She still owed Monsieur le Bœuf thirty pounds, and though she assured him, on her farewell visit, she would labour to pay this with the interest, she could see he did not more than half believe her.

He was polite-he could not be otherwisebut 'Madame,' for whom Honor asked in trembling voice to say farewell to, was, he said, 'occupied.'

It was a cruel thing to leave that happy sunny home of the last five years as friendless as she had come there,-all the well-earned esteem, the loving intercourse gathered up during those pleasant hours vanished, as had the summer sunshine before November's blasts.

Even Pauline's trust in her young mistress was sadly shaken-that is, she believed the worst that was said of her, though, with the loose morality common among her class, she good-naturedly palliated Honor's supposed fault by a remark which conveyed a deeper insult than anything else the poor girl had encountered. It was to the effect that 'Monsieur Tracy,' in spite of his 'tournure Anglaise,' was 'joli garçon.'

When Honor heard Pauline plead thus in her behalf, she became nearly desperate. She was ready almost to sacrifice even Charlie, to clear her good name at any cost, but the remembrance of Sister Justine and Tom Tracy stayed her. They must never suffer for the aid they had so generously rendered to her and her brother. What the nature or extent of the penalty to which they had exposed themselves might be she could not tell, but they should risk nothing.

Meantime, of course, Mr. Tracy knew nothing of what poor Honor had to suffer. She had answered his letter about Charlie, but not his next; she could not, and he could find no decent pretext for keeping up the correspondence.

Lady Tracy's hand was still too weak to allow her to write. Perhaps she might never again be able to use it freely. Mrs. Robertson wrote several times at her aunt's desire to Honor, but the latter felt it was uphill work on both sides.

She could not pour out her heart to her old friend as of yore when a third person was to answer her letters, had even no other barrier

interposed itself now between them; but the last breach had never been quite healed, and there was much now which Honor could not tell Lady Tracy; and so it was rather a relief than otherwise when a hint from Isabel about being overburdened with her aunt's correspondence brought this spiritless interchange of letters to an end.

Her present troubles were not of a nature that she could confide to any one, and this caused some restraint even in her correspondence with Edith, who had not been well, and wrote rarely.

Altogether, Honor felt very lonely and deserted, when, under all the united misery arising from bad weather, bad tempers, want of money, and want of friends, the family arrived in London once more, just in time to spend a gloomy Christmas.

Honor felt she left one friend behind her, -Sister Justine. Their parting was very

tender.

་

'You alone believe in my innocence, Sister Justine,' said the girl. You will love me whatever happens.'

VOL. II.

N

'Farewell, my child,' sighed the calmer nun. 'I believe and hope I shall yet one day welcome you into the haven where earthly slanders will not hurt you, nor loss of earthly friendships grieve you.'

M

RS. BLAKE knew so little of London, that the neighbourhood of her comparatively richer connexions, the Bertrams, being out of the question, she bethought her of the house of Mrs. Spiggins in Albert Place, Islington, as a fitting temporary lodging. Things were very gloomy with the Blakes that winter. Honor tried in vain to find pupils, and when she roused her heavy heart to the task of finishing the novel of which Lady Tracy had spoken so hopefully, and sat up night after night to accomplish the work, to her not easy, of making a fair copy, it was only to find that