She has succeeded. Both Mr. Forth and his disciple have risen to their feet, and now stand regarding their visitor with a -for the first moments-entirely silent dismay.

Mr. Forth, too!" cries Miss Watson, snatching his reluctant hand. "Why, this is Dresden over again! If we had but Sarah and Rivers here, we might think ourselves back there."

Neither of Belinda's companions perceives it, but she shudders. Ever since Miss Watson's voice first fell on her shocked ears, she has known that she would have to endure the sound of Rivers' name. In reality not two minutes have elapsed since then, but it seems to her as if for hours she had been dreading it.

"How snug you are!" says the visitor, patronizingly looking round; "but why do you sit here? Why do not you sit in the drawing-room? Is not the fire lit there? Oh, I suppose Sarah sits there, and grandmamma? I must go and pay them a little visit just now."

"They are out."

"Out!" repeats the other, laughing; "Sarah is always out. I wish they would come back! How soon do you expect them? We should be just our Dresden party, then—all but Rivers!”

Again that shudder, but she sets her teeth. She must endure it-must steel herself to hear his name-to pronounce it if need be.

"Shocking thing about his father, was it not?" continues Miss Watson, cheerfully pursuing the course of thought suggested by the mention of Rivers. "Failed for over a million, and cut his throat. They say that he has left his large familytwelve? ten? nine?-how many used young Rivers to tell us there were of them?-upon the parish. But I do not believe it; one hears of people bankrupt one day, and rolling in their carriages the next."

Belinda's heart is beating sickeningly, and her hands are trembling so violently that she has to clench them fast together,

to hide their aguish shaking; but she is nerving herself up. Here is an opportunity for obtaining information about him. such as may probably not recur for weeks, months, possibly years. Here, too, is an occasion for practising that indifferent naming of him to which she is resolved to attain.

"Does Mr. Rivers roll in his carriage?" she asks, with a strained smile.

The effort to speak is so great that it seems to her as if, when it is overcome, she speaks unnaturally loud; but, as her companions show no surprise, she concludes that it cannot be so really.

"I do not know about rolling in his carriage," answers Miss Watson, with her loud, ever-ready laugh; "I know that he can treat himself to stalls at the theatre, which is more than I can. I always go to the dress circle; one's legs are a little cramped in the front row, but one can see as well as in the best place in the house."

Belinda has stooped over the table, and is nervously arranging, rearranging, dis

arranging the exercise-books, grammars, pen-wipers upon it.

"Did you see him at the play?" she asks hurriedly.

"I saw him the other night at the St. James's," returns Miss Watson, inquisitively following with her eyes Belinda's unaccountable fidgetings. "What are you looking for? have you lost anything? No? At the St. James. The Squire '—

have you seen it? it is so well put on the stage-Mrs. Kendal quite at her best !"

"I-I think not," answers Belinda incoherently. "I mean no; I-I have not seen it. You were saying

"What was I saying?" (her eyes still fastened curiously on the girl's purposeless movements)" you must have lost something!-oh! that I had seen young Rivers at the play. He was in the stalls with a lady-his sister, we will presume-though she was not at all like him," with a knowing look. "If she was on the parish, it managed to dress her uncommonly well!"

Even Belinda's lips have turned white.

She is conscious of it, and rubs them hard with her fingers. He is in London! He can go to the play, can take his pleasure with other women! She has long known in theory that he must have been frequently in London during the past eighteen months; but never before has it come home to her with such cruel practical certitude. Lightning-quick the contrast between their evenings- his and hers-has sprung before her eyes: her melancholy vigils, devoted to distasteful studies in the vain hope of wrenching her thoughts away from him; and his, reclining in mirthful ease in a comfortable fauteuil in the lit theatre, beside a beautiful, strange, fond woman. The beauty and the fondness her sick imagination has at once supplied. That she may possibly have been his sister, her bitter soul refuses for one instant to admit.

"I tried to get to him as we were going out," pursues Miss Watson narratively. I saw him on ahead with his lady. He is a most attentive brother!" with a laughing