her duty toward Miss Green had been, when she learned the Diabelli duet in D, and was no doubt derived from the sense of position that she, as her husband's wife, enjoyed. Yet perhaps she hardly "enjoyed" it, for it was not in her nature to enjoy anything. She had a perfectly clear idea, as always, of what her own sense of fitness entailed on her, and she did it rigidly. "The thing," in fact, was her rule in life. Just as it was the thing to obey her governess and obey her mother, so, when she blossomed out into wifehood, the thing was to be a perfect and complete Lady Whittlemere. Success, as always, attended her conscientious realization of this. Luckily, or unluckily, since her hope of salvation was thereby utterly forfeited, -she had married a husband whose general attitude toward life, whose sense of duty and hidebound instincts, equaled her own, and they lived together after that literal solemnization of holy matrimony in St. Peter's Eaton Square for thirty-four years in unbroken harmony. Both had an unswelled sense of their own dignity, never disagreed on any topic under the sun, and saw grow up round them a copious family of plain solid sons and comely daughters, none of whom caused the parents a single moment's salutary anxiety. The three daughters, amply dowered, married into stiff mahogany families at an early age, and the sons continued to prop up the conservative interests of the nation by becoming severally a soldier, a clergyman, a member of Parliament, a diplomatist, and they took into all these liberal walks of life the traditions and proprieties of genuine Whittlemeres. They were all honorables and all honorable and all dull and all completely aware of who they were. Nothing could have been nicer.

For these thirty-four years, then, Lady Whittlemere and her husband lived together in harmony and exquisite, expensive pomposity. Had Genesis been one of the prophetical books, their existence

might be considered as adumbrated by that of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Only there was no serpent of any kind, and their great house in shelter of the Wiltshire downs had probably a far pleasanter climate than that of Mesopotamia. Their sons grew up plain, but strong, they all got into the cricket eleven at Eton, and had no queer, cranky leanings toward vegetarianism, like Abel, or to homicide, like Cain; while the daughters, until the time of their mahogany marriages, grew daily more expert in the knowledge of how to be Whittlemeres. Three months of the year they spent in London, three more in their large property in the Highlands of Scotland, and the remaining six were devoted to home life at Whittlemere, where the hunting season and the shooting season, with their large, solid parties, ushered in the old English Christmas, and were succeeded by the quietness of Lent. Then after Easter the whole household, from majordomo to steward's room-boy, went second-class to London, while for two days Lord and Lady Whittlemere "picnicked," as they

called it, at Whittlemere, with only his lordship's valet and her ladyship's maid. and the third and fourth footmen and the first kitchen-maid and the still-room maid and one housemaid to supply their wants, and made their state entry in the train of their establishment to Whittlemere House, Belgrave Square, where they spent May, June, and July.

But while they were in the country no distraction consequent on hunting or shooting parties diverted them from their mission in life, which was to behave like Whittlemeres. About two hundred and thirty years ago, it is true, a certain Lord Whittlemere had had "passages," so to speak, with a female who was not Lady Whittlemere, but since then the whole efforts of the family had been devoted to wiping out this deplorable lapse. Wet or fine, hunting and shooting notwithstanding, Lord Whittlemere gave audience every Thursday to his estate-manager, who laid before him accounts and submitted reports. Nothing diverted him from this duty, any more than it did from distributing the honors of his shooting lunches among the big farmer-tenants of the neighborhood. There was a regular cycle of these, and duly Lord Whittlemere and his guests lunched (the lunch in its entirety being brought out in hampers from the house) at Farmer Jones's and Farmer Smith's and Farmer Robertson's, complimented Mrs. Jones, Smith, and Robertson on the neatness of their gardens and the rosy-facedness of their children, and gave each of them a pheasant or a hare.

Similarly, whatever highnesses and duchesses were staying at the house, Lady Whittlemere went every Wednesday morning to the mothers' meeting at the vicarage, and every Thursday afternoon to pay a call in rotation on three of the lodge-keepers' and tenants' wives. This did not bore her in the least; nothing in the cold shape of duty ever bored her. Conjointly they went to church on Sun

day morning, when Lord Whittlemere stood up before the service began and prayed into his hat, subsequently reading the lessons, and giving a sovereign into the plate, while Lady Whittlemere, after a choir practice on Saturday afternoon, played the organ. It was the custom for the congregation to wait in their pews till they had left the church, exactly as if it was in honor of Lord and Lady Whittlemere that they had assembled here. This impression was borne out by the fact that as the family walked down the aisle the congregation rose to their feet. Only the footman who was on duty that day preceded their exit, and he held the door of the landau open until Lady Whittlemere and three daughters had got in. Lord

Whittlemere and such sons as were present then took off their hats to their wife, mother, sisters, and daughters and strode home across the park.

