Arthur compassionately, and addressing his eldest brother. "Will you send Bridget, Herbert, and"a glance towards Edgeworth concluded his sentence. Captain Bingley understood that the best and kindest thing he could do would be to keep his youngest brother with him; but, as he had yet to learn, Edgeworth was not the most tractable being in the world, and in the moment Herbert's back was turned to summon nurse Bridget, he took the opportunity of walking off upstairs.

"Won't you come in here?" said his brother, who was just in time to catch sight of him through the banisters.

But Edgeworth either did not or would not hear, and Herbert entered the small, close sitting-room alone. At this moment it did not wear its happiest aspect; no token of feminine presence relieved the hard dulness of the ordinary lodging-house furniture; the books had been heaped on chairs to make way for the breakfast equipage, which, though used two hours before, still held its place; a side-table was littered rather than spread with papers and writing materials, which had been searched over night; the flowers were dry and withered, not only in a glass upon the chimney-piece, but in a small stand near the sunniest window. In short, to sum

up the whole, it wore the appearance of a room which had of late been inhabited by the sterner sex only, and to which the rare efforts of a mere household drudge had not sufficed to impart even the common comfort of neatness.

CHAPTER II.

"Does all he does with single mind,
And does to others what is kind."

From the German.

ERBERT Bingley was almost a stranger in his home, if such it could be called. He had gone to India at eighteen, and, returning after twelve years'

service, he had hardly been in England as many days, when his mother died. It was a sad welcome back for one, who, in the long years of absence, had come by force of habit and example to look on "home" as an elysium of promise and delight, and to make that so long unattainable, a centre round which all the hopes and wishes of an imaginative temperament had been wont to cluster. Susceptible of outward influences as any woman, he had been well-nigh overpowered by the sad circumstances which heralded in his return to his native land.

It was part of his nature to be subject to quick revulsions of feeling; but there had been no escape from grief here, and it was with a heavy heart and clouded brow that he turned to the hitherto closed window, and, mechanically drawing up the blind, stood casting vacant regards down upon the straggling and irregular buildings of many a sombre hue, which, clustering about the quay, contrasted strangely enough with the gay and glittering sea beyond. He wondered what Maud had meant when she had one day spoken of the aspect as good; and, listening to the tread of footsteps and the hum of subdued voices upstairs, he only fell to musing more sadly and sorrowfully than before.

It was not long before his meditations were broken in upon by Edgeworth, who, finding old Bridget would not admit him into his sister's room, generally the victim to his vagaries, preferred bestowing his company upon his stranger brother to being left to the society of his own thoughts.

Edgeworth, a delicate youth of nineteen, was not unlike what Herbert remembered his second brother to have been some ten years before. He had been very fond of this brother, for they had been sent home from India as children together, had been educated at the same schools, and finally

had gone to India in company. The younger of the two, however, had taken a disgust to the profession of arms, had thrown up his commission in the Company's service, and gone to seek his fortunes in Australia, and of late years John had been almost as much lost to his relations as the brothers and twin sisters who ended their short lives in India. It was not till the certain tidings of his death came, to add to the troubles of a year which had opened darkly enough, that any knew how strong had been the hope of his ultimate restoration.

It was this resemblance which inclined Herbert to fall into the general custom of petting and spoiling the youngest and most delicate of the family. This practice had not tended to increase Edgeworth's amiability, and Herbert was only just beginning to arrive at a knowledge of the spoilt boy's failings, for Edgeworth, only summoned from Haileybury when his mother's life was despaired of, had been too much shocked and subdued at first to show himself in his true colours. At this moment, however, his depression was taking the form of extreme irritation, and, without saying a word, he rung the bell with such startling vehemence, that Herbert turned round and hastily inquired what could be the matter.