till they are ripe for collision. There be writers would give the reader all the preliminary puffs of articulated wind, and everybody would say, "How clever! That is just the way girls really talk." But I leave the glory of photographing nullities to the geniuses of the age, and run to the first words which could, without impiety, be called dialogue. "Don't you think his conduct a little mysterious?" said Zoe, mal àpropos of anything that had been said hitherto. "Well, yes; rather," said Fanny, with marked carelessness. "First, a sick friend; then a bleeding at the nose; and now he won't drive to the lake with us: arrears of correspondence? Pooh!" Now Fanny's suspicions were deeper than Zoe's; she had observed Severne keenly: but it was not her cue to speak; she yawned, and said, "What does it matter?" "Don't be unkind. It matters to me." that are not content with one. You forget how poor Harrington would miss your attentions. He would begin to appreciate them-when he had lost them." This stung, and Fanny turned white and red by turns. "I deserve this," said she, "for wasting advice on a coquet." "That is not true; I'm no coquet and here I am, asking your advice, and you only snub me. You are a jealous, cross, unreasonable thing." "Well, I'm not a hypocrite." "I never was called so before," said Zoe, nobly and gently. "Then you were not found out, that is all. You look so simple and ingenuous, and blush if a man says half a word to you; and all the time you are a greater flirt than I am." "Oh, Fanny !" screamed Zoe, with horror. It seems a repartee may be conveyed in a scream; for Fanny now lost her temper altogether. "Your "Not it. You have another conduct with those two men is ready." "What other? There is no one that I--Fanny." "Oh, nonsense! The man is evidently smitten, and you keep encouraging him." "No, I don't; I am barely civil. And don't be ill-natured. What can I do?" abominable," said she. "I won't speak to you any more." "I beg you will not, in your present temper," said Zoe, with unaffected dignity, and rising like a Greek column. Fanny flounced out of the room. Zoe sat down and sighed, and her glorious eyes were dimmed. "Why, be content with one at a Mystery-doubt and time." "It is very rude to talk so. Besides, I haven't got one, much less two. I begin to doubt him; and, Lord Uxmoor! you know I cannot possibly care for him-an acquaintance of yesterday." "But you know all about him; that he is an excellent parti," said Fanny, with a provoking sneer. This was not to be borne. "Oh," said Zoe, "I see! you want him for yourself. It is you now a quarrel. What a day! At her age, a little cloud seems to darken the whole sky. Next morning the little party met at breakfast. Lord Uxmoor, anticipating a delightful day, was in high spirits, and he and Fanny kept up the ball. She had resolved, in the silent watches of the night, to contest him with Zoe, and make every possible use of Severne, in the conflict. 8 Zoe was silent and distraite, and did not even try to compete with her sparkling rival. But Lord Uxmoor's eyes often wandered from his sprightly companion to Zoe, and it was plain he longed for a word from her mouth. Fanny observed, bit her lip, and tacked internally, "'bout ship," as the sailors say. Her game now, conceived in a moment, and at once put in execution, was encourage Uxmoor's attentions to to Zoe. She began by openly courting Mr Severne, to make Zoe talk to Uxmoor, and also make him think that Severne and she were the lovers. Her intentions were to utilise the coming excursion; she would attach herself to Harrington, and [July and then Lord Uxmoor, at his so drive Zoe and Uxmoor together; present rate of amorous advance, would probably lead Zoe to a detached rock, and make her a serious declaration. This good, artful, made a girl, felt sure such a declaration, Barfordshire, would be accepted, few months hence in and herself left in the cold. Therefore she resolved it should be made Severne at hand, and so in all proprematurely, and in Prussia, with bability come to nothing. She quences, and in that little avenue even glimpsed a vista of conseDover playing the part of consoler, discerned the figure of Fanny friend, and ultimately spouse, to a wealthy noble. CHAPTER V. The letters were brought in: one was to Vizard, from Herries, announcing a remittance; one to Lord Uxmoor. On reading it, he was surprised into an exclamation, and his face expressed great concern. "Oh!" said Zoesaid Zoe" Harring ton!" Harrington's attention being thus drawn, he said, "No bad news, I hope?" 66 Yes," said Uxmoor, in a low voice, "very bad. My oldest, truest, dearest friend has been seized with small-pox, and his life is in danger. He has asked for me, poor fellow. This is from his sister. I must start by the twelve o'clock train." Small-pox! why, it