for us.

There it was again!—not even master of five minutes. Mr. Sniggs, indeed!

"Come, then, dear," said I to Harriet; and down stairs we went: and there we found the late antagonists making common cause in a servile war upon some grilled and minced fowl, Cuthbert having, under medical advice, fallen to, lest he should lose the appetite which the smell of the diablerie of my ingenious cook had excited. The sight of luncheon immediately brought to my mind the peculiar awkwardness of Mrs. Brandyball's appearance at the Rectory, with her two sparkling satellites, on a morning which, from what Harriet had told me, seemed to be big with the fate of Merman and of Fan."

66

While I was helping dear Harriet to "the least bit of cold chicken in the world," the servant brought me a note. I opened and read it. Its contents were, to me, convincing that I had not mistaken my Lieutenant. I threw it across the table to Harriet, who ran her eyes over it, and returned it, saying only, "Well,"

which I myself have a habit of saying upon many occasions when it would not be well to say anything more. The contents of the note were these lines:

“DEAR SIR,—I regret that a compulsory visit to London this afternoon will prevent my having the pleasure of dining with you to-day, as I had proposed.

Yours, very truly,

"J. MERMAN."

“That's odd, Harry," said I, as I jerked off the wing of the chicken.

"Yes," said Harriet, "very odd indeed, considering."

"I am not sorry," said I, cutting her the thinnest imaginable slice of ham, “ even if it be as I suppose from this."

"I am,” replied my wife, " for her sake.” "It is for her sake," answered I," that I am not."

“Is that an invitation ?” said Cuthbert.

"No," said I; "on the contrary, a refusal of one."

"Oh!" continued he; "because I hear that some lady—I did hear her name, but, ah dear, I forget-is going to give a juvenile fancy ball, and I was going to ask if you knew herHutton can't tell me-because I think my little girls would-ah, would like to go, if they were invited ?"

"There is to be a thing of the sort," said Sniggs, "at Mrs. Trigley's, I believe. Tall woman, in a green bonnet-sits opposite the churchwardens-amiable person-subject to jaundice-had a slight touch of epilepsy about four years since nice house for the purpose-bad aspect-dampish-I take it-rather troubled with

sciatica."

"And when is this to be ?" said I.

“I think in about a fortnight," said Sniggs. "We don't know her," said Harriet.

"I think," said Cuthbert, " Bessy Wells told Kate that the Wells's know her; and so I said, if she could manage it, she and Jane might go; and Kate was saying something of having a little thing of the sort here. I believe Mr.

Kittington, the dancing-master, put it into her head first;-of course these people are anxious to show off their pupils to the best advantage."

I could not stand this, so I made no reply; but only said "Well" again, as Harriet had said before, and drank a glass of wine.

I saw Harriet looked worried and vexed at Merman's note, which it was clear to me she considered the avant courier of some unpleasant family news. She was evidently engrossed with her own thoughts, and left us as soon as she possibly could.

There is something like prescience, something intuitively quick about women when matters connected with these affaires de cœur come under their notice. It might, to be sure, have been, in this instance, that Fanny had made her sister to a certain degree her confidante. What struck me was, that my reverend father-in-law had been drawing matters to a conclusion with the Lieutenant, but having chosen the morning rather than the evening for the conference, the result had not been quite so successful as that of

our winding-up conversation upon a probably similar topic.

Fanny returned to Ashmead between four and five o'clock, and hurried unseen to Harriet's sanctum, and when I saw my poor little wife again I saw she had been crying. She begged me to excuse her to Mrs. Brandyball for her absence from dinner, on the plea of indisposition -the fact being, that she and Fanny intended to devote the rest of the day to talk over the important events of the morning.

Mrs. Brandyball returned alone in the carriage the independent Kate having accepted for herself and her sister an invitation from Bessy Wells to stay at the Rectory and pass the evening, which could be perfectly well managed, and without any inconvenience, inasmuch as they could come home in the carriage which would be sent to fetch the Rector, who was to dine with us.

Our fair guest was profuse in her expressions of admiration of the neighbourhood, of the Rectory, of the Wells's, of my horses, of my