my affairs, not yours, I should imagine, as he is going to marry me, and not you;" and she turned to leave the room.

"I beg your pardon, Eleanor, if I have said anything to offend you, but I cannot help feeling that it is very wrong to impose on the trusting faith of so excellent a man, or, indeed, of any man. I have said it, for I felt I must; but this is the last time I shall touch on this subject, so you need not fear any sermons, as you call them, from me, and I will hope you may be happy in your own way, so let us part good friends;" and so saying, Edith dropped this, to her, painful topic, and never again alluded to it.

Had she felt her own heart free of any warmer feeling than such as common acquaintance with an agreeable man warranted, she must have undeceived Edward Leslie herself. To see him imposed on and duped, day after day, was torture to her ingenuous heart, but she was fettered by her own unfortunate prepossession, and must remain silent. She occupied herself more studiously than ever, rode out with Herbert, and visited her school and cottages more assiduously, to distract her thoughts,

and prevent her being a witness of all the hypocrisy that was going on at home.

But when, during Captain Leslie's temporary absence for a few weeks, Eleanor openly accepted the admiration of others, and, above all, allowed a young spendthrift lord to pay her unmistakable attention, Edith's heart felt bursting with indignation, and on their return from a large party, where the conduct of the two had attracted public attention, she could restrain herself no longer.

"Eleanor, do you know that you and Lord Castleton were the object of remark to-night? How can you suffer him to be so particular in his attentions, engaged as you are to be married to another, and he must know it is so?"

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Pray do not distress yourself, Edith, about my petites affaires de cœur. Even a married woman may, I trust, receive polite nothings from a gentleman. Besides, if Edward Leslie chooses to be absent so long, he must take the consequences. Lord Castleton is a much pleasanter person in society, to my mind; there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, and somebody may find it so, perhaps ;" and Eleanor went to her room, leaving Edith at once shocked

and astonished at a heartlessness quite beyond her conception.

But it was not likely that two persons so widely different by nature, and still more so by education, would understand each other. Edith, with little or no knowledge of the world, its masks and hollowness, felt pain and amazement at her half-sister's conduct. On the other hand, Eleanor found Edith's character a problem too hard for her wisdom to solve. Judging by herself, she suspected her actions to be guided by self-interested motives, but what they were, baffled her penetration to discover. The simple truth, that Edith was kind, amiable, and unselfish for goodness' own sake, to please God, and thus gain His favour, and feel its blessing in an approving conscience, was an idea which never suggested itself to her mind. Had it done so, in her incredulity of the existence of such springs of action, she would have mocked it as an absurdity, for she believed people were only religious from fear, and such gloomy apprehensions she deemed fit alone for the aged, sick, or dying.

It cannot be; my uncle's mind will change!"
TENNYSON.

IN a handsome dining-room, in one of the best houses in Cambridge Square, evidently furnished regardless of expense, with every modern luxury, sat two gentlemen at dinner. The evening was not particularly cold, though in the month of December, but the elder of the two was, or considered himself an invalid, and kept his rooms always at a painfully high temperature.

The cloth being removed, Sir Henry Leslie proposed to his nephew to draw their chairs to the fire, which was blazing brightly. To this proposition Captain Leslie assented, though secretly wishing himself in Lapland, being already more than half roasted, but he was particularly anxi

ous to conciliate his uncle, and well knew that it required often but the merest trifle to irritate and put him into one of his most contradictory moods.

Sir Henry Leslie had been very handsome, and still had strong claims to that title, but his fine figure was now bent, and his rich brown hair mingled with gray. The expression of his face gave some indication of his characterobstinate, stern, and severe, never forgiving an injury, real or fancied, of which sad disposition he was proud, as proving him exempt from the weakness of common men.

He had been early in life left a widower, and his only child was educated at a first-rate boarding-school, till she attained her seventeenth year, when she came home to keep her father's house. Proud of her beauty, he resolved to make for her an alliance such as he deemed worthy of his house, for pride of ancestry was amongst his most cherished foibles. Struck with the young girl's extreme loveliness, a nobleman of mature age paid his addresses to her, with a view of having a suitable ornament for the head of his table. Adeline, full of youth and mirth, had no fancy for a stiff old gallant,