will see that he begs of you to keep a watch upon his good-for-nothing son, so I must help you to do his bidding by coming here very often," laughed Harry. And then he left Miss Russel to her letter, and turned again to Rachel.

"So you wouldn't play croquet with me yesterday, Miss Scott? But indeed when I heard who your partner was, I felt very small at having asked you. yo We poor mudcrushers-did you know the infantry were called by that pretty name?-have no chance beside a fellow like Fairfax! What jolly little girls his sisters are. You know them, of course."

Yes, Rachel knew them, had known them since they were all children together. Did Mr. Vaughan know that the eldest Miss Fairfax was going to be married?

"I suppose to that man who was with her," cried Vaughan, "that red-haired fellow with the glass in his eye? He is a swell of some kind no doubt. What on earth can she see to fancy in the creature? But there is no accounting for what you women will do."

"You

seem rather aggrieved about it," said Rachel; "but then there is Julia, the second girl, waiting for you. Many people think her prettier than Miss Fairfax."

"I don't, she's too like her brother," said Harry, bluntly; "but I suppose I must not abuse him to you, Miss Scott. I shall have the pleasure of meeting him to-night, he dines with us-Hallo! what's this? I hear wheels."

"It's the Wimburne carriage," said Miss Russel from her seat in the window. "Pray do not go, Mr. Vaughan," for Harry had risen as she spoke. Rachel tried hard to look as if she only expected, or hoped to see, the ladies of the Wimburne family, but although she grew very intent upon the removal of a knot upon her embroidery thread,

she could not keep back the flush that rose to her cheeks, nor the look of expectancy that brightened her eyes as she furtively watched the door. Harry saw both blush and look, and he felt that he actually hated Reginald Fairfax, as he too watched the door.

"Lady Wimburne, and the Misses Fairfax! " - Rustle of matronly silk and girlish muslin, but no manly tread following, to the disappointment of one, and to the joy of another.

There was more affectionate kissing of Rachel. The young ladies were really cordial to her to-day, for Reginald had only arched his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders when they had praised her to him yesterday; so that he was safe, not from flirtation, for "Reginald always flirted," but from falling in love.

They were expecting a houseful of people at the Priory the next week, and the object of Lady Wimburne's visit was to ask Miss Russel to join the party. "And I am on my way to ask your aunt if she will allow us to have the pleasure of your company too, dear," her ladyship added, turning to Rachel.

The girl's heart gave a great bound of delight at the prospect, while in one swift moment she passed her whole wardrobe in review, and remembered that there would be dressing for dinner at the Priory every day. But being a ladylike little person, she did not forget to thank Lady Wimburne very prettily for her kind invitation, and then she turned to attend to the young ladies who were telling her to be sure and bring all her music.

"We hope to see you, and some of your brother officers too, Mr. Vaughan," Lady Wimburne said, in her most gracious manner, to Harry. She had heard about "The Oaks" from somebody, and con

Russel, and to see if Rachel appeared elated at the prospect of going to Wimburne.

Of course she was elated, and why not? What girl of only eighteen, who did not know how far expectations always exceed realities, who thought that clouds were not only lined with silver, but were formed throughout of that precious metal, who never had had a great disappointment to bear, and who imagined that people and things were fully as honest and as perfect as she believed them to be, would not be delighted at the prospect of going to stay in a pleasant house, full of pleasant people-of being prettily dressed, and of being made much of by every one? Yes, and it would be very nice indeed, she thought, to stay in the house with Mr. Fairfax. Rachel had often tried to picture to herself what that sad-eyed hero was like in the bosom of his family, and had failed; but her thoughts went no farther. She never calculated, as ninety-nine girls out of a hundred would have done, upon the chances of "catching" Lord Wimburne's son and heir.

She was talking eagerly to Miss Russel when Vaughan came back, and if that young gentleman had not been too much taken up with admiring her animated face, he would have heard the ominous words, "Grenadine trimmed with blue." "Yes, dear, we must settle all about it in good time," Miss Russel made answer. "Mr. Vaughan, here is your letter, with many thanks. Pray tell your father when you are writing, that I return all his kind messages, and that I too hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting again some day. And now I want to know if you will stay and dine with me to-day? Miss Scott will be the only other guest. I cannot promise you such magnificence as you have at your mess, but

"It would give me the greatest pleasure," interrupted Harry, "but it is our guest night, and I could not be absent; however, if I can I'll get away after dinner, and come up to you for a cup of tea, and a song, if Miss Scott will kindly indulge

me."

