"Not so; he has no home; nothing to offer Selina at present but his heart, and no certain prospect. So he leaves her free, but, like an honest man, shows her what he will, and means to do when he can."

"You are a little goose!" Agreed!" I answered.

However, the time came for us to go away, and it was as well. My uncle was getting fidgetty about his beloved curate, whose command over his feelings began to tell on his robust frame. Selina was becoming ominously silent and solemn: Isabel and Georgy having outlived the charm of seeing each other once more, had resumed their childish quarrels: my aunt existed in dread of a frightful quarrel between the rejected lover and the tolerated one,without the smallest foundation, however, for such an idea; while the unhappy little man. himself deserved and obtained from all quarters one universal epithet, and that was "tiresome."

So we returned to London all more or less orrowful. We had no welcome, for no one was

at home; but I missed that less than not being allowed to resume the occupation of my own

room.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Still for glittering locks and gaye,

Thou wilt ever cite the sonne;

Here's a simple tresse-I praye,

Hath he such a golden one ?"-ANON.

I WAS shewn into a little sort of attic lighted by a skylight. Small as I was, I ran the chance of inadvertently braining myself against a beam that cut off the bed from the rest of the room. All my most treasured possessions were scattered about in high confusion, and piled one upon another, as if to give visible evidence that there was not room for half of them in the space now allotted me. The servant who ushered me into

it coloured with shame, yet I said nothing, and did not even look surprised.

I felt convinced that some ulterior motive was the reason of the insult, and was as fully determined I would defeat the object by not considering it as such.

"My lady thought Mrs. Hind looked ill, my lady settled she should have your room. Mrs. Hind was not willing"

"Mrs. Hind is quite welcome.

You can

give her back that friar and nun, and say they not only belong to her room, but I have no space for them here."

"Your bath, Miss such a way about that.

Offley-I have been in

Nowhere could I put it.

But Mary and I have made a curtain, and hung it up here, just outside, in the little recess, going to our room, if you would not object."

"Not at all—it is a capital plan. I shall now be able to arrange all my things within, comfortably."

"God bless you, miss, for being a sweet young

lady, and bringing back Miss Glynne looking so well and beautiful."

"I think you need not mention to her and Neale that I have changed my room, they scarcely ever went into the other."

"Very true, Miss Offley, I won't; and indeed, as Mary and me were saying, we shall have good dreams, with a little angel sleeping next door."

"No," said I, " only a simple child." Miss Seymour would have given me a sugar-plum, perhaps, for that speech.

I concluded Lady Maria repented having given me a home in her house, and wished to drive me out of it. I had no wish to stay, but where could I go?

Both Selina and I were shocked at the change in my guardian. He looked ill, worried, and old for him. No glitter ever exceeded that with which Lady Maria's eyes regarded her daughter. On the contrary, each time that my guardian looked at her, he lost a wrinkle on his brow.

VOL. I.

R