So she may, to be sure," murmured her husband's arms, symbolically vesting McAlpine, meditatingly. "And why should him with all her newly-acquired goods and not the old lady have put her in? She had chattels; checked it; looked the proposed adopted her, as you all thought. She saw far transfer, and hurried from the room. Her more of her than any one else." husband threw himself back in a chair. It was not the weight of the money he succumbed to; what stunned him was this sudden upset of all his carefully elaborated plans.

"An excellent reason why she should not," returned Hugh, laughingly. "Look at the opportunities she gave herself of appreciating me, and see what has come of them. Besides, Mr. Hooker bad his finger in that pie of that I am very certain."

"Very likely little doubt of that," assented McAlpine, relapsing into silence and profound reflection, as if he had found the end of a clue in his fingers, and was setting himself to disentangle it.

"What, tea already!" ejaculated Hugh, consulting his watch as the door was thrown open.

"Lord Rushbrook - Mr. Rivington," announced the waiter, bending himself double, with the handle in his hand.

"By Jove, I said so!" exclaimed McAlpine. He had only thought it.

Hugh himself turned slightly pale, and although he did stand up, forgot all about welcoming the arrivals, an omission which his wife, in blushing embarrassment, set herself to repair.

"A rich man in spite of yourself, although you made such an undeniable pauper," observed Rushbrook, "and very hard it is upon you, I must say. Fortune never will give you a chance."

"You've taken your wife for better for worse, you see," chimed in McAlpine. "You can't well help yourself; and, after all, you must remember she didn't mean it, so you had better go and make it up with her."

Hugh took advantage of the thoughtful opening, and, with a brief apology, followed his bride.

"Which fully accounts for all Mr. Hooker's and Mr. Hemprigge's attentions to Miss Winter," remarked McAlpine, as Hugh left the room. "Yet, do you know, until some five minutes back, it never occurred to me which way the money was going."

Precisely," said Rivington. "Hooker and that scamp of a son of his were in the secret all along, and at the bottom of the whole swindle. They would have done anything in the world for the orphan, assured beforehand that their charity would have its reward in this life."

"Thank you, Mrs. Childersleigh, as Hugh has nothing to say for himself; but the truth is, as Rivington found himself obliged to see you, on some pressing business, before you sailed, I thought I might as well have another look at you too." Rushbrook, who seemed unusually excited, paused, and then burst out, Oh, nonsense, it's no use beating about the bush joy never hurts-Hugh half guesses it, and McAlpine knows it all. Besides, you are both at one in your contempt for riches, "He was too clever by half, and did not as in most other things, and here I am push- give Hugh credit for being half so clever, ing myself forward where I have no business I fancy," suggested Rushbrook. "He whatever, and taking the words out of Riv-grasped at too much, and hoped Hugh ington's mouth."

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Well," said Mr. Rivington, "I won't deny myself the satisfaction of making an announcement, which has given me no ordinary pleasure, although, as Lord Rushbrook says, I see you more than half anticipate it. I have to congratulate Mr. Childersleigh then in being even more fortunate than he believed himself, in having married a lady nearly as richly dowered with worldly wealth as with all other gifts." You mean to say

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-?"

"But why should Hemprigge have helped Hugh towards winning the money he meant for himself?"

might help him to one fortune while he won another in spite of him. To do him justice, he soon found out his mistake, and did his best to retrieve it. What proves Hooker knew all about it, is his keeping himself out of the way to-day; but you ought to have seen Purkiss Childersleigh."

Why? I am sure he can never accuse Miss Childersleigh of not doing her best to prepare him against disappointment."

"So one would have imagined, but drowning men catch at straws, and I fear

That Mrs. Childersleigh inherits every--I greatly fear the partners of 'Chilthing some 160,000l. in round figures the house in Harley Street, furniture, plate, and family jewels."

Lucy made a movement, as if then and there she would have thrown herself into

dersleigh' are floundering in very deep water. Poor Sir Basil doesn't trouble his head much about it, but Purkiss, who was always thin, is shrivelling visibly into thread-paper. I watched him when Riving

ton broke the seals, and he had to hold on by the arms of his chair; while the memorandum was being read, his jaw dropped, and his face turned to livid through half the colours of the rainbow. You would have called it a sudden spasm of cholera. But here comes supper-dinner-which you like, and very thoughtful it is of Hugh, for I never ordered it. When a fellow thinks of the happiness of others in a sudden flush of prosperity, why he deserves all he gets. Sit down, Rivington."

