But, parodying the words of Shakespeare, we may say that "nice customs curtsey to great Earls;" and, to tell the truth, neither Lord Lochawe nor Lady Alice looked upon Glenant and Ruth as other than a sort of brother and sister. Far otherwise was it with poor Casimir, who had been almost minded at one time to point out to the Earl the apparent impropriety of the proceeding; but the thought of his father's danger kept him silent.

Ruth was more at her ease with Lord Glenant than he was with her; and notwithstanding his sincere and ardent love for Maggie, which had become a passion with him, he felt somewhat discomposed and troubled when Ruth, during some long night journey, overcome by fatigue, leant her head upon his shoulder as she slept. I am afraid that on one of these occasions, he would have forgotten Maggie for the moment, and would have bestowed a quiet kiss upon the unconscious Ruth, if Ruth's companion, a stern, hard-featured, middle-aged woman, one of the dissenting minister's-Ruth's father's-congre

gation in former days, had not been sitting on the opposite side of the berline in which they were travelling, and he had not been uncertain whether "Muggletonia," as he always called her, was asleep.

After

A long journey, amidst monotonous scenery, affords an admirable opportunity for thinking out, in all its details, any difficult matter. Ruth and Lord Glenant had joined the Count and his companions, many and anxious were the family councils held to determine what should be their next course of action. After various plans had been proposed, Ruth thought it would be the right time to propose hers. It was this. She suggested that they should divide themselves into two parties: that Lord Glenant, and her maid, and a courier, whom they should hire there, and who would be conversant with the country, should make their way by the Caspian Sea, and afterwards to Constantinople: that the Count, the Professor, Bettina, and herself, together with their own courier, whom they knew they could thoroughly trust, should make their

way back through Russia to the frontiers of Prussia. They would return, she proposed, by a different way from that by which they had come.

They all stared at her with amazement, and asked her smilingly, whether she had thought about passports? "Yes, she had," she said. "She would have them to know that she was the great singer, Miss Danvers, who was expected in Russia." Now was her turn to smile. There was the passport for herself, and for her father, she said, bowing to the Count, and for her master (bowing to the Professor, who, by the way, did not know a note of music), and for her faithful servant, who had brought her up from a child, "Bettina."

Parenthetically, we must observe, that it was notably a very good action on the part of Miss Danvers, to have lent herself to this scheme, and so to have sacrificed any hopes of ever having an engagement in Russia, so liberal as that country is to great artists.

"There must be no delay," said Ruth, who seemed already to have taken upon herself the

command of the expedition, and to have assumed

the justly imperious airs of a prima donna. shall start the day after to-morrow, and I shall expect my suite—a prima donna's father naturally belongs to her suite-to be ready to accompany

me."

Then to anticipate objections, and especially that objection which was the most obvious one, she said: "I know very well how absurd it is, that a prima donna from England should be coming this way; but we must take the chance of their not noticing that absurdity, and we are not to expect that the Russian officials at this obscure frontier, will be as well versed in geography as a national school-boy in England. You will ask why I propose that Lord Glenant and his party should go by Constantinople, and why our party should go through Russia? The reason is, that there will be more inquiry, and more careful supervision of passports in getting out of this country, which is really Russian, than there will be in getting into Russia, which would seem, as it were, to be rushing into the lion's mouth.

After much discussion this was agreed to, and preparations were accordingly made.

One of Ruth's motives for adopting this plan, was that it would be less hazardous for Lord Glenant. She had felt all along that the old Earl had never been fully aware of the danger to which his son was subjected in this enterprise. Loving Casimir as she did, she felt as if she were one with him; and she could not bear to run the risk of sacrificing the happiness of a family which was so dear to both of them, and which had acted so nobly by them both.