were good people and to be desired, and she had wished to be intimate with them, only something always came in the way; that something really being that the Morlings thought Lady Moffat a detestable person, and said so.

They had made the remark, amongst others, to Miss Banks; but it answered its purpose as well in the hand of that clever lady as the most cordial praise could have done.

'Really? Well, they seemed to know a great deal about you; and so the moment I heard you were actually settled here, I asked dear Lady Griffin to drop me at your gate, as I felt I must just run in and bid you welcome. I am terribly tied at home with a poor hopeless invalid; but I trust to see you frequently. As an old resident I of course know everybody. And, O, dear, the changes I have seen even in my time! This very house, do you know, I feel it like a dream to be sitting here! The last time I ever saw poor dear Mrs. Seaton she was in the very spot where you are now, and she was talking to me about their projected tour on the Continent.'

'O, did you know Mrs. Seaton?' broke in a young voice-the voice of a girl who had been curtly introduced to Miss Banks as 'My daughter.'

'Know her? Yes, indeed I did, my dear,' said Miss Banks, turning with a sense of relief from her hostess; a most charming creature. Ah, a terrible story. Enough to break the hardest heart, what I have witnessed here! It is a place full of painful memories to me, yet I love it too. I assure you, Lady Moffat, it seemed to me quite like old times to be coming up to the familiar door again.'

Whatever Lady Moffat's other gifts might be, she had not that of conversation. Subsequently

Miss Banks declared she was 'too earnest' to condescend to the 'trifles' other women delighted in ; and it was upon the whole rather a relief to both when Rachel, coming a little forward, took part in the talk. She was so fresh; she 'wanted to know' so many things; the Palace was so full of interest to her, she had just been reading up all about it. Papa was going to take her through it some day if he could manage to get an order. She was so deeply interested in every detail about old times, or indeed times that were not very old.

'Anything which is in the past, not in the present,' interpolated Lady Moffat.

Miss Banks feared she knew very little except about the present.

'When people got on in life,' she explained, for the benefit of all whom it might concern, they found so much to think of and to do that they forgot all old things, just as they laid aside old garments.'

'I think it is a very good plan,' said Lady Moffat.

'As you have been living here a long time, though,' continued the girl, 'perhaps you can tell me whether the chair the Duke of Sussex had "curtained round and covered from the air," so that he might "read and think at ease," is

Miss Banks shook her head; she had never even heard of it.

'Then I suppose you do not know either if the seat good Queen Caroline had placed on a mount in the Gardens is in the same place where she used to sit sheltered from the wind?

'Good gracious, no, my dear! cried Miss Banks, laughing. 'I daresay it was chopped up for firewood long ago."

เ

You talk too much, Rachel,'

interposed Lady Moffat. You are wearying Miss Banks.'

Miss Banks bad heard a good deal in the years of her pilgrimage; but she had never heard such a rebuke given to a girl out of her teens in the presence of a total stranger, a rebuke which, sharp though the words were that conveyed it, seemed as nothing in comparison to the tone in which Lady Moffat uttered them.

For a second she remained silent, absolutely confounded; but then she said, addressing both mother and daughter,

'I shall have to rub up my history, I see. We must go through the palace together some day, and we will try and find out about everything you want to know.'

'You had better be careful what you promise,' answered Lady Moffat; twelve months would not suffice to do that.'

But the girl did not make any reply. She smiled a little painfully, and sat without speaking, the brilliant colour which had mounted to her face fading away slowly, and a look of sad gravity settling down upon her features.

A lovely young thing,' thought Miss Banks, as shortly afterwards she walked homewards, more slowly and meditatively than was her wont; with "forget-me-not" eyes and hair that looks as if sunbeams were always resting upon it. Not a bit like her mother.'

All the better for her, if Miss Banks had but known it-all the better by far!

'You need not sit sulking,' was the mother's amiable remark to her daughter, when Miss Banks had fairly departed. 'If you must talk, why can't you talk like other girls? I declare I often feel ashamed to hear you. Who cares for all that old rubbish about people who are dead and gone

except yourself? As you are so fond of kings and queens, why don't you show a little interest in what is going on at Court nowadays? If you did, you might get your papa to have you presented.'

'I am sorry to have vexed you, mamma,' said the girl, ignoring the latter part of this remarkable sentence.