"And remember, you must sing yourself," said Rachel.

"Oh yes, I'll sing if you wish it," he said. And he went away delighted at at the prospect of the pleasant evening he had before him.

And accordingly he came, and came very early too, considering that it was "guest night" with the gallant-th, for he was fully half an hour before the ladies at The Lodge expected to see him, and he had not waited to change his mess jacket, and white waistcoat; but then I have no doubt he knew the dress was becoming to him, and was therefore not sorry to have the opportunity of appearing in it. Neither was he sorry, for that evening at least, to escape from the society of his brother officers— from the cutting cynicisms of Major Howard, and from the chaffing banter of Franklin, who found out everything about every one, and who always retailed his information with notes and comments of his

own.

Reginald Fairfax was one of the guests, and led by him, the conversation at dessert had been such as to disgust Vaughan, and he was by no means a strait-laced young

man.

When he came into the pretty drawing-room at The Lodge, and took in at a glance the atmosphere of refinement and purity that pervaded it, and when he saw Rachel's lovely face, radiant with youth and happiness, his blood boiled at the thought of what wretchedness contact with a man like Fairfax might bring upon her.

The evening was very quiet, but

very pleasant, dangerously so, I fear, for the gallant young soldier. Rachel sang for him, and he sang for Rachel, and they sang duets together, until Miss Russel declared that he had no mercy upon the girl's voice, and shut the piano. And then Harry got a volume of Praed, and read aloud poems grave, and poems gay by turns, and then all too soon came the announcement that a servant had been sent for Miss Scott.

But I think it is almost . necessary to state, that the domestic was allowed to walk discreetly in the background, while Vaughan escorted the young lady to her home, an arrangement which Miss Russel would have prevented had it been in her power. But I think on the whole that the walk by moonlight gave Rachel more satisfaction than it gave to Vaughan. She enjoyed it merely as a walk by moonlight, a pleasant finish to a pleasant evening. But he would have been more gratified had she been a little less frankly at her ease with him; he knew the "weather signs of love," and he would have been glad to trace even the faintest outline of them in the girl's demeanour towards himself. be possible," he thought, as he walked back to the barracks after having said good night to Rachel—

Can it

can it be possible that that fellow Fairfax has made such good running in one afternoon that I haven't a chance! What a ponderious ass I am after all, to let myself be bowled over by a pair of violet eyes, and a voice-how well it goes with mine too! And her father's a music master in London, Franklin says, and her sister a governess. How the deuce does that fellow find out everything? I never find out anything, and he is nearly always right. Well if he were a sweep, she is a lady every inch, and awfully distractingly pretty! I wonder is this the real

thing this time, Harry, my boy, or only another case of mock cupid,' as Franklin calls my love affairs. I shall be a better judge when I go to Wimburne, and see what game that Fairfax fellow is up to. By Jove, if I feel at all pokery towards him, I had better get more leave, and give him a fair field. It wouldn't be right to stand in the way of her being 'My Lady!' Hallo, light in Howard's room. They're playing loo, I suppose, like old boots! I'll go to bed, I couldn't stand that fellow again with his goggle eyes, and his sugary voice."

Of course it was a libel to say that Fairfax had goggle eyes; but then Vaughan was jealous, and therefore prejudiced.

During the week which elapsed between the morning he spent at The Lodge and the day fixed for the assembling of the guests at Wimburne Priory, Vaughan did not see Rachel Scott. He called several times at The Lodge, but always found Miss Russel alone, and it was during one of these visits that he heard from her what rumour, in the person of Captain Franklin, had told him before, namely, that Miss Scott's father really was a music-master, and had for years been known by no other name than that of Scotelli-the poor man had Italianized himself to pander to the popular British prejudice that no one but an Italian could teach music.

Garden, and that his daughterRachel's elder, and equally pretty sister-but what she was doing will be told more appropriately in another place.