- eb, Childersleigh? I always told you you would repent that bit of Quixotry." "At least you have the satisfaction of knowing yourself a true prophet," returned Childersleigh, impatiently.

"I said you would be sorry for it, and I was sure you would. But in those days Mrs. Childersleigh led you by the heartstrings, and there was no use arguing with you.'

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"Well, well," said Childersleigh, who had mastered his passing irritation; "If I Hugh himself, the bearer of many apolo- was a fool to listen to foolish counsels, you gies from his wife, came back to do the must confess we have come off better than honors. If he had screwed up his reso-we deserved. As for Childersleigh, I own lution to contemplate the antipodes with I would rather talk about anything else. positive pleasure, his mind flew naturally It used to be a pleasant subject, but enough back to old habits of thought, when now the heavy pressure that had borne on it was removed. Then he was given a fresh lease of those home friendships that had stood such fiery tests, and spared a fresh series of experiments on colonial human nature. Considering how honestly his heart had been set on the toil and adventures that awaited him, it was strange how little he regretted them. He resigned himself with complacency and good temper to extending himself once more on a bed of roses, and it only seemed the more tempt-I ing that the rose-leaves were strewed for him by the little hands of his wife.

You followed your own line," pursued Barrington, imperturbably, as if Hugh had never spoken, and all your friends could do was to take theirs. You would not care to buy it back, would you, if it came into the market by any chance?"

Hugh looked at him in silence. Joys are like sorrows, he thought, and you often flush them in coveys.

"Because if you did, I don't mind letting you have it for what I gave. You see have one place in Norfolk already, and don't much care about another. The liquidators were in such a deuce of a hurry to sell, that I was tempted to sink my spare capital at Childersleigh, and they tell me

"Upon my word, for a man so bent on emigration as you were yesterday, you bear up wonderfully," said Rushbrook; "for II had it reasonably enough.” don't suppose you intend to occupy cabin No. 7, or whichever the number was in the Tanjore?"

"No, I fancy we shall defer our visit to Queensland till Barrington gives us a passage out in his steam-yacht. And I am sorry for it. The Tanjore cabin was so snug, and the steward and stewardess tipped in advance. But I must say, now I dare to think of it, Hants and Surrey did look lovely to-day, and I don't know that I shall be sorry to see them again to-morrow. Heigho!" His face clouded slightly as he closed the sentence with a genuine sigh. The truth is, bis thoughts had travelled back by the South-Western to Childersleigh, gone beyond recall. After all, the Childersleigh money had come too late. To him England could never again be all it might have been.

Did Barrington divine what was passing in his mind? Was he on the watch for certain symptoms, for certainly in general he was no very quick observer. At any rate, the others thought he might have spared their friend a painful subject when he said, —“ Pity now you parted with your place

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You are not trifling with me, Barring

ton?"

"Not I, indeed. I should have prepared a dramatic surprise for you and Mrs. Chil dersleigh, when I had persuaded you to pay me a visit. But in the first place, I thought it was no use letting you fret yourself uselessly. God knows you have had bother enough lately. And then McAlpine, whom I took into the secret a few minutes ago, suggested there would be nothing original in it, that I should find the idea in Waverley. So Childersleigh is yours whenever you like, my dear fellow. You ought to find everything from the weathercocks to the doormats just as you left it, and if you choose to rough it on a scratch establishment, I see no reason why you should not go there to-morrow, and wind up your honeymoon under the ancestral trees. Bless you, my dear fellow, I was convinced you would want the place sooner or later: it was only a question of time. I had hoped to have been out of pocket by the arrangement, but it is fated I shall never pay off that Homburg debt of mine with its compound interest. And now," said Barring

ton, concluding the longest and most suc-1 for the day, although he nominally occupied cessful speech he had ever made," suppose his rooms at Hestercombe House.

we leave him to sleep on the events of the day. I'm afraid you are not quite out of your trouble yet, Hugh, and are in for a broken night after all you have gone through in the evening."

CHAPTER XL.

HOME AT LAST.

Lord Hestercombe arrived in the course of the afternoon in a state of visible excitement, and took an early opportunity of claiming his nephew's services to do him the out-door honours of the place.

"I have not seen it since your father's time, except that evening when I ran down for the funeral. I should like to know that things have not changed much for the worse in your absence." And when he got his nephew out of earshot his lordship broke out: "You don't happen to have heard the news from Wurzelshire?" "What news?"

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Yes, most melancholy business; leaves a young widow and half-a-dozen children. So we must have a man in the field forthwith, and the address must be ready for the day after the funeral. The Liberals have been hard at work with the registration roll. I'm only afraid your refusing last time may have hurt you with Dunstanburgh."

