now, and I am sure his father would not consider my pretty Rachel a suitable match for him. I hope he will not be silly enough to fall in love with the child, and yet it would be better than an idle flirtation-better for her, at least, poor little thing. He does not look like a man who would trifle with a girl's affections. He must be true with that smile, and those eyes! How strange that I never heard his mother was dead: Poor Henry! how long ago it is since we met." Yes; it was a very long time; but the firelight of the past burns brightly for some-I suppose weakminded-people, and Miss Russel had every chink in her memory lighted up by it that afternoon, and I very much doubt whether the young people who had just left her, and whose life we might say was all future, were happier than she whose life we might say was all past. Miss Russel had spoken truly when she said that Mr. Vaughan, of The Oaks, would not be likely to consider Rachel Scott a suitable match for his only son. She was of an excellent family by her mother's side; but by her father's, a nobody. He was a music-master and a public singer; a man whose talents were not of a very high order, but who was, nevertheless, able to make a fair livelihood by his profession. One of his pupils, when he was quite a young man, was Miss Ada Conway, a pretty silly romantic little thing, who forgot as she listened to the sweet tenor voice of her master, and looked into his soft dreamy bluegrey eyes, that the blood of all the Conways ran in her veins, and that he was only Luigi Scotelli-his real name was Lewis Scott-the music master. The result was an elopementestrangement from her family-a considerable falling off of his aris tocratic pupils struggles to keep up appearances on miserable means, under which the poor fragile, delicately reared wife sank, leaving the heartbroken husband with two little girls. Rachel, the youngest, was taken possession of by her mother's family, or rather by a grim elder sister of her mother's, and poor Scotelli was left to toil on as best he could. After some time things began to look brighter with him, and 80 the years passed on. Rachel grew up as we have seen her, and her sister grew up too, and took her place among the workers with her father. Miss Conway brought up her niece to the best of her ability, and sent her to an admirable school; but she would have totally ruined the girl during her holidays by mismanagement, if Miss Russel had not done her best-and her best was a good deal-to counteract the old lady's influence. The result was that Rachel loved her kind friend with all her heart, and gave only respect and obedience to her aunt. The existence of Rachel's rare musical talent had for a long time been a bone of contention between the aunt and the niece. The girl loved music passionately, and would fain have cultivated her really splendid voice to the utmost. Miss Conway, who considered the gift of song as a disgraceful inheritance from the music-master, only consented at last that her niece should have any instruction in the art she loved 80 enthusiastically, when Rachel positively refused to open a book unless she was allowed to have lessons in both singing and playing. So she came home "for good," as it is called, having had the advantage of instruction from the best masters, and even her aunt was obliged to admit, as she listened to Rachel's singing, that she might have inherited a more despicable gift from poor Scotelli than her glorious and now well trained voice. "I say, Harry, old fellow ! where are your wits wool-gathering to-night? You have twice had the fall of the trick, and trumped my king!" Vaughan and three of his brother officers were enjoying a "quiet rubber" in Harry's room. They almost always adjourned to his room after "mess," for it was by far the most comfortable in the barracks. Indeed, Harry's epicurean tastes were quite a proverb in the regiment. There were three or four men present besides the whist party, all of them with cirgars in their mouths, chatting together in a lazy desultory man "Us-who's us?" "Me and Chambers," replied the other, not more entirely regardless of grammar than are hundreds of his contemporaries, both in and out of her Majesty's service. "I say, is it a case of 'my pretty girl milking her cow,' or did papa call upon you, like an old trump, as of course, he is? It's just like your confounded luck!" "Vaughan's always in luck," drawled out a sleepy voice from an arm-chair; "I bet a hundred to one that half the women in Ware over head and ears in love with him before three months. I'm sure I don't know how he does it. It must be his teeth; they're A 1, you know." "You needn't talk, Franklin," returned Vaughan, laughing; "you know you were obliged to buy a wig before we left Manchester; you had given away all your hair in locks; it's only just beginning to grow." "Ay! but you never joined at Manchester until just the week before we left, so that accounts for my hairless condition. I used to tell the 'darlings' what a destroying angel you were, and only the route had come just as your leave was out, I intended to have some placards posted up, with 'Vaughan is coming!' in