'Sorry to have vexed you, mamma,' repeated Lady Moffat, with an attempt at mimicry which was too angry to be successful. 'You must speak in a different manner before you will make me believe that. If you can't look and talk differently, you had better go to your own room. I won't have any of your tempers shown to me.'

Her daughter rose, without haste or hesitation, but with an inexpressible grace and sweetness pervading every action.

'Do you really wish me to leave you, mamma?' she asked.

'Do I really wish I had never seen you?' retorted Lady Moffat. Better ask me that at once, and you will get the same answer. Yes, yes, yes! I wish you had never been born, never been reared, never grown up! Now are you satisfied?

The girl did not answer; she only winced as if she had received a blow, and walked straight to the door without once looking at her mother with those eyes which always seemed to Lady Moffat to hold in their deep pure depths a reproach and a warning. For Rachel's eyes were exactly those of the man who, losing everything for love, found, when it was too late, he had never been beloved.

Across the great hall, up the wide staircase, the girl went slowly; she met no one by the way. Like her own heart, the

house seemed strangely lonely. She made her way to the very top landing, and entered the room she had asked for.

When she preferred her petition she scarcely thought she should ever look on Kensington Gardens with the sorrowful forebodings her heart held now. Beside one of the windows was an easychair; she sat down in it, and looked at the cold wintry landscape wearily, mournfully, as others before her had done, as others in the time to come must do.

She did not love her motherit would have been folly to suppose such a thing possible; for she could never remember the time when her mother kissed and fondled her, when she comforted her infant trouble and soothed her childish griefs; but she fretted at the estrangement between them, the commencement of which was beyond her memory, and which she felt was growing wider day by day.

We yearn for love as naturally as we cling to life; and it was appalling to this lonely little soul to know for certain that, let her do what she would, she could never win affection where she had a right most to expect it.

'Why does mamma hate me so?' was a question she once, when she was little, put pitifully to her father; and Mr. Moffatas he was then-answered,

'You must not talk so foolishly, dear; your mamma could not possibly do anything so wicked.'

But she knew now for certain her mamma did hate her really, 'would be glad perhaps if I were to die,' she thought with a shudder. I wonder why it is? she went on, looking out on the strip of green which lies between the houses in Palace Gardens and the yews and thorns in Kensington.

It cannot be anything I do now,

because it has always been the same; besides, she dislikes papa nearly as much. I know that quite well. Poor papa!'

She sat for a long time beside the window, letting her eyes wander over the strange prospect beyond, as her thoughts likewise wandered to and fro, now thinking of the mystery she could not solve, again picturing the men and women who had walked through the park beyond, busy with plots and intrigues and cares and joys and hopes and fears, and how little history ever knew or ever could tell about their inner lives.

'Rachel.'

It was her mother's voice which broke in upon her reverie.

'Yes, mamma,' and she started up obediently.

'Don't let Sir John'-Lady Moffat was so proud of the title, she often used that form of speech when it sounded not merely unnecessary, but absurd — 'don't let Sir John find you moping here when he comes home. You know what he is when he finds you have been put out.'

'I will dress and come downstairs, mamma,' answered the girl, with sweet docility.

For a minute after her mother's departure she stood looking round the room his love had furnished for her with every comfort he could think of and procure. That the one large apartment might be left intact, a door of communication was made with a bedchamber adjoining, both commanding that view over Kensington Gardens which first attracted her fancy.

Everything the room contained was simple, yet rich; all her little fancies had been considered, all her tastes considered. Often it seemed to her a very haven of rest when the waters of domestic life grew rough and storm-tossed.

Disguise it as she might try to do even from herself, matters had grown much worse; life seemed more trying in Palace Gardens than had ever been the case hitherto.

The grander they became, the more money they spent, the larger the establishment they maintained, the worse grew Lady Moffat's temper. Man could not depend upon it nor woman neither. She might be calm as a glassy lake one moment, and the next furious with passion. It was an absolute impossibility to know how to avert these attacks; they were due to no apparent cause: the merest trifle, often, indeed, nothing at all, would induce an absolute paroxysm of rage.

The only thing which ever seemed to exercise the smallest restraining influence was a curious and apparently unreasoning dread of her husband. She would stop sometimes in the very middle of a sentence as if she were shot. There were times when a mere look from Sir John was able to stay the words on her lips; but on all these occasions the expression her face assumed was rather that of fear caused by some memory which her husband's glance recalled, than of dread of his reproaches.

