sides, and concluded by Mrs. Rowe invariably with the withering observation, that it was the first remark of the kind which had ever been made on one of her little notes. People usually came to a settlement with complimentary expressions of surprise at the extreme—almost reckless—moderation of her charges; and expressed themselves as at a loss to understand how she could make it worth her while to do so very much for so very little. The people who came and went were alike in the mass. The reader is requested to bear in mind that Mrs. Rowe had a connexion of her own. She was seldom angry; but when an advertising agent made his way to her business parlour, and took the liberty of submitting the value of a Western States paper as a medium for making her establishment known, she confessed that the impertinence was too much for her temper. Mrs. Rowe advertise! Mrs. Rowe would just as soon throw herself off the Pont Neuf, or—miss church next Sunday.

"They don't come a second time!" Mrs. Rowe would say to me, with a fierce compression of the lip, that might lead a nervous person to imagine she made away with them in the cellars.

When Mrs. Rowe took you into her confidence—a slow and tedious admission—she was pleased, usually, to fortify your stock of knowledge with a comprehensive view of her family connexions; intended to set the Whytes of Battersea (from whom she derived, before the vulgar Park was there) upon an eminence of glory, with a circle of cringing and designing Rowes at the base. How she—Whyte on both sides, for her father married his first cousin—ever came to marry Joshua Rowe, was something her mother never understood to her dying day. She was graciously open to consolation in the reflection that nobles and princes had made humble matches before her; and particularly in this, that the Prince Regent married Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Lucy Rowe was favoured with these observations, heightened by occasional hits at her own misfortune in that she was a Rowe, and could not boast one thimbleful of Whyte blood in her veins.

It was the almost daily care of Mrs. Rowe to impress the people with whom her business brought her in contact, with the gulf that lay between her and her niece; although, through the early and inexplicable condescension of a Miss Harriet Whyte, of Battersea, they bore the same name, Miss Rowe was no blood relation whatever.

It was surprising to see how Lucy bore up under the misfortune. She was not a Whyte, but she had lived beside one. Youth is so elastic! Lucy, albeit she had the Rowe lip and nose, and, worse than all, the Rowe hair (a warm auburn, which Mrs. Rowe described in one syllable, with a picturesque and popular comparison comprehended in two), was daring enough to meet the daylight, without showing the smallest signs of giving way to melancholy. When new comers, as a common effort of politeness, saw a strong likeness between Mrs. Rowe and her niece, the representative of the Whytes of Battersea drew herself to her full height, which was a trifle above her niece's shoulders, and answered—"Oh dear, no, madam! It would be very strange if there were, as there is not the slightest blood relationship between us."

Lucy Rowe was about fifteen when I first saw her. A slender, golden-haired, shy and quiet girl, much in bashful and sensitive demeanour like her romantic namesake of "the untrodden ways." It is quite true that she had no Whyte blood in her veins, and Mrs. Rowe could most conscientiously declare that there was not the least resemblance between them. The Whyte features were of a type which none would envy the possessor, save as the stamp of the illustrious house of Battersea. The House of Savoy is not attractive by reason of its faultless profile; but there are persons of almost matchless grace who would exchange their beauty for its blood. In her very early days, I have no doubt. Lucy Rowe would have given her sweet blue eyes, her pouting lips, and pretty head (just enough to fold lovingly between the palms of a man's hand), for the square jaw and high cheek-bone of the Whytes. She felt very humble when she contemplated the grandeur of her aunt's family, and very grateful to her aunt who had stooped so far as to give her shelter when she was left alone in the world. She kept the accounts, ran errands, looked after the house linen, and made herself agreeable to the boarders' children; but all this was the very least she could do to express her humble thankfulness to the great lady-relative who had befriended her, after having been good enough to commit the sacrifice of marrying her uncle Joshua.

Lucy sat many hours alone in the business parlour—an apartment not decorated with the distinct view of imparting cheerfulness to the human temperament. The mantelpiece was covered with files of bills. There were rows of numbered keys against the wall. Mrs. Rowe's old desk—style Empire she said, when any visitor noticed the handsome ruin—stood in a corner by the window, covered with account books, prospectuses and cards of the establishment, and heaps of old newspapers. Another corner showed heaps of folded linen, parcels left for boarders, umbrellas and sticks, which had been forgotten by old customers (Mrs. Rowe called them clients), and aunt's walking-boots. One corner was Lucy's, which she occupied in conjunction with a little table, at which, from seven in the morning until bedtime, she worked with pen or needle (it was provoking she could not learn to ply both at one time), when she was not running about the house, or nursing a boarder's baby. On the rare evenings when her aunt could not find work of any description for her, Lucy was requested to take the Bible from the shelf, and read a chapter aloud. When her aunt went to sleep during the reading Lucy continued steadily, knowing that the scion of the illustrious house of Whyte would wake directly her voice ceased.

Occasionally the clergyman would drop in; whereupon Lucy would hear much improving discourse between her aunt and the reverend gentleman. Mrs. Rowe poured all her griefs into the ear of the Reverend Horace Mohun—griefs which she kept from the world. Before Lucy she spoke freely—being accustomed to regard the timid girl as a child still, whose mind could not gather the threads of her narrative. Lucy sate—not listening, but hearing snatches of the mournful circumstances with which Mrs. Rowe troubled Mr. Mohun. The reverend gentleman was a patient and an attentive listener; and drank his tea and ate his toast (it was only at Mrs. Rowe's he said he could ever get a good English round of toast), shaking his head, or offering a consoling "dear, dear me!" as the droning proceeded. Lucy was at work. If Mrs. Rowe caught her pausing she would break her story to say—"If you have finished 42 account, put down two candles to 10, and a foot-bath to 14." And Lucy—who seldom paused because she had finished her task, as her aunt knew well—bent over the table again, and was as content as she was weary. When she went up to her bedroom (which the cook had peremptorily refused to occupy) she prayed for good Aunt Rowe every night of her dull life, before she lay upon her truckle bed to rest for the morrow's cheerful round of hard duties. Was it likely that a child put thus into the harness of life, would pass the talk of her aunt with Mr. Mohun as the idle wind?

The mysteries which lay in the talk, and perplexed her, were cleared up in due time.

CHAPTER II.