"I really don't think it did. I don't fancy I spoiled any chance I may have with him."

"And this time you would stand if he were to repeat his offer?"

It was bright autumn, and all was life at Childersleigh. The house had cast off its weeds and put on the garments of gladness. The gravel was scored with wheels and dinted with hoof-marks, the stable-yard I thought not. I only chanced to hear lumbered with dusty carriages, smoking it as I passed through the town. Poor Rohorses and hissing grooms. The triumphal per, who came in for the county when you arches that spanned the gates of the park declined, shot in the thigh at a battue at and church-yard had cost Patterson many a Worsley. Couldn't stop the bleeding; sleepless night, and Childersleigh some went off in a couple of hours." little vexation. The church-bells rang out "Ah!" those doleful merry peals that gave a tinge so sad to English merry-making. Without, the house was en fete; within, there was literally house-warming, for Mr. and Mrs. Childersleigh had come down to take formal possession of their home. Assuredly no one would have looked to see Lord Hestercombe staying calmly on the borders of the London postal dictrict in October, or his son lingering in the metropolis while the cock pheasants were crowing peacefully in the Hestercombe coverts. But Rushbrook, resolved on matrimony, was not the man to stand loitering on the threshold of the temple of Hymen. Moreover, philosophically evoking good from evil, in the failing state of Maude's father's health, he had seen a golden chance of being married in rational fashion, without having his modesty shocked by the demonstrations with which, in normal circumstances, the heir of the Hestercombes would have been paraded before the altar. His own mind made up, he easily imposed his will on his father, for the Earl was haunted with the apprehension that his only son might slip back through his fingers to hopeless bachelorhood. Lady Hestercombe herself was made the intercessor with her destined daughter-in-law for advancing the day, for, in Sir Basil's state of health, Maude was absolutely her own mistress. Hugh backed her ladyship with all his interest and eloquence, so did Lucy; and when their joint entreaties had prevailed, it had been settled the wedding should be combined with the Childersleigh house-warming. The circle assembled there limited itself to our intimate friends, Lord Rushbrook joining it

"Nothing in the world I should like better, now I am back at Childersleigh, and an idle man."

"Gad, I'll send off a special messenger to Dunstanburgh this very day before dinner. They told me at The Travellers' he was expected in town."

And in high good-humour his lordship passed his arm through his nephew's, built castles in the air and in Westminster, praised and admired everything he saw, and finally launched into the future of his son.

"I wish Rushbrook could be persuaded to try public life. I do wish your example would tempt him to that as well as to that other

"I fear it will not, but there's no saying. I am quite sure he would distinguish himself if he cared to try. Few men have sounder sense, and I can imagine no one more likely to be ready in debate. However, he is active by nature although idle by habit; and once married and settled may want a pursuit."

"I suppose marriage is the best thing | of offering him their congratulations on a that could happen to him?"

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No question of it. Rushbrook is just the sort of man that marriage is the making of; he wants an anchor to keep him from drifting. By the way, as it turns out, I fear Maude will have little more money than what she takes under her mother's settlements."

day so auspicious. Nevertheless he was a little surprised when Mr. Hooker's name was brought him, as he was on the point of retiring to dress for dinner. "Send him up," he said, after a moment's hesitation.

And Mr. Hooker entered, his scrupulously brushed garments bagging on his wasted form, rubbing his hands nervously in the old fashion; his worn face plastered with greasy smiles, distrust and suspicion lurking in the corners of his lips and eyes, feeling the ground as he advanced into the room, like a Highland pony picking its

“We have married heiresses too often in our family that money should be an object with us now-a-days. The worst of it is, if one does go to the City, people will give you credit for finding a fortune there. My feeling is, that it is a pity, in the circum-steps among moss-hags. stances, Sir Basil does not retire in name as well as reality."

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Retiring is the one thing that would touch him now, and moreover, the new partners pay heavily for taking over the name of Childersleigh with the business. The difference it makes in the purchasemoney may involve the present firm's escape from insolvency."

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Then what becomes of the son? I confess I dislike him infinitely more than anything else in the connection."

"I assure you I don't quarrel with your taste. Purkiss, I believe, remains in the house, ostensibly a partner, actually a cypher, the new men are much too shrewd to trust his vaunted talents. And I don't envy his lot. What with the loss of fortune, occupation, and prospects, and the perpetual fret to his vanity, the bitterest enemy he has made might be content with his punishment. You may bear with him in the meantime, for if ever I read a man's future in his face, poor Purkiss will not trouble you long."