is contagious!" cried Fanny; "and so disfiguring!" "I can't help that," said the honest fellow; and instantly rang the bell for his servant, and the requisite orders. gave Zoe, whose eye had never left him all the time, said, softly, "It is brave and good of you. said he, firmly, looking full at her. Zoe coloured high, and was silent. rington, sympathisingly. Mr Se- 66 nestly; you and your poor friend wherever we are. And I shall pray for him. But, ah! I know how little prayers avail to avert these cruel bereavements." She was young, but old enough to have prayed hard for her sick mother's life, and, like the rest of us, prayed in vain. At this remembrance the tears ran undisguised down her cheeks. The open sympathy of one so young and beautiful, and withal rather reserved, made Lord Uxmoor gulp; and, not to break down before them all, he blurted out that he must go and pack: with this he hurried away. He was unhappy. Besides the calamity he dreaded, it was grievous to be torn away from a woman he loved at first sight, and just when she had come out so worthy of his love: she was a high-minded creature; she had been silent and reserved so long as the conversation was trivial; but, when trouble came, she was the one to speak to him bravely and kindly. Well, what must be, must. All this ran through his mind, and made him sigh; but it never occurred to him to shirk-to telegraph instead of going-nor yet to value himself on his self-denial. They did not see him again till he was on the point of going, and then he took leave of them all, Zoe last. When he came to her, he ignored the others, except that he lowered his voice in speaking to her. "God bless you for your kindness, Miss Vizard. It is a little hard upon a fellow to have to run away from such an acquaintance, just when I have been so fortunate as to make it." "Oh, Lord Uxmoor," said Zoe, innocently, "never mind that. Why, we live in the same county, and we are on the way home. All I think of is your poor friend; and do please telegraph-to Harrington." He promised he would, and went away disappointed somehow at her last words. When he was gone Severne went out on the balcony to smoke, and Harrington held a council with the young ladies. "Well now," said he, "about this trip to the lake." "I shall not go, for one," said Zoe, resolutely. "La!" said Fanny, looking carefully away from her to Harrington; "and she was the one that insisted." Zoe ignored the speaker, and set her face stiffly towards Harrington. 'She only said that to him.” Fanny.-"But unfortunately ears are not confined to the noble." Zoe." Nor tongues to the discreet." Both these remarks were addressed pointedly to Harrington. "Hollo!" said he, looking from one flaming girl to the other; "am I to be a shuttlecock? and your discreet tongues the battledores? What is up?" "We don't speak," said the frank Zoe ; "that is up." "Why, what is the row?" "No great matter, I'll be bound. 'Toll, toll the bell.' Here goes one more immortal friendship-quenched in eternal silence." Both ladies bridled. spoke. Neither "And dead silence, as ladies understand it, consists in speaking at one another instead of to." No reply. "That is well-bred taciturnity." No answer. "The dignified reserve that distinguishes an estrangement from a squabble." No reply. Well, I admire permanent sentiments, good or bad; constant resolves, &c. Your friendship has not proved immortal; so now let us see how long you can hold spite -SIEVES!" Then he affected to start. "What is this? I spy a rational creature out on yonder balcony. I hasten to join him. 'Birds of a feather,' you know; and with that he went out to his favourite, and never looked behind him. The young ladies, indignant at the contempt the big man had presumed to cast upon the constant soul of woman, turned two red faces and four sparkling eyes to each other, with the instinctive sympathy of the jointly injured; but, remembering in time, turned sharply round again, and presented napes, and so sat sullen. By-and-by a chilling thought fell upon them both at the same moment of time. The men were good friends as usual, safe, by sex, from tiffs, and could do without them; and a dull day impended over the hostile fair. Thereupon the ingenious Fanny resolved to make a splash of some sort, and disturb stagnation. She suddenly cried out, "La! and the man is gone away: so what is the use?" This remark she was careful to level at bare space. Zoe, addressing the same person -space, to wit-inquired of him if anybody in his parts knew to whom this young lady was addressing herself. "To a girl that is too sensible not to see the folly of quarrelling about a man-when he is gone," said Fanny. "If it is me you mean," said Zoe, stiffly; "really I am surprised. You forget we are at daggers drawn." "Come, cuddle me quick!" Zoe