"The matter! Did you ever see such a wretched hole?"

Herbert would not allow himself to admit as much, he said, “It did not signify," but his countenance plainly betrayed he more than half acquiesced in his brother's opinion. Edgeworth saw it, and proceeded to act on the encouragement he chose to think he had received, and his hasty summons answered by a meek-looking handmaiden, expended his ill-humour in reproaches on the state of affairs, which, it must be confessed, were not altogether undeserved.

Order having been in some measure restored, he drew a chair exactly in front of the fire, and, balancing the poker on his forefinger, remarked with an expression of infinite contempt :

"This is what Arthur and Maud call living with economy. You'd better have come home a year or two ago, Herbert, there was something like comfort at Brabœuf."

"If my father had only lived to come home!" returned Herbert, with a suppressed sigh.

Everything would have gone right then," said Edgeworth, with something like emotion. "Still, when the news of his death first came, my mother was not half so ill as she was afterwards, when

Arthur and Maud persuaded her to move into this wretched little house; I shall always say it killed her."

66

No, no, you cannot think so, you should not allow yourself to put such fancies into words," exclaimed Herbert earnestly. "In her state of health, my poor mother was sure to suffer from the shock of hearing bad news. She might bear up for a time, but it was certain to tell on her eventually."

"You may say just what you please," returned Edgeworth doggedly. "I know she was not half so ill in the summer, when Maud chose to take alarm, as she was in the autumn; and we left Brabœuf last September."

He evidently considered this an unanswerable argument, and, however little Herbert might agree with him, he was so far tolerant of Edgeworth's ferment of mind as to refrain from actually contradicting him, and he only answered :

"Her one great loss, to say nothing of the troubles and anxieties which followed, were enough to overwhelm one so fragile, without counting up minor trials."

Edgeworth had nothing to say to this. It was not likely that he or any of her children should

perceive their mother's faults-faults now buried with her in the grave; still, though they knew it not, there was little doubt that the undisciplined petulance, with which Mrs. Bingley had met the trials of the past twelve months, had done more towards loosening her hold on life than any of the ailments, real or fancied, which for years past had constituted her an invalid. But she was dead, and the one who had most suffered from her faults was the being in the world who was least likely to allow it to be possible that her mother could do

wrong.

Dinner came before Edgeworth had time to broach any more of his views, and with it Arthur made his appearance. He said Maud was not well enough to come down, he had persuaded her to stay upstairs, and was so evidently out of spirits himself, that for once in a way Edgeworth refrained from complaining of the dinner-hour, which exceedingly displeased him, inasmuch as he had discovered that the eating of the principal meal of the day at two o'clock was another phase of the economy he so disliked. Such as it was, it was soon over; no one cared to linger over the table, nor did any one seem much disposed to speak; the influences of the day pressed heavily on the minds of each

one of the party, and a return to the ordinary topics of conversation appeared impossible. As for Edgeworth, he testified the disquiet he could not but feel by an extreme restlessness. First he tried the armchair, then moved to the sofa, and finally, having failed in his endeavours to fall asleep, he proclaimed his intention of "going out to smoke a pipe on the hills."

"Come on, Arthur!"

Arthur shook his head.

"You said just now you wanted a walk, Herbert," and Edgeworth turned to his eldest brother. Captain Bingley was one of those people who are easily led, and the sight of Arthur, who sat disconsolately enough, newspaper in hand, but without attempting to read, had made him change his mind.

"I don't think I care to go out to-day.”

Edgeworth remonstrated in no very measured terms, but it was no use. He only made Herbert more determined. He did not say much, however, and it was not till some five minutes later, when the house-door banged sharply, that he took any notice of Edgeworth's overbearing manner, and then he turned to Arthur, saying:

"It strikes me that young fellow has not the best of tempers."

Arthur looked up in some surprise.

"It's more manner than anything else," said he apologetically," he does not mean to be ill-tempered."

"It was more than that this morning, I confess I thought he showed very bad feeling."

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Edgeworth has felt the change in our circumstances terribly," returned the other, " and it is a sort of way he has got into of harping on anything that annoys him, and I really don't think he knows how much he tries others."

"If you think of it," remarked Herbert, "he is likely to be better off than any of the family. He will have his five hundred a year from the moment he sets foot in India."

66 Yes, but he does not realize that as yet," remarked Arthur, "and Edgeworth may well feel his loss."

There was a pause, and then Herbert said, " I should have thought Maud would have been the favourite."

"She was more necessary to my mother, perhaps, who never could bear her out of her sight, particularly after she became so very ill," said Arthur sadly, "but Edgeworth was the one of us who always had his own way.

You see as a child