Friends, because it was scarcely honourable to be always holding Quakers' meetings on the sly, and at the same time publicly to profess themselves members of the Episcopal persuasion. As was natural, the "spare room" at Treeby Cottage, which was also the largest and grandest in the house, had been allotted to Austin, but it so happened that Mr. E. Treeby's apartment, which Tom was to occupy, was of particularly small dimensions and rather scantily furnished withal, and so Austin, who had a parental solicitude for his brother's health, at once insisted upon there being an exchange. "And Tom," he said, as he left the invalid installed in the finer chamber, and was proceeding down the passage to his own more humble dormitory, "you'd better stop where you are, and I will come over to you in about half an hour if the house seems gone to sleep, and there is no danger of meeting anybody. You must get into bed, though, and not sit up for me; I can sit by the fire, and if you are awake, and like to talk, we can." It was not only in a thoughtful, but also in (for him) a slightly excited frame of mind that Austin entered the sacred little room usually occupied by the heir-apparent to all the honours, glories, and dignities of the house of Treeby. That illustrious youth had left marks of his presence in a pair of old cast-away boots shoved into a drawer with some worn-out fishing tackle. Austin sat down before the fire, and taking the bunch of broken hooks and casting lines, twisted them round his fingers in an abstracted manner, with his eyes bent reflectively on the coals. It would be no hard matter surely to divine his thoughts. I think I can guess this much; that precise, methodical, prudent man as he was, and far less susceptible than most men to the influence of the passion of Love, he had at length had to own the blind god's power, and to fall conquered before him; Cupid had at last discovered the joint in the strong man's armour, and had pierced him hard and sure with his crafty arrow. And this in the course of one evening! Yes, it was plain enough that if Austin had not actually reached that stage at which we are wont to talk of people as having fallen in love, and if he was at this very moment stoutly denying to himself that he had done so, he was yet so far showing premonitory symptoms of the disease that no one could doubt, but that with a little time and a few favourable circumstances, those symptoms would rapidly develop into the fatal malady itself. It certainly seemed a wonderful phenomenon that, season after season as he had spent in London, meeting young ladies of every imaginable type and variety under circumstances of every imaginable description-at dinner parties, at croquet parties, at balls, at flower shows, at concerts, at the theatre and the opera-not one of the heavenly beings had been able to make the smallest impression on his obdurate heart, not one had been more to him than another, not one had ever caused him a moment's uneasiness or robbed him of an hour's rest; but

that, the day over, each syren had been for the time being forgotten, he had got into bed fancy-free, and had slept the sound and blissful slumber which a tranquil heart, a calm brain, and pure digestion bring. And still more marvellous was it that, after having safely steered through so many and strong temptations, he should have at length succumbed almost-indeed, I should be sorry to warrant that it was not altogether-at first sight to the fascinations of one whom most people would have characterised as a raw young girl with little or no education, good-looking indeed, but extremely loud and fast, not to say vulgar, in manners, and possessing accomplishments of the meanest order.

But, after all, what more curious and inexplicable phenomena are there than those which are to be found in the world of love. So common, indeed, have these phenomena become, that we have ceased to regard them with much astonishment. No one could have been more surprised at this sudden development of tender feeling than was Austin himself. The consciousness of it took him altogether aback, and perhaps his astonishment was not wholly a pleasant one; for, laying down the tangled bunch in his hand, he took the poker and poked at the fire in an irritated way, very foreign indeed to the manner of the usually placid and unexcitable Austin. But the feeling was there, irrepressible, undeniable, and it had to be faced and endured with as much philosophy as might be, if, indeed, I may speak of having to endure an emotion so soft and ecstatic, so thrillingly delicious, even at the moment when it is winding its insidious fetters around the heart, and causing that heart to feel, as the hold is gradually tightened, that its peace, its freedom, its independence are gone for ever. Poke at the fire and stare into the fire as he might in the effort to subdue his thoughts, and to bring them back to reason, a bewitching form of airy lightness would still flit before him, looking with honest, truthful eyes into his eyes that would now dance with fun, now glance with a piquant archness, yet withal with a perfect modesty, now suddenly droop with an expression of pensiveness and deepest sadness, which it was plain was not the normal nor accustomed revelation of their nature. And the form would open a pair of cherry lips and break into joyous laughter, and utter words to him of wayward wanton naughtiness, which to conventional martinets would be terrible outrages on propriety, but every tone of which, somehow or other, sounded sweet and precious in his ears, and made his blood shoot quicker through his veins; and suddenly he would hear the voice burst out into rich song, and each note, albeit it may have been wild and rude, set the blood this time rushing and leaping impetuously in its course, and the burden of the song went ever ringing through his soul: "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, which I gaze on so fondly to-day, were to-morrow to fade- ""

"To fade! Oh, Heavens forbid! No! never! never!" he murmured, vehemently, dropping the poker, and burying his face in his hands, for the latent sparks of passion had begun to awake in his heart, and imagination and memory were already fanning them into flame; and when that is the case, the most formal and circumlocutory of us will forget himself, and break into natural language.

