s stood on her long curled lashes--and
that Mrs Lambert's voice was heard from the parlour door, raised in no
pleasant tones?

'Miss Palmer, you are late in returning. Unpunctuality I cannot
tolerate. Remember, miss, you are bound to follow my instructions,
and--'

Then the door closed, and Chatterton heard no more.

But that afternoon he went into Mr Antony Henderson's office in Corn
Street, where poor Jack Henderson sat on his low stool, with his long
legs bent up under the watchmaker's counter, pulling to pieces a large
watch in a pinchbeck case, and thinking more of Bryda than the wheels of
that cumbrous bit of mechanism.

Chatterton bent over him, and whispered in his ear,--

'Look about you, Henderson. Your fair lady has another suitor. He was
with her in the square to-day at noon. A fine fellow, too, I swear he
was.'

Jack started so that the pinchbeck watch had a narrow escape of falling
from the counter, and the man who had the care of the apprentices at Mr
Henderson's exclaimed,--

'Take care, you clumsy lout. You spoil more things than you mend. You'll
never be fit for the trade. You might as well put one of your mother's
heifers in here to learn the business.'

Jack paid little heed to this taunt, and bent his head lower over the
watch.

Chatterton laughed a low laugh.

'Well,' he said, 'I advise you to look out or your fair one will slip
through your fingers.'

And then he was gone.

Jack had to wait till the following Sunday before he could see Bryda.
Everything was against him, for a heavy rain was falling, and there was
no chance of Bryda coming out for a Sunday walk. But he went boldly up
the steps before Mr Lambert's house and gave a heavy thud on the door
with the knocker.

The footboy opened it, and Jack said,--

'Can I see Miss Palmer?'

'I don't know. She is reading to the missis. But,' said the boy, with a
knowing wink, 'the missis takes a nap after dinner, and if she is gone
off Miss Palmer may get out on the sly. I'll peep in and see. You are
Miss P.'s beau, ain't you?'

'Hold your tongue,' Jack said wrathfully, 'you impudent young villain.'

'Oh, that's it, is it? Then I sha'n't do no more for you. You may stand
there till the "crack of doom" the 'prentice is always talking about.'

The voices in the little lobby attracted Bryda's attention. Mrs Lambert
was comfortably asleep, and Bryda opened the door softly, and saw Jack
standing near it, arrayed in his Sunday best--b