she found her easy, gentle movements actually useful; they seemed to soothe her patient.

Mrs. Fagg's quiet, cheerful presence in the sick room had been very helping, though Nuna had scarcely had any talk with her-anxiety had been too urgent-but her impressionable nature learned more of nursing in those few hours of association than she could have thought possible.

It was Mrs. Fagg who had now come up from the "Bladebone" to take Nuna's place, for an hour or two, with Mrs. Beaufort.

"You'll be sure to lie down now, won't you, ma'am?"-she followed Nuna out on to the landing-"and there's a letter for you on the study table."

Nuna sped down stairs. She had not expected to hear again from Paul.

H.

I told him I had been wanting a face like his for my Academy picture, he offered in the frankest way to sit to me. is really charming. You must see him when you come home."

Nuna had read this note over and over and kissed it, and committed those follies some wives are apt to commit at sight of a husband's letter; but yet she had sighed sighed. She would almost have preferred some blame if the rest of the letter had been lover-like. She had written to him so fondly, and now she felt ashamed of her words. She knew her letter must have crossed Paul's; "he will think mine exaggerated and silly," she had said.

Therefore, at Mrs. Fagg's announcement, her eyes glowed with rapture; this was an answer to all the silliness she had blushed for.

She was so glad to find the study empty. She saw nothing in the room but that piece of white on the blackness of the writing table.

"Not Paul's!" The glow faded; the large dark eyes brimmed over in an instant; there was no one there to see her, and Nuna stood beside the table and cried.

"What a baby I am !"—a bright smile came as she wiped her eyes, "is this the way I am going to act out my good resolutions? I thought I was not to think of self any more. Am I for ever going to be satisfied with intentions only?"

You see, Nuna had had more time for actual self-communion in those long hours beside her stepmother's bed than she had ever had in her life before; and truth comes out fearlessly when there is no sunshine to shame her nakedness; she has no need of the veils and wrappings which have a way of disguising her altogether.

Nuna opened the letter; the handwriting was quite unknown, but instinct told her, at once, who was her correspondent.

She changed colour while she read; indignant surprise and fear chased each other as she went on; but when she ended, a look of determined indignation was paramount.

The letter was from Patty.

"DEAR MRS. WHITMORE,

"Your husband has been dining with us, and we have planned to go abroad together in a week's time. I dare say Mr. Whitmore will write and tell you all about it; but as I know husbands are forgetful, I think it better to invite you myself to join our party.

"I fancy you will like to go with us, although I believe artists never take their wives about with them on their sketching expeditions, and you are doubtless often left alone, and are used to it. I think this little holiday will be highly advantageous to your husband. Mr. Downes has most influential foreign acquaintances, and you may be sure he will recommend Mr. Whitmore to their notice; and your husband is such a real friend of mine, that I feel we shall enjoy our journey together. I take Miss Coppock with me, so that you will always have a companion, even if I cannot be at your service.

"I hope you will come.
"Yours truly,

"ELINOR M. DOWNES."

Nuna rose up, dilating with passion. "Insolent-yes, I will go; I will not yield Paul tamely up to the amusement of this woman. She does not love him; she could not write of him in this way if she did; but she will not give up his admiration. Oh, how can one woman be so cruel to another!"

She could not follow Mrs. Fagg's advice. There was no use in lying down; her whole body was full of movement; in her vehement anger against Patty the blood seemed to course through her veins like fire. She excused Paul for dining in Park Lane; he might have told her, perhaps, but then it might have been a sudden invitation, unlooked for, when he wrote his note.

Mr. Beaufort came in ; and her indignation had to pause: he was more cheerful than usual; he had begun already to look forward to these stray bits of chat with his daughter. It

was a change to find her sweet, loving eyes with a welcome in them, after his late loneliness.

And Nuna had specially exerted herself to amuse him,-had been more like the arch, bright child of former days than the absent, dreamy girl of the months that had followed Mary's death. To-day, she forgot all her new resolutions; forgot her father's presence, even. She sat silent, self-absorbed, till Mr. Beaufort's weary sighs roused her.

He was tired; his head ached; now he came to think of it, he had a nervous pain in his knee, which made him feel quite sick. The clock struck; and Nuna looking at her watch saw that it was time to release Mrs. Fagg. She felt miserable; she must go now, and leave her poor sad father to his hipped fancies; if she had only been less selfish, if she had thought of him, she might have changed his whole atmosphere of thought, and have let in such a flood of sunny brightness, that even when alone his brooding fretfulness would have been scared away.

She left him as heavy-hearted as she was herself.

"There's no good in me at all," she thought, sadly: "I may have the will to improve, but I've no memory for it ;-as careless in that as in the

Mrs. Beaufort slept sounder to-night, and Nuna slept too.

When she opened her eyes, and saw the room full of light, it seemed to her that she was dreaming. Surely the night had not gone; she had had no rest in sleep; she had been moving from one place to another, always in pursuit of Patty-Patty, who had seemed for ever indistinct, though not invisible; and who held a black screen between Nuna and her husband.

Nuna rose softly from the sofa on which she had been lying, and passed into the dressing-room adjoining. She opened the window. How genially the fresh pure air rushed in to release the fevered atmosphere of the sick room! How sweetly the birds were twittering to each other! The calves were bleating

for their mothers in the yard hard by; there was that cheerful stir of country life which tells that another day has begun, and that men and dumb creatures are alike up and ready for it, going forth to their labour with willingness and good cheer.

"And I am not ready for another day," Nuna sighed. "Each day makes my load heavier. Oh, if I could only forget it all!"

The postman's horn sounded earlier than usual.

Jane came up presently with Mrs. Beaufort's breakfast, and a letter for Mrs. Whitmore.