It was in vain for him, two minutes after, to seize the poker again and belabour the coals more vigorously than ever, and then to ask himself indignantly what it all concerned him, and how it should matter to him, supposing her charms were to fade that very night, and she was to make her appearance at breakfast next morning with grey hair and a face intersected with wrinkles. The fairy would remain, and would make her charms felt; the eyes would laugh and flash; the voice would roll and thrill. It was quite in vain to try and disown the tender hurt of his bosom; and don't believe but that, in spite of his rage against himself, Austin thought that hurt much greater pleasure than pain, and would not for the world have had it soothed but in one way and by one person. Does anybody know of an intenser rapture than the dawn of a pure and sincere first passion in the heart? I know of only one which can surpass it-its meridian brightness in the knowledge that the passion is returned. It will not possibly satisfy every taste, this picture of a new-born lover telling his woes to the fire, and relieving the agitations of his mind by brandishing the poker. Romantic people, fastidious in such matters, will naturally demur, or, at any rate, may reasonably be expected to demur to such a prosaic situation. Why not have made the love-stricken man, when he entered the room, walk to the window, open the shutters, throw up the casement, look forth on the clear night, whisper his plaint to the moon and stars, and there and then, under the inspiration of those chaste fires, pen "a ballad to his mistress's eyebrow?" That doubtless would have been the correct and usual course, and might have been expected to invest Austin and his passion with a tenderer interest; but there were two very strong and special reasons against it. First of all, the sentimental side of Austin's mind was of an essentially philosophical character, and would never have developed itself in the manner above suggested; and, secondly, the time of the year being mid-winter-the night might have been very lovely, but it was also very cold—the inspiration of the moon and stars would in all probability have been a chilly one; and, in short, though sitting with head out of window, talking to the planets, might have been the most romantic, sitting by the fire was decidedly the most comfortable.

So there Austin sat and soliloquised.

"Who on earth will venture to predict his fate after this?" would the unhappy being exclaim, as the tumultuous thoughts

crowded through his brain. "Hadn't I made up my mind that I was to die a bachelor, and didn't I boast and prophesy that no girl would ever have the power to move me? Wasn't I proof against Lucy Hillyard's beauty and Fanny Hislop's singing, though I saw the one and heard the other constantly for nine months? Wasn t it plain that Lucy was an incorrigible flirt, and Fanny a bundle of affectation? And didn't I resist Geraldina Waters' fascinations, who, it was perfectly evident, had no other reason for her partiality to me than the interest she felt in my bank account, and the expectations which people told her I had? And yet I come down to this obscure place, more out of curiosity than anything else, and almost at first sight this girl throws a spell over me, and makes me feel as if I could never tire of watching her. What is it in her that has bewitched me? She is beautiful; everybody would admit that; but beauty alone has never attracted me; and as to that, I have seen more regular features. It's evident that her education has not been properly attended to, and that she is deplorably ignorant of ever so many things she ought to know. That boorish father of hers must have behaved like a brute to them all. I wonder what he has been about all the evening? I don't at all believe his story about the amount of business on his hands. And where are her accomplishments? She only sings the simplest things, and her voice is wholly uncultivated; but what a voice it is! My God! how every tone went through me!

Oh! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south.

I used to think that duke a lackadaisical goose for saying so, but I can sympathise with him now. And then the way she talks! every other word unmitigated slang! How disgusted the Polsons would be if they heard her, and what a state of fury they would be in if they knew I admired her. But how innocent it is! She has no more idea that she is using fast language than that those eyes of hers are made to break hearts. How charming she is when she looks arch, and says those naughty things so naïvely, and with such an absence of affectation; and how pretty and coaxing was her way with her mother! Poor Mrs. Treeby, she must have spent a hard life of it with that blustering, bullying husband. I wish that son, whom they expect home, had been sent to school five years earlier, before he could teach his sister his own refined phraseology. But somehow her slang sounds pretty in her to me at least. I wonder why it is? I have heard other girls talk in the same way, and thought them disgustingly vulgar. The reason of the difference must be that they did it on purpose, knowing well enough what it means and why they did it; she does it in utter simplicity, without any motive whatever. What made her manner change so suddenly? The fact of that odd sister having a bad headache would surely not have produced

such a result, yet I am certain she had something to do with it. How sad she looked at prayers, and so beautiful at the same time! There is more in her than mere animal spirits. I believe there are some people whose whole character you can divine by a kind of instinct the first moment you meet them, and I believe it was instinct gave me a consciousness of what she really was when she came and shook hands in that natural way."

Yet, pausing a moment to ruminate the subject, the thought would suddenly flash through the sufferer's brain that this adorable child of nature, whose apparent honesty and openness of disposition and artlessness of manner had touched him so much, might after all be only a designing little puss, who was either playing Geraldina Waters' game on her own account, or had been trained to it by an unscrupulous father and mother to meet their own sordid views.

"How do I know but that they may all be in a conspiracy together to entrap Tom and myself. Old Treeby himself, it's quite clear, had no other motive in asking us here than to get us to marry two of his daughters, and perhaps they may all be in the plot together; Mrs. Treeby's meekness and gentleness may all be assumed, and Kate's simplicity and abandon may be nothing more than acting; Geraldina used to put on all kinds of characters, just what she thought would suit my humour, and did them very well too, and this may be a parallel case. Treeby, I am sure, has discovered everything he possibly can about us, and in all probability he has told his wife and daughters what he knows, and has concocted a conspiracy with them to decoy us into matrimony. Of course, situated as they are, the knowledge of our being men of independent fortunes is a great temptation; living in such an out-of-the-way place, where they never see any one, and with such a father, one could scarcely wonder if they took the first opportunity that presented itself to free themselves from bondage."

But next moment would come a violent reaction; utter ridicule at the idea of Kate and her mother being anything but what they seemed, bitter scorn at himself for having for a moment entertained the idea.

"Folly-shame! to suppose that anything short of the most uncompromising truth could dwell in either of those faces. As open and clear as the heavens-both of them. I'm not so certain about Miss Treeby, though; I think she designs something with those ringlets of hers, and if she means to set a trap, poor Tom is just the man to fall into it. I must go and have a talk with him. Twenty minutes to twelve! He will be in bed and sound asleep." Saying which, the philosopher stirred his fire and repaired to the " spare room," where he found nothing of his brother but his head peeping out from under the bed-clothes.