And as if this was not enough propriety for one day, every Sunday evening the vicar of the parish came to dine with the family directly after evening service. He was bidden to come straight back from even-song without dressing, and in order to make him quite comfortable, Lord Whittlemere never dressed on Sunday evening, and made a point of reading the "Guardian" and the "Church Family Newspaper" in the interval between tea and dinner, so as to be able to initiate Sabbatical subjects. This fortunate clergyman was permitted to say grace both before and after meat, and Lord Whittlemere always thanked him for "looking in on us." To crown all, he invariably sent him two pheasants and a hare during the month of November and an immense cinnamon-turkey at Christmas.

IN this way Constance Whittlemere's married life was just the flower of her maiden bud. The same sense of duty that had inspired her school-room days presided like some wooden-eyed Juggernaut over her wifehood, and all the freedom from any sort of worry or anxiety for these thirty-four years served only to give her a shell to her soul. She became rounded and water-tight, she got to be embedded in the jelly of comfort and security and curtseying lodge-keepers' wives, and "yes-mylady" Sunday-schools. Such rudiments of humanity as she might possibly have once been possessed of shriveled like a barren nutkernel, and when at the end of these thirty-four years her husband died, she was already too proper, too shell-bound,

to be human any longer. Naturally his death was an extremely satisfactory sort of

death, and there was no sudden stroke, or any catching of vulgar disease. He had a bad cold on Saturday, and, with a rising temperature, insisted on going to church on Sunday. Not content with that, in the pursuance of perfect duty, he went to the stables as usual on Sunday afternoon, and fed his hunters with lumps of sugar and carrots. It is true that he sent the second footman down to the church about the time of even-song to say that he was exceedingly unwell, and would have to forego the pleasure of having Mr. Armine to dinner, but the damage was already done. He developed pneumonia, lingered a decorous week, and then succumbed. All was extremely proper.

It is idle to pretend that his wife felt any sense of desolation, for she was impervious to everything except dignity. But she decided to call herself Constance Lady Whittlemere rather than adopt the ugly name of dowager. There was a magnificent funeral, and she was left very well off.

Le roi est mort; vive le roi: Captain Lord Whittlemere took the reins of government into his feudal grasp, and his mother, with four rows of pearls for her

Half a dozen times in the season Lady Whittlemere had a dinner-party "

life, two carriages and a pair of carriagehorses, and a jointure of six thousand pounds a year, entered into the most characteristic phase of her existence. She was fifty-six

years old, and since she purposed to live till at least eighty, she bought the lease of a great chocolate-colored house in Mayfair, with thirty years to run, for it would be very tiresome to have to turn out at the age of seventy-nine. As befitted her station, it was very large and gloomy and dignified, and had five best spare bedrooms, which were just five more than she needed, since she never asked anybody to stay with her except her children's governess, poor Miss Lyall, for whom a dressing-room was far more suitable: Miss Lyall would certainly be more used to a small room than a large one. She came originally to help Lady Whittlemere

to keep her promise as set forth in the "Morning Post" to answer the letters of condolence that had poured in upon her in her bereavement; but before that gigantic task was over, Lady Whittlemere had determined to give her a permanent home here, in other words, to secure for herself some one who was duly aware of the greatness of Whittlemeres and would read to her or talk to her, drive with her. and fetch and carry for her. She did not purpose to give Miss Lyall any remuneration for her services, as is usual in the case of a companion, for it was surely remuneration enough to provide her with a comfortable home and all found, while Miss Lyall's own property of a hundred pounds a year would amply clothe her and enable her to lay something by. Lady Whittlemere thought that everybody should lay something by, even if, like herself, nothing but the total extinction of the British Empire would deprive her of the certainty of having six thousand pounds a year as long as she lived. But thrift being a duty, she found that five

thousand a year enabled her to procure every comfort and luxury that her limited imagination could suggest to her, and instead of spending the remaining thousand pounds a year on charity or things she did not want, she laid it by. Miss Lyall, in the same way, could be neat and tidy on fifty pounds a year and lay by fifty

more.

For a year of mourning Constance Whittlemere lived in the greatest seclusion, and when that year was out she continued to do so. She spent Christmas at her son's house, where there was always a pompous family gathering, and stayed for a fortnight at Easter in a hotel at Hastings for the sake of sea breezes. She spent August in Scotland, again with her son, and September at Buxton, where, further to fortify her perfect health, she drank waters, and went for two walks a day with Miss Lyall, whose hotel bills she of course was answerable for. Miss Lyall similarly accompanied her to Hastings, but was left behind in London at Christmas and during August.