h pleasant
bonhommie about it. That done, he entered into his acted part, and
towered in his conceit considerably above these aristocratic boors, who
were speechless and graceless, but tigers for their privileges and
advantages.

It will not be thought that the Countess intended to permit her brother's
departure. To have toiled, and yet more, to have lied and fretted her
conscience, for nothing, was as little her principle, as to quit the
field of action till she is forcibly driven from it is that of any woman.

'Going, my dear,' she said coolly. 'To-morrow? Oh! very well. You are the
judge. And this creature--the insolvent to the apple-woman, who is
coming, whom you would push here--will expose us, without a soul to guide
his conduct, for I shall not remain. And Carry will not remain.
Carry---!' The Countess gave a semisob. 'Carry must return to her
brute--' meaning the gallant Marine, her possessor.

And the Countess, knowing that Evan loved his sister Caroline,
incidentally related to him an episode in the domestic life of Major and
Mrs. Strike.

'Greatly redounding to the credit of the noble martinet for the
discipline he upholds,' the Countess said, smiling at the stunned youth.

'I would advise you to give her time to recover from one bruise,' she
added. 'You will do as it pleases you.'

Evan was sent rushing from the Countess to Caroline, with whom the
Countess was content to leave him.

The young man was daintily managed. Caroline asked him to stay, as she
did not see him often, and (she brought it in at the close) her home was
not very happy. She did not entreat him, but looking resigned, her lovely
face conjured up the Major to Evan, and he thought, 'Can I drive her back
to her tyrant?' For so he juggled with himself to have but another day in
the sunshine of Rose.

Andrew, too, threw out genial hints about the Brewery. Old Tom intended
to retire, he said, and then they would see what they would see! He
silenced every word about Lymport; called him a brewer already, and made
absurd jokes, that were serviceable stuff nevertheless to the Countess,
who deplored to this one and to that the chance existing that Evan might,
by the urgent solicitations of his brother-in-law, give up diplomacy and
its honours for a brewery and lucre!

Of course Evan knew that he was managed. The memoirs of a managed man
have yet to be written; but if he be sincere he will tell you that he
knew it all the time. He longed for