hand. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! Do not tear
up that piece of rice-paper, Miss Derrick," he added, taking it from
her. "The crescent was wrapped in it, and I will put it round it again.
All these stones want polishing, and many of them resetting. They ought
not to be tumbled together in this way in a bag, with nothing to
prevent them scratching each other. See, Ralph, here is a clasp broken;
and here are some loose stones; and this star has no clasp at all. You
must take them up to some trustworthy jeweller, and have them thoroughly
looked over."

"I suppose the second son was specially mentioned, Middleton?" said
Charles, as I drew back to let the rest handle and admire.

"Of course!" said Lady Mary, sharply; "and a very fortunate thing, too."

"Very--for Ralph," he replied. "It is really providential that I am what
I am. Why, I might have ruined the dear boy's prospects if I had paid my
tailor's bill, and lived in the country among the buttercups and
daisies. Ah! my dear aunt, I see you are about to remark how all things
here below work together for good!"

"I was not going to remark anything of the kind," retorted Lady Mary,
drawing herself up; "but," she added, spitefully, "I do not feel the
less rejoiced at Ralph's good fortune and prosperity when I see, as I so
often do, the ungodly flourishing like a green bay-tree."

"Of course," said Charles, shaking his head, "if that is your own
experience, I bow before it; but for my own part, I must confess I have
not found it so. Flourish like a green bay-tree! No, Aunt Mary, it is a
fallacy; they don't: I am sure I only wish they did. But I see the
rehearsal is beginning. May I give you an arm to the hall?"

The offer was entirely disregarded, and it was with the help of mine
that Lady Mary retired from an unequal combat, which she never seemed
able to resist provoking anew, and in which she was invariably worsted,
causing her, as I could see, to regard Charles with the concentrated
bitterness of which a severely good woman alone is capable.

I soon perceived that Charles was on the same amicable terms with his
father; that they rarely spoke, and that it was evidently only with a
view to keeping up appearances that he was ever invited to the paternal
roof at all. Between the brothers, however, in spite of so much to
estrange them, a certain kindliness of feeling seemed to exist, which
was hardly to have been expected under the circumstances.

The rehearsal