fession I am, and have always been, absolutely without an enemy, which may be partly accounted for by the fact that I have exceedingly few neighbours and scarcely any clients, my practice consisting in a semi-legal semi - agricultural stewardship to the best and dearest friend I ever had in the worldfriends, I should say; for his wife is as dear to me as if she were my own sister, and his children as if they were my own. Whom should I ever have been tempted to Murder, and why? Put the same question to yourself of yourselfand answer it if you can.

My friend was Sir Reginald Gervase-of course you must allow just as much accuracy to my proper names as you please. He had one of the largest estates in Foamshire, and lived mostly at St. Moor's, a splendid place near Spendrith, which is on the wildest and rockiest part of that grand and magnificent coast, as all the world knows. My description of him is short-he was, literally, the best and finest fellow in the whole world. Were Lady Gervase writing this story, I have no doubt she would say a great deal more of him; mine must be a man's praise of a man. He had not a single fault that I could ever discover, and yet was as far from being a prig as the South is from the North Pole. He was nearly my match-which is saying something-in point of chest and biceps, and infinitely more than mine, or most men's, in brains; and his heart was larger still. I sometimes used to think it his single misfortune that he was so rich and so happy and so full of a sense of all the duties that his birthright had thrown upon him. Had Fortune left him the struggling barrister that he was when I first met him in London, he would HOLIDAY, '80.

have made himself a great man, instead of merely growing into something much greater. For he had by no means been born to a baronetcy and the ownership of St. Moor's. He unexpectedly inherited it from a cousin of about his own age, and apparently as strong and as healthy as himself, who had been struck down by death when hardly thirty years old. It was a change to turn most men's brains, and to send half of them to the devil. Sir Reginald took his wealth and his position with less elation than he had taken his first brief, went abroad for a while, and then came back to settle down for good at St. Moor's. The first thing he did-which was in an hour or two -was to become first favourite of the whole country, and that among his poorer, even more than among his richer, neighbours. The next was to send for me, then managing clerk to a London firm, to be his friend and counsellor. The next was to marry, as wisely as man ever married in this world. He had fallen over head and ears in love with the best girl in all England, and she with him. Before long they had a family of two boys and two girls, and were fortunate in them all. The eldest was called Reginald, of course, being a first-born Gervase. The next was called Marion, after her mother. Then came my own godson, Alfred; and then Nora. Their names have nothing to do with the matter, but it is pleasant for myself to write them. It is hardly more to the purpose than to say that I too was on the eve of marriage, after a long and weary waiting; but this, too, I like to tell because this also was due to the position in which Sir Reginald had placed me. What did I not owe to him? Past, present, future everything that I like

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to remember, all my happiness now and to come. The one trouble he ever gave me was the feeling that I could do so little for one who had done so much for me. Anybody could have looked after his affairs as well as I. I was never likely to be so much to him as the Mouse was to the Lion.

In fact, the hardest work I ever did for him was all pleasure and play; except that he made me feel its interest and importance by throwing himself so heartily into all that concerned the smallest cottager or fisherman with whom he had to do. He looked upon life as a trust not merely to be fulfilled but enjoyed, and his wife agreed with him. I hardly know which we learned to like best-our tasks or our pleasures. That he liked the tasks best, I am sure. And I am sure, too, that if Sir Reginald Gervase, even in this nineteenth century, had taken it into his head to declare war against the Queen, there is not a man within ten miles of Spendrith who would not have turned rebel.

For two months every summer St. Moor's was left empty while the master and mistress were in town; for they were by no means people who looked upon rusting and falling out of the great world's stream as one of the duties of those who have to do their best with the course of a comparatively small one. Though I missed them, I approved of their absence, for I could not get rid of my ambition for my friend; it would be something if, as member for Foamshire, he could have the chance of doing for England some little of what he was doing for one of her remoter corners. One warm afternoon, while they were away in town, I was engaged alone in my office with some drainage plans, half at work upon them, and half thinking about what I could do, in the face

of an approaching election, to get Sir Reginald Gervase to stand for Foamshire. It was too hot to work very desperately after an early dinner; and I am afraid I must confess that the rich blue of the sky without, the soft wind that scarcely took the trouble to carry the weight of its own scent through the window, the caw of the rooks on their way home, and the regular heave and rush of the sea against the wall of rocks close by, united to set me dreaming of anything but of drains. I was myself in love, remember, and Venus came from the sea on much such an afternoon.

I had a clerk in the outer office, who was also in love, and whom I strongly suspect of having been sleeping too. Our office was certainly not conducted on the ordinary principles of hurry and open eyes-a client from the outside world did not call once a quarter, and was not particularly welcome when he came. At any rate, Tom Brooks looked as if he were still dreaming when he stumbled into my own room and startled me with,

'A strange lady, sir; and to see

you ľ

It is hard to wake up all at once. For a moment I almost took for granted that it could be nobody but my Lottie, who had managed to fly through the window all the way from Newcastleupon-Tyne, at the other end of the kingdom; what other lady, a stranger to Tom Brooks, could want to see me? But a moment more told me the absurdity of such a fancy; so I stretched myself, rubbed my eyes, and said sharply, 'Then wake up, and show her in.'

She came in, with a silky rustle; and I had certainly never seen her before. She Lottie, indeed! I never can guess a woman's age, so I must content myself with saying that my visitor could not possibly

have been more than thirty-six or less than twenty years old. She was of a moderate height and graceful figure, and was dressed much more fashionably than we were used to round Spendrith,-in a brown silk with bows behind and down the sides, a tight-fitting jacket and a sort of nondescript cross between a hat and a bonnet, from under which escaped a mass of fair brown hair-behind, in thick waves that flowed down to her waist, and, in front, in a fringe falling down to her eyebrows. Her face was a pretty one on the whole, clear complexioned, fair, and brightly coloured; but her mouth was at the same time too small and too full, her nose too long, and her dark eyes a very great deal too large, as well as being too closely set together. Still the general effect was decidedly good, and had to be called pretty, whatever else it might be called, and however much it differed from my own two standards of beauty,-Lottie Vane and Lady Gervase. My visitor looked grave and sad by nature, and as if she had a story, and that an interesting one. I showed her a seat, and she sat down.

'You are Mr. Lambourn and you are a lawyer?' she asked, in a voice that made her prettiness suddenly change into something more. It was a clear liquid voice, with some sort of special accent in it, and a kind of singing quality about her first words.

'My name is Lambourn, and I am a solicitor. You call on business, I suppose? Whom have I the honour

She opened a mother-of-pearl case and handed me a card,— 'Adrienne Lavalle.' 'I come to ask your advice,' said she. The name looked French; and yet, though she did not speak quite like an Englishwoman, her accent was by no means distinctly that of a

'Never in my life,' said I.

Then, before I tell you more, may I ask you if you are prepared to undertake, as a lawyer and as a gentleman, the cause of a woman against the most cruel wrong that ever was done by a man? A cause that will give you honour and glory throughout the land?'

'Never mind the honour and glory,' said I. The question is, whether I could find the time and spare the pains. Of course I shall be glad to help to get justice done, just for the sake of the thing, lawyer though I am. But I must hear the story first-'

'You shall hear it; and you shall hear why I come to Spendrith for a lawyer. I did not suppose you would know the name of Juliet Ray. But I had my reason for asking, all the same. I was born in London. I had a mother, Mr. Lambourn, but no other relation in the world. My mother was on the stage. I cannot tell you all, for I do not know; but we were in Paris when my mother died, and when I was seventeen years old without the means to live, but with the need to live, you understand. Perhaps you will find it hard to believe, but I was as innocent then as a young girl can be.'