the curtain; and Wilmet, perceiving that he wished to have it out at once, left them together. 'Edgar, do you know?' said Felix, earnestly.

'I scent a crisis in the air, and am doubting whether the Pursuivant is up a tree, or Wilmet's engineer turned out no go.'

'You have not had Cherry's letter?'

'No. Don't torment yourself to beat about the bush. I'd stand anything rather than see you look like that.'

'Have you heard from Jersey?'

'Oh! It is that, is it? I believe it has lasted twelve calendar months, and that is as much as is reasonable to expect. Little humbugging puss! What has she taken up with?'

'Had you no idea that she had fallen in with—with a Frenchman?'

'The beggar! How far has it gone? or is it only a report from the old cats of aunts?'

'It is too certain.'

'Well, what is it? I suppose she hardly commissioned you to give me my congé?'

'I fear that she commissioned no one. Harsh treatment seems to have driven her to desperation. She was married privately, and has written from France to announce it.'

Edgar gave a long whistle, then turned round and laid his hand on his brother's, saying with a short laugh, 'Cool and easy! Well, it was pretty sport; and this conclusion is unique for simplicity and saving of trouble. Dear old Fee, here's that pulse of yours going like a young lady's in a field with a mad bull. Have you been working yourself up all day to expect me to hang myself, or shoot the frog-eater? Didn't I always tell you that only the ancient chivalry of the Pursuivant could take the affair au grand sérieux?'

'Very well,' said Felix in a somewhat smothered voice, 'it is your affair, and I must accept modern customs. I am glad you understood one another so well.'

'Spoken with grave irony worthy of the heavy father, your laudable model. Dear old chap, you'll be better now.'

There was something strange in the half-reverent, half-pitying tone of the tall powerful young man, as, with a sneer on his curling lip, but a tear in his softened eye, he stooped, pushed back the fair hair, and kissed the face which in its wistfulness looked younger than his own (having moreover the hirsuteness of only two days instead of two years).

Felix fulfilled his intention of getting up, though he went no farther than his own fire-side, where soon after tea he was joined by Clement, looking very serious, and armed with Bible, Prayer-book, and copy-book. He was to take Felix's Sunday class the next day; but whereas he had done so for the two months of the Ewmouth visit in the summer, there seemed no special necessity for a consultation, which in fact proved to be a rehearsal of the morrow's lesson, with various instructions to Felix himself, on what Clement called 'Church Teaching,' in oblivion that the simple truths of religion are as much Church teaching as the distinctive doctrines of his own set.

As vehement laughter pealed across the passage, Felix ventured to suggest that something was going on there.

'Yes,' said Clement; 'they were beginning some game, but I distrust Edgar's wit.'

'I don't think holding aloof always good.'

'When one's presence is a stimulus to irreverence?'

'Because you present yourself as a butt, instead of laughing with him, and giving things a turn.'

'Impossible, where one feels deeply.'

Felix believed it was impossible in the present case, and resigned himself, though pricking up his ears at the ripples of mirth and the shrieks of ecstatic uncontrollable laughter that reached his ear; until at last Lance burst in, laughing so that he could hardly stand upright, and bringing a paper in his hand for Felix's benefit.

It had been the game of adjectives, and Edgar, the conductor, had audaciously made its framework the Pursuivant's report of the valedictory sermon that Mr. Mowbray Smith was to preach on the morrow. It was a most comical combination, so well had Edgar's outline hit off the editor's desire to make the best of it, coupled with personalities that neither Mr. Smith would have preached nor he reported unless they had been in the palace of truth; the whole rendered the more grotesque by the hap-hazard adjectives that seasoned the discourse, sometimes deliciously inapposite, sometimes fantastically appropriate. An audience had stolen behind Lance to taste its sweets a second time; and the drollery, the vraisemblance, and touches of malice, quite choked him as he read, and overpowered Felix with mirth, all the more at the shocked countenance that Clement preserved throughout, while in the background there was a renewed chuckling, roaring, and rolling, at the more brilliant sallies.

The whole family had been viewing Edgar with more or less of awe, pity, and curiosity, as an injured hero, but had been beguiled into the maddest mirth, though as much disgusted with themselves for giggling as with him for making them giggle. Wilmet herself had succumbed, and Cherry had been in an almost hysterical transport of laughter, till her jaws ached, and her eyes were weak; and she was so exhausted that she could hardly crawl into Felix's room to wish him good-night, and then scarcely durst speak to him lest she should burst into tears; while as to the younger ones, it was altogether delightful to them at the moment, and they regarded the transactions of February as a dream.

When they met the next morning, Edgar professed that he could not venture on sitting under Mr. Smith's actual sermon, but should go to Minsterham, to pay his respects to Wilmet's future relations, if there were a feasible train.

'Yes,' said Clement, 'there's one in twenty minutes, which brings one in time for the Cathedral.'

'Dr. Wilmet is engrossed with a distinguished patient. Eh? Come along then, Lance; I must have some one to present me.'

Lance gave a joyful leap; but Wilmet interposed, 'Indeed, Lance, it is hardly safe. Remember how bad your head was after Christmas Day.'

'It's my own head, and I may do as I like with it!'

'That's just what you can't now. If you were knocked up to-morrow—as you certainly would be, between the railroad and the organ—'

'That would be what you may call a fix,' observed Edgar. 'Knocked up between a railway and an organ! What a position!'

'It is quite true, Edgar,' said Wilmet, the more severely for the laughter of Lance and Angel. 'Lance knows very well that one of his headaches perfectly disables him. Felix would not be content to leave Mr. Lamb alone in the shop; and all the good of these three days would be undone.'

'Oh—h! it was a pillar of the state I was asking?' said Edgar. 'Is your head really so ticklish, Lance?' as the boy made a gesture of disgust.

'Don't persuade him, Edgar. He ought not to do it,' said Wilmet, in her blunt authoritative way.

Lance kicked the heel of his boot against the floor, and said, 'Don't I pity Jack Harewood, that's all!'

'Well, a couple of ducks instead of a goose—Bob and Angel, you've no heads.—Come! I'm too modest to face the Librarian alone, much less the red-headed daughters.'

The two girls eagerly looked at their sister.

'"Gorgons and hydras and chimæras dire!"' ejaculated Edgar. 'If I were you, W.W., I'd get up a little more charitably disposed towards my brother on a Sunday morning!'

'It is Angela's wildness that I am afraid of,' said Wilmet.

'She sha'n't go near a tea-kettle,' said Edgar. 'Put on your hats, chick-a-biddies, if you wish to catch the Cathedral.'

'May we? O Wilmet, pray!' entreated Robina.

'I will see what Felix says.'

'A graceful form of shifting the obloquy of the negative,' muttered Edgar, as Wilmet disappeared.

'Felix will decide as he thinks good,' said Robina with dignity.

'As she thinks good, you mean,' said Edgar. 'Well, I wonder how you all contrive to stand it. I couldn't, I know, even for a quiet life.'

'You've not been broken in, you see,' said Lance, trying to answer with nonchalance.