large letters, like those conjuring fellows you know!" "I hope the aborigines of W know how blest they are in having got the -th to enliven their stuffy old town," said a dark elderly man, who had been one of the whist party. "It seems to me to be a precious slow place. I saw an invitation in the ante-room this afternoon; did any of the assembled multitude read it?" "Oh, it's for the croquet party at the Palace on Thursday," cried Vaughan; "the Bishop's people, you know. I hear the girls are awfully nice!” 1 "But the old boy, himselfshan't we have to kiss his toe, or something, when we go in?" asked Franklin. "I vote we ask him to let one of the girls stand proxy. Those are the Palace people who sit in the big pew, with the mitre over it, in the Cathedral. One of the girls is rather a pretty little thing, with light frizzy hair, and a snub nose. I think she's smitten with me; I caught her looking at at me ever so many times last Sunday, instead of saying her prayers." "If you had been saying yours, you could not have seen her," growled Major Howard, the dark elderly man. "But didn't I hear some one say that Harry had been seen helping a petticoat over a stile? That's sharp practice, considering that he only joined the day before yesterday-would you mind telling us all about it, Vaughan ? I'll promise for one not to interfere with your amusement." "You are very kind," replied Harry, grimly; "but I don't think you'll get the opportunity. I say, who's for pool or billiards? You cleaned me out last night, Franklin, old fellow, and I want my revenge.' So, while Harry, with his coat off, was trying to take "a life off red," Rachel Scott was fast asleep, and probably dreaming of the coming Thursday. CHAPTER III. with a snood of blue ribbon tied in a coquettish bow at one side. The white dress had been smoothed out, and looked as crisp as possible, and there was a blue ribbon to match the snood, about her rounded waist, while a broad-leaved Leghorn hat, simply trimmed with black velvet, replaced the fast little "sailor" in which she was wont to appear. Altogether she looked charming, and she felt charming too, which goes a long way in making people be what they seem. "Was it not nice of aunt Conway to give me this new hat?" she said. "I really think she is beginning to get fond of me! But I know what it is all about," she added, laughing; "the Bishop's new curate paid us two visits within a week, and I know she thinks he has fallen in love with me!" "And supposing he has been weak enough to do so," said Miss Russel, with a fond look at the bright happy face beside her, "curates are not generally considered prizes, are they?" "Oh, but Mr. Ruthven is a prize curate! His father is a great 'swell,' and very rich, they say. Only fancy, aunt Conway has been making me learn Handel, because St. James, as I call him-his name is James-is mad about music. He doesn't look musical; but Mr. Vaughan does. Don't you think he has a singing face, Granny?" "How do you intend to manage "Touch not the nettle lest it should sting between him and the curate?" asked Miss Russel, slily. "It is a regular case of 'sword and gown." "I know which I like best," laughed Rachel. "But here we are at last, and not the first to arrive either. Oh how nice the girls look! And Nanette has a hat like mine." There were a great many people scattered over the pretty grounds, which, partly shadowed by the old Cathedral, were attached to the Episcopal Palace, but the croquet had not, properly speaking, begun. Some of the young ladies and gentlemen were walking about with mallets in their hands, and others stood in groups at the starting sticks, but no one thought of beginning to play, for "the officers" had not yet made their appearance. But the Misses Bishop were beginning to fear that they could not be waited for much longer. Miss Russel and Rachel made their way to where Mrs. Bishop sat with the Dean's wife beside her. They were not very fond of each other, those two, but somehow they always got together. The Bishop was standing near his wife, evidently talking "shop" to a young man with a high, black waistcoat, and a snowy tie above it. "St. James," whispered Rachel to her companion as they came up. "He is High Church, you know, and a great pet of the Bishop's." But the Bishop's pet did not remain talking to the Bishop, when he saw who had stopped at Mrs. Bishop's chair. He came forward at once, shook hands with Rachel, and was introduced to Miss Russel. Then seeing no good reason why he should not have a pretty girl for his partner at the match of croquet which was at last being formed, he asked Rachel if she would play, and Rachel said "with pleasure," although she wished Vaughan had arrived in time to ask her first. "He is such a superior young man," said Mrs. Bishop, confidentially, to Mrs. Dean and Miss Russel, when Mr. Ruthven was out of hearing. "The Bishop considers himself most fortunate to get him into the diocese. His father is one of the richest commoners in -shire, and his family are charming. We saw a great deal of them in London this season"-her "season" in London was the one great gun in Mrs. Bishop's battery, and she was always