HE winter advances; Christmas comes; comes, as it not in

frequently now comes to the

world's greatest city, in an almost total darkness; a choking yellow darkness. The gas has to be lit at ten o'clock in the morning. Drearily it flares, from the imperceptible dawn until the undiscriminated night. Under its and the fog's pestilent breaths the flowers in the stands wither; the carefully-cherished puny ferns shrink away into death. Through the suffocating obscurity the church bells ring muffled the cabs crawl cautiously at a foot's pace, and the omnibuses cease to run. None of the Churchill family have been able to get

to church; and either by that fact or by the fog their spirits and tempers are sensibly worsened.

Mrs. Churchill likes to go to church on Christmas Day; it is a sort of fetish, the loss of which may entail disadvantage upon her, either in this world or in the next.

"How anything short of absolute necessity can keep anyone in England during the winter months, passes my comprehension!" cries she, taking up her old cry, and pettishly clicking together the clasps of the prayer-book, in which she has been reading the lessons for the day.

Sarah, her only companion, makes no reply; not that she is absorbed in any occupation, but because the remark appears to her to be both old and worthless.

"And I am far from feeling sure that we shall ever get away after all," continues the elder woman, seeing that she may wait in vain for a sympathetic response. "I feel no sort of confidence in Belinda," in an exasperated voice; "she is quite capable of throwing him over at the last moment.

What do you think? do not you hear that I am speaking to you? do not you think that she is quite capable of throwing him over at the last moment ?"

"It shall not be for want of asking if she does not," replies Sarah surlily.

"I really do not see that you have any right to put pressure upon her,” rejoins Mrs. Churchill crossly; "I cannot see that it is any business of yours. Because you behaved extremely ill to him, is no reason why you should incite your sister to do the same. In fairness to him, I must insist upon your not attempting to influence her one way or the other !"

"You may insist," replies Sarah undutifully, her soft round face growing dogged and hard; "but as long as I have one breath left, I shall spend it in trying to hinder her from such a monstrous suicide."

"Suicide!" repeats Mrs. Churchill angrily; "pooh! you may be very thankful if you ever get anyone to make as good a settlement upon you as he has done upon her! Suicide, indeed!"

"Why do you not marry him yourself, if you are so pleased with him?” asks Sarah cynically; "it seems all one to him which of us he marries, so as he gets one of the family; it seems to be the breed, not the individual, that he admires. Marry him yourself, and carry him off to Cannes; I assure you that I will not move a finger to prevent you!"

"He is a man not without distinction in his own line," pursues Mrs. Churchill, affecting not to have heard her granddaughter's last ironical suggestion; "though it happens to be a line which you are quite incapable of appreciating. He is not handsome, certainly, but there is a good deal of -of," hesitating for an encomium—“ of character in his face. He has made an excellent settlement upon her; it quite took me by surprise. She is twenty-one, and it is her first bonâ-fide offer; I think you will not be acting at all a friend's part in making her quarrel with her bread-andbutter."

you

friend or not," retorts Sarah obstinately, marching towards the door, "I promise that I shall carry my remonstrances to the altar-foot; and so would you if you did your duty. You may like to know," firing a defiant parting shot from the doorway, "that I am going straight to her now to resume the subject."

She

She is as good as her word. She finds Belinda where she knew that she would find her, in her little back sitting-room, but not employed as she had expected. had thought to come upon her stooping over her eternal copy-books; but for once they are laid aside. She is sitting on the hearthrug, the gas glaring above her and casting its ugly shadows upon her cheeks, making them look lined and hollow. Strewn about her is a small litter of old writing-desks, old workboxes, childish relics. On her lap lies open a morocco pocket-book, over which, on Sarah's entrance, she hastily puts her hands, as if to conceal it.

"I am setting my house in order," she