o'clock struck, the feebleness of the excuses for departing thus early being only equalled by the gravity with which they were made. Even the lawyer, who we thought would have remained faithful to the end, pleaded that since he ricked his knee he is obliged to have plenty of rest. The Pirate Boy had had some bitter words with the lawyer at a previous stage in the evening about the way in which the lancers should be danced, and had muttered darkly, "I won't make a disturbance in a lady's house, but I have seen a fellow called out for less." He considered that the lawyer was running away, unable to bear his cold, keen eye upon him during the next lancers, and he watched him depart, standing at the head of the tiny staircase, beneath the display of bunting, with his arms folded in a Napoleonic attitude.

All good things come to an end, and even the Vicar of Stowel must have felt that there are limits to the most conscientious energy. And girls, dancing with each other, learn perhaps that the merriment caused by acting as a man is not altogether lasting; while elderly young ladies, although agreed in smiling to the very end, must be aware how fixed in expression such a smile may become towards the end of a long evening.

Good-nights were said, and carriages were called up with a good deal of unnecessary shouting, while the Pirate Boy insisted upon going to the heads of the least restive horses and soothing them in a way which he said he had learned from those Gaucho fellows out there.

I have never been able to tell what the Miss Traceys thought about their dance. If they were disappointed, the world was not allowed to probe that tender spot. Possibly they were satisfied with its success; the proprietary instinct of admiration applies to entertainments as well as to tangible possessions. But that satisfaction, if it existed, was modestly veiled—the house-warming was less discussed by them than by any one else. Miss Ruby spoke rather wistfully one day about simple pleasures being the best and safest after all, and she alluded with a sigh to the time which must come some day when she would be no longer young. Miss Tracey drew herself up and said: "A woman is only as old as she looks, my dear," and glanced admiringly at her sister.

The diluted Essence of Claret-cup was bottled, and formed a nice light luncheon wine at the Miss Tracey's for many weeks afterwards. The furniture was brought down from the spare bedroom by the maids, who walked the heavier pieces in front of them with a curious tip-toeing movement of the castors of the several easy-chairs. The art tiles in the grate were cleared of their faded burden of evergreens, and The Palm was carried into the bay-window, where it could be seen from the road.

I drove over to see Mrs. Fielden and to ask her if she thought I had been a sulky brute at the dance.

"Were you?" said Mrs. Fielden, lifting her pretty dark eyebrows; "I forget."

CHAPTER II.

Palestrina and I live in the country, and whenever we are dull or sad, like the sailors in Mr. Gilbert's poem, we decide that our neighbourhood is too deadly uninteresting, and then we go and see the Jamiesons. They are our nearest neighbours, as they are also amongst our greatest friends, and the walk to their house is a distance that I am able to manage. I believe that our visits to the Jamiesons are most often determined by the state of the weather. If we have passed a long wet day indoors I feel that it is going to be a Jamieson day, and I know that my sister will say to me after tea, "Suppose we go over and see the Jamiesons;" and she generally adds that it is much better than settling down for the evening at five o'clock in the afternoon.

I do not think that Palestrina was so sociable a young woman, nor did she see so much of her neighbours, before I came home an invalid from South Africa—I got hit in the legs at Magersfontein, and had the left one taken off in the hospital at Wynberg—but she believes, no doubt rightly, that the variety that one gets by seeing one's fellow-men is good for a poor lame dog who lies on a sofa by the fire the greater part of the day, wishing he could grow another leg or feel fit again.

Acting upon this unalterable conviction of my sister, we drive about in the afternoon and see people, and they come and see me and suggest occupations for me. In Lent I had a more than usual number of callers, which says much for the piety of the place, as well as for the goodness of heart of its inhabitants.

There is a slight coolness between what is known as the "County" and the Jamiesons, and their name is never mentioned without the accompanying piece of information, "You know, old Jamieson married his cook!" To be more exact, Mrs. Jamieson was a small farmer's daughter, and Captain Jamieson fell in love with her when, having left the army, he went to learn practical farming at old Higgins's, and he loved her faithfully to the day of his death. She is a stout, elderly woman who speaks very little, but upon whom an immense amount of affection seems to be lavished by her family of five daughters and two sons. And it has sometimes seemed to my sister and me that her good qualities are of a lasting and passive sort, which exist in large measure in the hearts of those who bestow this boundless affection. Mrs. Jamieson's form of introducing herself to any one she meets consists in giving an account of the last illness and death of her husband. There is hardly a poultice which was placed upon that poor man which her friends have not heard about. And when she has finished, in her flat, sad voice, giving every detail of his last disorder, Mrs. Jamieson's conversation is at an end. She has learned, no doubt unconsciously, to gauge the characters of new acquaintances by the degree of interest which they evince in Captain Jamieson's demise. It is Mrs. Jamieson's test of their true worth.

Of the other sorrow which saddened a nature that perhaps was never very gay, Mrs. Jamieson rarely speaks. Possibly because she thinks of it more than of anything else in the world. Among her eight children there was only one who appeared to his mother to combine all perfection in himself. He was killed by an accident in his engineering works seven years ago, and although his friends will, perhaps, only remember him as a stout young fellow who sang sea-songs with a distended chest, his mother buried her heart with him in his grave, and even the voice of strangers is lowered as they say, "She lost a son once."

The late Captain Jamieson, a kindly, shrewd man and a Scotchman withal, was agent to Mrs. Fielden, widow of the late member for Stanby, and when he died his income perished with him, and The Family of Jamieson—a large one, as has been told—were thankful enough to subsist on their mother's inheritance of some four or five hundred a year, bequeathed to her by the member of the non-illustrious house of Higgins, late farmer deceased. It is a hospitable house, for all its narrow means, and there live not, I believe, a warmer-hearted or more generous family than these good Jamiesons. The girls are energetic, bright, and honest; their slender purses are at the disposal of every scoundrel in the parish; and their time, as well as their boundless energy, is devoted to the relief of suffering or to the betterment of mankind.

Mrs. Fielden is of the opinion that nothing gives one a more perfect feeling of rest than going to Belmont, as the Jamiesons' little house is called, and watching them work. She calls it the "Rest Cure." Every one of the five sisters, except Maud, who is the beauty of the family, wears spectacles, and behind these their bright, intelligent small eyes glint with kindness and brisk energy. The worst feature of this excellent family is their habit of all talking at the same time, in a certain emphatic fashion which renders it difficult to catch what each individual is saying, and this is especially the case when three of the sisters are driving sewing-machines