Paul's handwriting this time. Nuna's heart throbbed so, that she stayed in the dressing-room to read. She feared Elizabeth would notice her agitation.

It was only a short letter, to tell her he had been asked to join Lord Charles Seton on a sketching expedition in the interior of France, and Spain; he did not count on being away more than a month or so.

"I will not go if you really dislike the plan," he ended, "but I frankly tell you I am pleased at the prospect of seeing Spain, with some one who has already been there. Write, and tell me what you think about it."

Nuna put the letter down, and passed her hand across her forehead, to clear her brain, as it were, from the mist that obscured it.

falsehood- from

What was this Paul? "Why does he say nothing about her?" she cried, in anguish. "Does he not think I could bear anything easier than deceit? What shall I do?

Oh, I shall go mad!"

She had thought Paul cold and neglectful, and careless of her love; but to deceive her! She had never felt as she did now- -his judge.

And yet it was not the same sort of tempest that had risen in her soul at sight of Patty's picture. Something in the truth of Nuna's love told her that Paul was true, although he did not love her; and though this last thought was bitter, and though her jealousy still tried

at intervals to gain a hearing, still she could not believe that such a woman as Patty could win more than admiration from her husband. The agony which gnawed at her heart, which took all light and colour from her hopes of winning Paul's love, was his want of trust.

"I see it now," she said, while scalding tears blistered the letter she still held, though she could no longer see it. "He cannot forget my jealousy; he will not mention her name, because he thinks I should never consent to his going with her. In his mercy for my silliness, he would not have told me of any companion beside Lord Charles Seton. Ah, Paul! Paul!" she sobbed, "you might have trusted your poor, foolish, little wife. Neither love nor trust! How am I to live out my life without either? If I could only die and leave him free!"

"Second thoughts are best;" "Impulse is often a dangerous guide;" and yet, in spite of these two sage maxims, one rarely repents of having answered a letter in the first flush of affectionate feeling.

But Mrs. Beaufort was so disturbed at sight of Nuna's red eyes and swollen eyelids, that she grew restless and feverish; and some hours passed away before Nuna had leisure or quiet.

Her feelings had had time to chill when Mrs. Fagg came to release her.

It was plain that Paul wished to go; and that he had no thought of or desire for her presence on the journey-why should she thwart him?

"If he can be happy away from me for so long, why should I interfere? He certainly will not love me any the better for keeping him against his will, and from what he evidently considers enjoyment."

She writhed at this, but she was fast hardening against her husband.

There is this fearful result attached to selfishness that it never contents itself with injury to its producer; almost every selfish act tends to harden some one or other against whom it is exercised; and, just as water has the magical power

of drawing water to itself, selfishness develops the same quality which may have been lying latent elsewhere.

Nuna's would hardly have been called a selfish nature. She had not lived actively for herself; but she had never yet realized the lesson that must be learned sooner or later-and for her own real happiness the sooner a woman learns it the better-that she must live actively for those among whom her lot is cast; and that she may, if she so wills, change every little cross and vexation of daily life, into a sacrifice of love-not in that way of self-conscious martyrdom which is only another form of selfishness, but the hidden joy of a heart which is striving, ever so unworthily, to tread the way of the Cross.

Nuna sat thinking.

"Am I never to come to reality in my life?" she said; but there were no streaming eyes now; the slender fingers lay listlessly in her lap: they were not twisting and writhing as they had in the morning. "I never remember a time when I was not looking forward; how long is this to go on?" She got up, and paced up and down her bedroom. Women like Nuna keep their childhood longer than others; but when they develop, and it is usually some outer shock which causes this development, the growth is startling.

"I am not a child." She stopped suddenly, and looked round her all those tiny trifles, left untouched in her room, memories of the vague dreamy time which suddenly swept away from her for ever, had lost interest in her eyes. "I shall never have more faculties than I have now-I shall never have any one to depend on, or consult." Some sobs tried for escape, but she kept them back. "I shall never be younger or prettier-if I ever was pretty :" a scornful pity for herself curled her lips. "Why should I think I can ever be more attractive to Paul than I have been? He only cares for looks in a woman; and he does not care for mine. He doesn't dislike me— - his note shows that; besides, till now, I don't think he has tried to deceive me; but he and I under

stand love differently-which of us is right, I wonder?"

Nuna kept walking up and down, thinking; still thinking. Time was slipping away; she knew that Mrs. Fagg's visit would soon be over, and then she must return to her post.

The longer she thought, the more useless it seemed to her to indulge hope as to her future life with Paul.

Once a wild idea had come of going away, hiding herself-and so leaving him free to choose a wife who could win his love; but though the weeds of neglect had choked much of Nuna's early teaching, her good angel had not been quite repulsed; something within her shrank from a wilful breaking of her marriage

Vow.

At last, a resolution came; and in her over-wrought state she thought it must be right, because it would give her pain to act it out.

"I must go back to Paul-there is no help for it." She stopped and suppressed, with renewed self-contempt, he leap her heart gave at the thought of seeing him again, "but I must try to live his life, not my own. I must not think him wrong because he cannot love as I love. How do I know that my wild, undisciplined nature has not made me more craving after love than other women are? I used to laugh at Elizabeth's notions. Was she right, after all? She seems only calmly fond of my father. Mrs. Bright, too-how she is able to talk of her dead husband quietly, peacefully, as if he had only been her friend. Surely, if I strive for indifference, it must come; and then, when Paul no longer fears being tormented by my jealousy or my love, he may at least treat me with confidence."

She sat down, and wrote, keeping watch on every word, lest it should show any impatience of his absence, or anxiety for his return: she tried to write simply, as if Patty's letter had never reached Ashton, and yet, spite of herself, the guarded words had a chill in them which expressed haughtiness and displeasure.