his remarks, for suddenly glancing on his listener's downcast anxious countenance he exclaimed, addressing his wife:

"Bye the bye, Olivia, I mean to be off abroad in a day or two."

"Good Heavens, Louis! what new fancy is this?"

"Why, I have heard something to-day which has really put me quite into a fever."

"Well, what is it? Some nonsense, I dare say."

"I at least do not think it so. Dawson, who I saw to-day, declares that Trevor, Eustace Trevor I mean, was seen by some one not long ago in Switzerland. Yes," he continued, encouraged by Mary's glance of intense and startled interest, "he was seen with another person—the keeper I suppose they talk about—somewhere on the Alps."

"The Alps!—poor fellow! gone there to cool his brain, I suppose," said Mrs. de Burgh, whose countenance nevertheless had bespoke her not a little moved by this communication.

"Cool his brain!—nonsense! cool enough by this time, depend upon it."

"But does Eugene know of this?" faltered Mary.

"I suppose so," replied Mr. de Burgh, coldly.

"Impossible, Louis!" Mary exclaimed with eagerness.

"Well, perhaps so. I don't know at all," Mr. de Burgh continued. "I shouldn't be so much surprised if he did; there are a great many things which surprise me more than that, Mary; for instance you yourself—yes, you, Mary," as she lifted up her eyes to her cousin's handsome face, with quiet surprise, "that you should see things in a light so different to what I should have expected from you."

"Ridiculous!" interposed Mrs. de Burgh—"that is to say that you should have expected her to have seen everything with your own jaundiced, prejudiced perception; but about Eustace Trevor."

"Yes, about Eustace Trevor; he is a subject certainly worth a little of your interest and inquiry. Mary, you should have known him," exclaimed Mr. de Burgh, with rising enthusiasm.

"You were very much attached to him then?" demanded Mary, with deep interest.

"Attached to him!—yes, indeed I was; that was a man whom one might well glory in calling friend; or," he murmured to himself, "a woman might be proud to worship as a lover."

"Yes," interposed Mrs. de Burgh, "I suppose he was a very superior, delightful person; but I own he always appeared to me, even as a boy, a little tête monté, so that it did not surprise me so very much when I heard of the calamity which had befallen him. He was just the sort of person upon whose mind any strong excitement, or sudden shock would have had the like effect."

"Olivia, you are talking nonsense," Mr. de Burgh petulantly exclaimed.

"It was his mother's death, I think, I heard which brought on this dreadful crisis?" Mary inquired.

"Exactly so," answered Mrs. de Burgh.

"How do you know?" exclaimed her husband. "What does any one know about the matter?"

"We can only judge from what one has heard from the best authority," again persisted his wife.

"Best authority! well, I can only say that far from being of your opinion, I should have said that Eustace Trevor had been as far from madness as earth from heaven."

"Really, Louis!" exclaimed Mrs. de Burgh, perceiving Mary's look of anxious interest and surprise, "one would fancy from the way you talk that you suspected him never really to have been mad."