re proper,--as Hobbs' Lodge was less
pretty, but more safe from the winds and rains, than Dale Cottage.

Miss Bridget ventured to ask the good-humoured Lord Vargrave if he sang.
"Not I, Miss Hobbs; but Howard, there!--ah, if you heard _him_!" The
consequence of this hint was, that the unhappy secretary, who, alone, in
a distant corner, was unconsciously refreshing his fancy with some cool
weak coffee, was instantly beset with applications from Miss Bridget,
Mrs. Tiddy, Mr. Tiddy, and the tall doctor, to favour the company with a
specimen of his talents. Mr. Howard could sing,--he could even play the
guitar. But to sing at Hobbs' Lodge, to sing to the accompaniment of
Mrs. Tiddy, to have his gentle tenor crushed to death in a glee by the
heavy splayfoot of Mr. Tiddy's manly bass--the thought was insufferable!
He faltered forth assurances of his ignorance, and hastened to bury
his resentment in the retirement of a remote sofa. Vargrave, who had
forgotten the significant question of Mr. Onslow, renewed in a
whisper his conversation with that gentleman relative to the meditated
investment, while Mr. and Mrs. Tiddy sang "Come dwell with me;" and
Onslow was so pleased with his new acquaintance, that he volunteered to
make a fourth in Lumley's carriage the next morning, and accompany him
to Lisle Court. This settled, the party soon afterwards broke up.
At midnight Lord Vargrave was fast asleep; and Mr. Howard, tossing
restlessly to and fro on his melancholy couch, was revolving all the
hardships that await a native of St. James's, who ventures forth among--

"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders!"

CHAPTER IV.

BUT how were these doubts to be changed into absolute certainty?
EDGAR HUNTLEY.

THE next morning, while it was yet dark, Lord Vargrave's carriage
picked up Mr. Onslow at the door of a large old-fashioned house, at the
entrance of the manufacturing town of -----. The party were silent and
sleepy till they arrived at Lisle Court. The sun had then appeared, the
morning was clear, the air frosty and bracing; and as, after traversing
a noble park, a superb quadrangular pile of brick flanked by huge square
turrets coped with stone broke upon the gaze of Lord Vargrave, his
worldly heart swelled within him, and the image of Evelyn became
inexpressibly lovely and seductive.

Though the housekeeper was not prepared for Vargrave's arrival