property, Duchesne got notice to quit in twelve months! Jolly; isn't it?"

The guard whistled, and the train went on.

CHAPTER XIII.

ON OUR WAY THROUGH THE WORLD.

say, suppose that I ought

AND here again, I I

to end; if I adhered to the right rules of storytelling, this history of mine should be brought to a close. For my marriage was the turningpoint in my life; and at the turning point it is the usual practice of narrators to leave off, content that their readers should know how the corner was turned, but not favouring them with a peep round it afterwards.

But I am inclined to linger a little; and, standing here, holding my reader,-whoever he or she for the time being may be, by the buttonhole, as it were, detain him or her for a short time longer, just enough to afford a slight glimpse into my after-life, before we bid each other a final farewell.

Well, then, as to this life; of course it was

very different from my former one.

Everything was altered. Places, people, associations, -all were new and unfamiliar; the very things I ate and drank, and the hours of meals, were novel and strange.

That is, instead of living in a Hall, surrounded by other Halls, Lodges, Courts, Houses, etc., I lived in a first-floor furnished, a second-floor overhead, and a parlour, all likewise furnished, and "To Let," underneath, in a neighbourhood supposed to be convenient for the City, by reason of frequent 'buses running near, and rendered attractive by a large public-house in its immediate vicinity.

As to people, my nearest companions had been a baronet and his wife; besides which I had been accustomed to constant and familiar intercourse with persons of equal or nearly equal standing; and, at any rate, occasional association with lords and ladies of high degree. Now, my most intimate companion was a

merchant's clerk; my most intimate friend, only the merchant himself; the most exalted of my acquaintance, a lawyer and his wife,Mr. and Mrs. Gorman; whilst I associated on terms of social equality with other persons of very inferior degree, occasionally even being compelled to to hold intimate converse with the landlady, who had a second key to my cheffonier.

Then I dined at one, I took tea at six, I supped at nine. I never had minced veal now, served in a silver dish, nor flowers round my cold shoulder of mutton, and my landlady called a stew "a 'ash." I cannot say her

"'ashes were much nicer than those of

Crawdour Hall; but, at any rate, except in name, they were not at all nastier. I ate water-cresses at tea, and shrimps and muffins, and even crumpets, all in their appropriate seasons; and at supper I drank beer fetched in a jug from the attractive public-house.

I had no horse to ride now,

ride now, nor any

carriage to drive in; but I travelled frequently in the convenient threepenny 'buses, and occasionally in a frowzy four-wheeler.

It may perhaps be expected that the first experience of these vulgarities of life must have been very shocking to my refined sensibilities, these things being generally supposed to be so to young ladies of aristocratic birth and gentle breeding. I read once in a romance, of a lady, one of the upper ten, who having degraded herself by marrying a literary man of high repute, whom by some mischance she had fallen in love with, was so shocked when she found that some of his friends wished to smoke when they spent an evening with him, and that their wives were ill-bred enough to be interested in the price of beef and mutton, that she felt compelled, notwithstanding her affection, to divorce herself from his home