"She is pretty enough to grace a coronet," was Vaughan's very commonplace remark, when he had heard all Miss Russel had to tell him of the girl, who, from the moment when blushing and frightened at her own boldness she had given him his lost money at the station, had occupied a prominent place in his thoughts. And then he remembered the Viscount's coronet which might perhaps be waiting her acceptance, and wondered if Fairfax also knew about the musicmaster.

But, if known to him, the fact that Miss Scott's father and sister earned by hard work the bread which they ate, did not seem to affect Mr. Fairfax more than it affected Harry himself, for when the latter entered the drawingroom at Wimburne Priory before dinner, when the week had passed, and all the guest-chambers at the hospitable old mansion were full, the first thing he saw was Fairfax standing beside Rachel's chair. He was even leaning with one hand upon the back of it, as he bent over to whisper to her in that flatteringly confidential manner of his.

How pretty she was looking, dressed in white with blue ribbons, so quiet with all her animation, so thoroughly lady-like, so perfectly at her ease. She did not see Vaughan coming into the room, although she had been looking forward to meeting him with great pleasure, for Fairfax had a way of what I may call absorbing any woman to whom he addressed himself. He claimed the attention of voice ear and eye, and Rachel would not have been what she was, a very pretty, and a very young woman, if she had not been flat

tered by his attentions, and his undisguised admiration. But she could not tell, that as he talked to her, and gave her the full benefit of long eloquent glances from his languishing eyes-Rachel did not call them "goggle"-he was trying to remember of whom it was that she reminded him so strongly. "By Jove!" he said, at last, as it flashed across him; but he made the sudden exclamation to himself.

Mr. Fairfax being the eldest son of the house, was, of course, obliged to take a lady of more importance than Miss Scott in to dinner; but he lamented over his hard fate to her in a few telling words, and then saw her conveyed by Major Howard without a pang.

The young lady herself was not so well pleased. In default of Fairfax she would have liked Vaughan, whom she regarded as quite an old friend; but there he was, quite at the far end of the table, chatting very pleasantly with Julia Fairfax, and she felt quite sure that she should never be able to talk to the man with the grizzly moustache, who looked as if he thought her merely a child.

And Major Howard, having the power of reading character with little more than a glance out of those piercing eyes of his, saw at once that Rachel was not satisfied, and he debated with himself, while drinking his soup, whether he could make some slight amend to her by being agreeable. And whether it made up to her or not for her disappointment, he decided that he would be agreeable; or, rather, that he would find out what she was made of. Somewhat to his surprise, for he had a low opinion of the mental endowments of women, and especially of pretty young women, he found that Rachel could say a little more than "yes" and "no," and she looked so bright, and aughed so merrily at his quaint

and cynical remarks, that he ended by being quite delighted with her.

Later in the evening, when the gentlemen followed the ladies to the drawing-room, he sat at a small table, away from all the rest of the company, apparently engrossed by one of poor Leech's volumes; butin reality he was watching the little drama being played before him. He made comments to himself somewhat after this fashion:

"Ha! I knew it. Fairfax is going in for the slaughter of another innocent! What the deuce is Vaughan about, that he does not try what a little pluck would do, if he really is spooney on the girl, as Franklin says he is ? She is a nice little thing, an uncommonly nice little creature, and it is a thousand pities to see her philandering with that man, who hasn't as much heart as a spider, and, of course, she'll fall desperately in love with him; he's just the sort of man to go down with women. I don't know why they like him, but they do. If I were to tell all that I know of that man's private life out here to this goodly company, I wonder what they would say? Take his part, of course, and just make as much of him as they did before; and there isn't one of those girls that wouldn't marry him! They rather like a scamp, I think. Suppose I were to go up and ask him how Mrs. Villiers is? how all the little Villiers are? Poor little girl! If I had met some one like you instead -," he ground his teeth at that point, and was silent for a moment-" I might not have been the unbelieving dog about women that I am now. How pleased she seems-oh, yes! she is blushing, and looking down. I thought so no woman under thirty could meet that glance of his unabashed. What is going to happen now? Grand divertissement? Vaughan approaches, Fairfax looks aggrieved, Rachel smiles