n all the disorder of a dress so unlike her
own splendor! I could almost fancy that old straw chair to be a handsome
fauteuil since she sat in it."

"How delightful it must be to be admitted to the freedom of daily
intercourse with such a person, to live within the atmosphere of such
goodness and such refinement!" And thus they went on ringing the changes
upon every gift and grace, from the genial warmth of her heart, to the
snowy whiteness of her dimpled hands; while Grouusell fidgeted in his
chair, searched for his handkerchief, his spectacles, his snuff-box,
dropped them all in turn, and gathered them up again, in a perfect fever
of embarrassment and indecision.

"And you see her every day, doctor?" said Nelly.

"Yes, every day, madam," said he, hastily, and not noticing nor thinking
to whom he was replying.

"And is she always as charming, always as fascinating?"

"Pretty much the same, I think," said he, with a grunt.

"How delightful! And always in the same buoyancy of spirits?"

"Very little changed in that respect," said he, with another grunt.

"We have often felt for poor Sir Stafford being taken ill away from
his home, and obliged to put up with the miserable resources of a
watering-place in winter; but I own, when I think of the companionship
of Lady Hester, much of my compassion vanishes."

"He needs it all, then," said Grounsell, as, thrusting his hands into
the recesses of his pockets, he sat a perfect picture of struggling
embarrassment.

"Are his sufferings so very great?"

Grounsell nodded abruptly, for now he was debating within himself what
course to take; for while, on one side, he deemed it a point of honor
not to divulge to strangers, as were the Daltons, any of the domestic
circumstances of those with whom he lived, he felt, on the other,
reluctant to suffer Lady Hester's blandishments to pass for qualities
more sterling and praiseworthy.

"She asked the girls to go and see her," said Dalton, now breaking
silence for the first time; for although flattered in the main by what
he heard of the fine lady's manner towards his daughters, he was not
without misgivings that what they interpreted as courtesy might just as
probably be called condescension, against which his Irish pride of birth
and blood most sturdily rebelled. "She asked them to go and see her, and
it was running in my head if she mio'ht not have heard something of the
family connection."

"Possibly!" asserted Grounsell, t