was all round her neck in a moment, like a lace scarf, and there was violent kissing, with a tear or two. Then they put an arm round each other's waists, and went all about the premises intertwined like snakes; and Zoe gave Fanny her cameo brooch, the one with the pearls round it. The person to whom Vizard fled from the tongue of beauty was a delightful talker: he read two or three newspapers every day, and recollected the best things. Now it is not everybody can remember a thousand disconnected facts and recall them apropos. He was various, fluent, and above all superficial; and such are your best conversers; they have something good and strictly ephemeral to say on everything, and don't know enough of anything to impale their hearers. In my youth there talked in Pall Mall a gentleman known as "Conversation Sharp." He eclipsed everybody. Even Macaulay paled. Sharp talked all the blessed afternoon, and grave men listened enchanted; and of all he said, nothing stuck. Where be now your Sharpiana? The learned may be compared to mines; these desultory charmers are more like the ornamental cottage near Staines, forty or fifty rooms, and the whole structure one storey high. The mine teems with solid wealth; but you must grope and trouble to come to it it is easier and pleasanter to run about the cottage with a lot of rooms all on the ground-floor. : The mind and body both get into habits-sometimes apart, sometimes in conjunction. Nowadays we seat the body to work the intellect, even in its lower form of mechanical labour: it is your clod that toddles about labouring. The Peripatetics did not endure: their method was not suited to man's microcosm. Bodily movements fritter mental attention. We sit at the feet of Gamaliel, or, as some call him, Tyndall; and we sit to Bacon and Adam Smith. But, when we are standing or walking, we love to take brains easy. If this delightful chatterbox had been taken down shorthand and printed, and Vizard had been set down to Severni opuscula, 10 vols.—and, mind you, Severne had talked all ten by this time-the Barfordshire squire and old Oxonian would have cried out for "more matter with less words," and perhaps have even fled for relief to some shorter treatise, Bacon's 'Essays,' Browne's 'Religio Medici,' or Buckle's 'Civilisation.' But lounging in a balcony, and lazily breathing a cloud, he could have listened all day to his desultory, delightful friend, overflowing with little questions, little answers, little queries, little epigrams, little maxims à la Rochefoucauld, little histories, little anecdotes, little gossip, and little snap shots at every feather flying. "Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago Severni." But, alas! after an hour of touchand-go, of superficiality and soft delight, the desultory charmer fell on a subject he had studied. So then he bored his companion for the first time in all the tour. But, to tell the honest truth, Mr Severne had hitherto been pleasing his friend with a cold-blooded purpose. His preliminary gossip, that made the time fly so agreeably, was intended to oil the way; to lubricate the passage of a premeditated pill. As soon as he had got Vizard into perfect good-humour, he said, apropos of nothing that had passed, "By the by, old fellow, that five hundred pounds you promised to lend me !" Vizard was startled by this sudden turn of a conversation hitherto agreeable. 66 Why, you have had three hundred and lost it," said he. "Now take my advice, and don't lose any more." "I don't mean to. But I am determined to win back the three hundred, and a great deal more, before I leave this. I have discovered a system, an infallible one." "I am sorry to hear it," said Harrington, gravely. "That is the second step on the road to ruin; the gambler with a system is the confirmed maniac." "What! because other systems have been tried, and proved to be false? Mine is untried, and it is mere prejudice to condemn it unheard." "Propound it then," said Vizard. "Only please observe the bank has got its system-you forget that; and the bank's system is to take a positive advantage, which must win in the long-run; therefore all counter-systems must lose in the long run. "But the bank is tied to a longrun, the individual player is not." This reply checked Vizard for a moment, and the other followed up his advantage. "Now, Vizard, be reasonable. What would the trifling advantage the bank derives from an incident which occurs only once in twenty-eight deals, avail against a player who could foresee at any given deal whether the card that was going to come up the nearest thirty, would be on the red or black?" "No avail at all. God Almighty could break the bank every afternoon. Après ? as we say in France. Do you pretend to omniscience?" "Not exactly." 66 Well, but prescience of isolated |