As the pair strolled towards the house in friendly chat, a servant bustled out to them with a letter for Mr. Childersleigh, marked "immediate." Hugh opened it with an apology to his uncle, and then passed it to him with a smile.

"So you were right about Dunstanburgh," exclaimed the peer, "and I confess nothing can be more handsome or flattering. If Dunstanburgh comes after you a second time, he believes you will do him credit, and I never knew him deceived in a man yet. You may possibly have to fight the seat this time, but there can be no rational doubt of our winning it, and as for the expenses, they must be my affair. Nay, no words about it. I gave into you about Rushbrook's wedding and your house-warming here, and I am quite determined to have my own way in this."

It was natural enough that Mr. Childersleigh's oldest friends should make a point

"Oh, Mr. Childersleigh, that I should have been spared to see this happy day!"

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Thanks, Hooker," said Mr. Childersleigh, rather brusquely. "Well, now you may sing your Nunc dimittis - I mean you'd better go down and get some dinner before you go back to town."

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Ob, Mr. Childersleigh! " Never mind them now. I'll take the rest of your congratulations for granted." But, sir-Mr. Childersleigh - there may possibly be unfavourable impressions. I should be happy to take this opportunity

"I'll spare you the trouble of discussing my affairs. If you have anything to say about your own, say on."

"Well, Mr. Childersleigh, if, as an old servant of the family, - not that it was that brought me here, I need hardly say, — if I might venture to request your countenance and recommendation in the new profession I have been constrained to adopt in my old age

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Which is

?"

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"Horrible tragedy - Murder of an absconding Secretary. By the latest journals from the Havannah, we learn the tragic end of the notorious Mr. Hemprigge. Hemprigge, it would appear, had taken his passage at Cadiz for Cuba. On board the Spanish mail-boat, the play at monté had been even deeper than usual, and heavy | sums had changed hands, greatly to the advantage of the fortunate Englishman, who travelled under a nom de voyage. Arrived at the Havannah, it would seem Hemprigge had lingered on, giving his victims their revenge," until whispers of foul play were followed by threats that, doubtless, reached his ears. Literally on the eve of his intended departure for Aspinwall, a stranger returning to the Fonda de l'España stumbled over his yet warm body almost on the threshold of the hotel. The unhappy man had been stabbed under the arm from behind, and when picked up, life was extinct. As his watch and costly jewellery were found on his person, revenge was presumed to be the motive of the crime. The arrival shortly afterwards of the English detectives, who had followed him from London, led to an identification, subsequently placed beyond all question by documents discovered in his luggage.'

There was general silence. Except Lord Hestercombe and Barrington himself, all of them had known Hemprigge personally,

and known him well. To Hugh it seemed but yesterday that he was loathing the dead man and longing to be rid of him on any terms. But now his thoughts flew back to the earlier days, when they had been allies and intimates, if not friends. In his unfeigned grief over the fate of his former acquaintance, he felt in genuine charity with his surviving enemy, and could Hooker have penetrated his remorsefully generous intentions, the shock of his son's fate would, doubtless, have been softened to him. Hugh's friends respected his evident emotion, if they did not altogether sympathize with it, and Lord Hestercombe broke in on a hush that was becoming painful, by making the move to leave the table.

It was a relief when his guests, dispersing for the night, left Hugh alone with his wife to take actual possession of their home, and give free vent to their thoughts.

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Hemprigge dead, Purkiss and scores of better men beggared! I wish you could tell me, Lucy, why I should be wedded and rich and happy when so many have come to frightful grief in the rush for wealth?"

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They were as they showed: you were always better than you seemed. They have had their reward, as you have. You helped Mr. Barrington in the first of your prosperity, and saved yourself Childersleigh. You thought of me in the shock of your own adversity, when no one else did, and

"No great merit in that," interrupted Hugh, thinking his wife looked more lovely than ever in her defence of her husband against himself.

"And as you took his happiness in charge and mine, you must really forgive us for doing something for yours in our turn. But how you would have resented anything of the sort, Hugh, when I first knew you!"

"I believe you are right, Lucy," he laughed. "But since then I have seen my best-laid schemes fail, and my wisdom turn to folly; even my honour might have gone in the match with time, had I not persuaded you to take charge of my education. And now I am quite resigned to accept yourself and your fortune, and everything else you and heaven may have in store for me as the price of my obedience."

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If Lord Rushbrook only makes Maude half as happy," murmured Lucy, half closing her eyes in her ideal paradise.