ay across the lake, when once more Calvert
recurred to the strange circumstance that his name should never have
come before them in any shape since his departure.

"I ought to tell you," said she, in some confusion, "that I once did
make an effort to obtain tidings of you. I wrote to your cousin Miss
Sophia."

"You wrote to her!" burst he in, sternly; "and what answer did you get?"

"There it is," said she, drawing forth the letter, and giving it to him.

"'No claim! no right!' murmured he, as he re-read the lines; "'the name
of the person she had dared to inquire after;' and you never suspected
the secret of all this indignant anger?"

"How could I? What was it?"

"One of the oldest and vulgarest of all passions--jealousy! Sophy had
heard that I was attached to your niece. Some good-natured gossip went
so far as to say we were privately married. My old uncle, who only about
once in a quarter of a century cares what his family are doing, wrote me
a very insulting letter, reminding me of the year-long benefits he had
bestowed upon me, and, at the close, categorically demanded 'Are you
married to her?' I wrote back four words, 'I wish I was,' and there
ended all our intercourse. Since I have won certain distinctions,
however, I have heard that he wants to make submission, and has even
hinted to my lawyer a hope that the name of Calvert is not to be severed
from the old estate of Rocksley Manor; but there will be time enough to
tell you about all these things. What did your nieces say to that note
of Sophy's?"

"Nothing. They never saw it Never knew I wrote to her."

"Most discreetly done on your part I cannot say how much I value the
judgment you exercised on this occasion."

The old lady set much store by such praise, and grew rather prolix about
all the considerations which led her to adopt the wise course she had
taken.

He was glad to have launched her upon a sea where she could beat, and
tack, and wear at will, and leave him to go back to his own thoughts.

"And so," said he, at last, "they are to be married before Christmas?"

"Yes; that is the plan."

"And then she will return with him to India, I take it"

She rodded.

"Poor girl! And has she not one friend in all the world to tell her
what a life is before her as the wife of a third--no, but tenth-rate
official--in that dreary land of splendour and misery, where nothing but
immense wealth can serve to gloss over the dull uniformity of existence,