She

Rachel had seen the expression often, and wondered at it. thought of it now as she stood in the gray cold twilight, thinking of the man's kindness and patience and generosity and forbearance, which met with so poor a

return.

'Such a miserable home,' she murmured; and we might all be so happy! Poor papa! O, poor, poor papa !!

Poor papa indeed! Spite of his great wealth and his house envied by so many, and his title envied by many more, and the

respect in which he was held, poor, poor papa!

CHAPTER XIX.

MISS BANKS' TACTICS.

Ir is not to be supposed that the Moffats could long inhabit their new mansion without the necessity arising for them to give a ball. Holyrood House was so manifestly a place not so much to live as to receive guests in, that, as Miss Banks truly said, there was only one thing to be done with the rooms, Fill them with company.'

Miss Banks' progress into intimacy had proceeded at express speed. She was always in and out; always busy in dear Lady Moffat's interest;' always introducing a fresh acquaintance, or heralding the approach of one. She did this good thing, however, which probably no person save herself could have managed. She toned down the glare which frightened the new order of visitor that entered Lady Moffat's boudoir and drawing-room.

Sir John and his wife had disagreed at the outset upon many of the decorations her ladyship was determined to patronise, and when paperhanger and gilder and upholsterer had amongst them accomplished a fearful work, he ventured to declare in so many words,

'I can't say I like the result; but if you do, I am satisfied.'

A remark open to doubt on the score of prudence perhaps, but not altogether unpardonable, one would have thought, considering he had to pay for embellishments he certainly regarded as mistakes.

Lady Moffat, however, was of a different opinion. She regarded the words as a gauntlet thrown

down, and lost no time in picking it up.

A very terrible quarter of an hour ensued, during the course of which Sir John said nothing, and she said a great deal.

'You admire that dingy diningroom, I suppose,' she finished, 'which is enough to give one the horrors! The idea of eating one's meals in such a gloomy dungeon! Egyptian style you call it, don't you? I could find another name which, I think, would be more appropriate.'

Then Sir John spoke.

'I do not fancy you could,' he retorted.Egyptian is the best style for a dining-room where there is always a skeleton at the board;' and he walked away and left her before she quite gathered his meaning.

'A skeleton!' she repeated; and the mirrors and the white enamel and the gilt mouldings and the cold, cold hangings faded from before her eyes, and there rose in their stead a phantom her husband's phrase had conjured up, and that came and stood with pitiless eyes and mocking smile before her.

a

Was it not Gerald Griffinhe who retired so young from the world into monastery, and from a monastery still young into the grave-that told in mournful numbers how, when everything about and around seemed brightest and gayest,

'I pause, for the footfall of Fate in mine ear'?

It was just thus Lady Moffat paused occasionally in her craziest moments, in the midst of her wildest ebullitions of temper, as though she heard the coming of Nemesis.

She had no reason to think she was pursued, no cause to believe any step was hurrying along to overtake her own; but she knew

she had done that which people believe must surely work its own punishment; and there were times when a panic seized her that some day everything might come out, and the finger of scorn be pointed at her for the ruin she had wrought, the trust she had betrayed.

If Miss Banks ever suspected!' she thought; for that good lady, though excessively liberal in her practice, was naturally straightlaced in her theory, and waxed very severe when she heard of any frail beauty's sins being condoned, of any escapade being forgiven.

"We are not half strict enough, we are not indeed!' she said to Lady Moffat; and Lady Moffat agreed with her, and answered,

No, we are not.'

'A hard-and-fast line ought to be drawn,' proceeded the spinster. 'What is the use of talking to young people about virtue if we show them we are willing to receive vice?'

Lady Moffat highly approved Miss Banks' sentiments, and thought, moreover, 'we' were all very inconsistent; upon which subject she happened to be a better authority than her visitor was

aware.

But if Miss Banks had known the whole story she would have 'proved loyal' to her new friend.

No fear of her deserting the occupants of Holyrood House while there was a shot in the locker or a bottle of wine in the cellar. A lady turned naked out of the Divorce Court, without a single rag of worldly prosperity left to cover her, was one person; a lady, no matter how naughty she might have been, who dressed well, and lived in a fine house, and could and ask her husband go for money, and who 'need want for nothing,' quite another.