w like a
comforting breath of old times--a something to catch hold of in the
wide, dreary maze around her. Her former guardian seemed to rise up
before her; with all his cheery, good-natured ways; his compassion
when she had been newly made an orphan; his kindness of manner that
remained--ay, to the very last.

In a rush of many feelings that softened her voice to positive
tenderness, she cried, "Oh do tell me all about Major Harper?"

And this time she did not notice that, in the political discussion going
forward, it was Mr. Dugdale who spoke, his brother-in-law having ceased
the argument and become silent.

"Madam," returned the candidate, with a smile--perhaps a little too
meaning a smile--"I will, with pleasure, tell you everything. I guessed
from his anxious questions concerning you, and whether I had met you in
Dorsetshire, that before he was your brother-in-law Major Harper had the
happiness of being an intimate friend of yours."

"He was my guardian."

"That fact he did not inform me of. Indeed we had little time for
conversation. We merely dined together, and parted almost immediately.
He seemed in the midst of a whirl of pleasant engagements, as Major
Harper invariably is. Charming, agreeable man! An immense favourite with
all ladies."

Agatha answered "Yes" rather coldly. Her attention was wandering; she
had missed the sound of her husband's voice altogether. But the next
moment she heard him behind her.

"Mr. Trenchard?"

"Well, my dear sir? Are you also come to ask questions about your
brother, whom, as I have been telling Mrs. Harper, I had the pleasure to
meet in Paris?"

"So I have just heard you say. Where, and how was he living?"

Agatha thought this a strange question for Nathanael to put to a third
party concerning his own brother. She was glad to hear Miss Valery
observe, with genuine tact, that Major Harper was always careless in the
matter of giving addresses.

"He was living--let me see--at 102 Rue--, one of the handsomest and
pleasantest streets in Paris. I remember he said he was obliged to take
this _appartement_ for three months, after which he was going to act the
hermit and economise. Very unlikely that, I should think, for a man of
Major Harper's social habits."

"Very," Agatha said, being looked to for a response. She was much
surprised to learn this of her brother-in-law; still more did she wonder
at the rigid silence with which her husband heard the same.

"I think, M