firing it off-" and he went about with us everywhere."" She did not add her belief that Mr. Ruthven had been apparently greatly "taken" with her eldest daughter, or her hope that he would begin where he left off, now that they were all settled at W. It was not a promising sign, certainly, his having walked away with pretty Rachel Scott; but when Mrs. Bishop remembered the many "quiet evenings" she intended to ask him to spend with "just themselves," she was not uneasy. Meanwhile, the croquet began in real earnest. Miss Bishop, otherwise Miss Rokeby, and her partner -a very young ensign who had not waited for his brother officers, but had arrived at the Palace punctually at three o'clock, and had expiated his offence by an hour's examination of the photographic albums in the lonely drawing-room-played against the curate and his at one set of hoops. Miss Rokeby felt a little aggrieved at the curate's desertion, especially as she could not help remembering certain little passages of a decidedly tender nature, which had passed between them in London. He really had been very attentive in escorting her to oratorios, and flower shows, so I fear that curates are not more constant than other men. But she was a good-natured girl, and when she too remembered "quiet evenings" with "just ourselves," she cherished no anger against Rachel, who was chatting, and laughing gaily, and forgetting that there was such a man as Vaughan in the world, until looking up suddenly to ask Mr. Ruthven what she should do next, she saw Harry, with three or four of his brother officers, standing at a little distance watching her. She caught his eyes, smiled, and bowed. "Is that her," asked Franklin, when he saw Vaughan take off his hat. "So she's not a rosy-cheeked rustic, but an accredited member of the ecclesiastical set. I say, Harry, old fellow, I would not let that sky pilot have a walk over if I were you. I think he looks spooney already. By Jove, if I'm ever in Parliament, which is not likely, I'll bring in a bill for the suppression of curates; they marry all the pretty women and they are such awful prigs!" "He's no prig," replied Harry, and it was very magnanimous of him to say so much in Mr. Ruthven's favour, for he was anything but pleased at the way in which the young clergyman was looking at Rachel just at the moment. "I know him very well, he was at Oxford with me, and he is a capital fellow; I'll go and speak to him. I say, you don't remember me, Ruthven," he added, going up to where the curate and Rachel stood chatting together, their turn being over for the present-"Vaughan, of Magdalen, many a pleasant day we've had together." "Ah, Vaughan! to be sure I remember you, I'm very glad to see you, old fellow. What brings you to W-? Oh! you're in the -th, I suppose. And how are your sisters? I remember them all at the Commemoration the year you left. What jolly days we had then! I'm surprised you knew me." "Oh, I knew you at once, in spite of that ponderious beard"-ponderious was a way the-th had invented of pronouncing "ponderous," and they used the coinage upon all occasions without caring whether they were understood or not. "Miss Scott, do you approve of clergymen wearing beards?" "I never thought much about it," said Rachel. "I believe it's good for the throat, or something, is it not, Mr. Ruthven?" "Oh, yes, it is a famous thing for our throats," replied Mr. Ruthven-"My turn, did you say, Miss Rokeby? I'm ready," and away he went to find his ball, and Vaughan, and Rachel, were left together. "Of course you delight in croquet, Miss Scott? All young ladies do," Harry began. "Indeed, I don't know what you all did before it was invented." "It's older than I am, so I don't know," answered Rachel, pertly. "Oh, Mr. Ruthven! not there if you please, you'll ruin everything." And she hurried away to prevent the curate from sending ball in a wrong direction. a Harry felt aggrieved, and walked away to find his hostess, and with her he found Miss Russel, and she introduced him to some pretty girls, and he presently began to enjoy himself accordingly, although that "little Scott girl," as he called Rachel, had thrown him over for the curate. But the curate was not Harry's only rival that day. When the match of croquet was over, and Rachel was standing discussing the merits of the game with the other players, she was conscious that a pair of dark brown, melancholy eyes were fixed upon her with a glance of evident admiration. The owner of the eyes was a handsome man of about three or four-andthirty, a really handsome man with the most perfect features that could well be imagined; he had a tall, slight figure, and he was remarkably well dressed, and he had, as Rachel discovered, soon after, a low insinuating voice. Altogether he was a most dangerous creature, far more dangerous, in my opinion, than Harry Vaughan; for instead of Harry's bright frank manner, he had a dreamy and melancholy way of speaking, which immediately gave the impression that there was a hopeless blight of some kind upon him. Of course that manner of his was successful only with women; men saw through it at once, and laughed at it for a clever" dodge," but women |