the liberty of providing for it. You have no ornaments, and I have brought you a necklace of my own which I shall insist upon your wearing. I don't want it myselfit won't go with my other jewellery -besides one can't wear everything at once, you know. There now, don't be shy-let me put it on for you.'

And before May could make any practical protest, Lucy had fastened round her throat such a diamond necklace as she had never seen before. When it fell into its place, May's first impulse, as she stood before the glass, was one of admiration. It harmonised so admirably with her toilette, and was in itself so brilliant an object, that its new wearer could not restrain her delight as she saw herself glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and joy.'

But a sudden thought came like a cloud upon her radiance. What would her father think? His pride would never endure that she should appear in borrowed splendour, nor indeed would her pride have borne the indignity but for the horrible temptation of seeing herself look so beautiful.

It was her duty to remonstrate, and remonstrate she did. She urged her father's certain objections, and even went to the extent of removing the ornament and returning it to her friend. But you know Lucy's imperious temper. She would hear no refusal. And to save a 'scene' in the presence of all sorts of bejewelled people who were beginning to arrive, May had at last no resource but to adopt the adornment, and give the crowning effect to her charms for the evening.

Lucy rather spoiled the delicacy of her tribute by remarking as they were entering the ball-room

You need not mind who stares at the necklace. It is worth three hundred pounds. It was given to me by an awfully rich man, who was under great obligations to papa and was at his wits' end to return them. Papa got him into parliament, in fact.'

May had no time to feel so diffi

dent as she otherwise would have done at having an article of so much value in her custody, for they were now in the hall, and in the midst of a fairer scene than May had ever beheld before.

The mayor of a provincial town is a very great personage in his way. He is not only obliged by official duty to be magnificent, but he is provided with official means for the purpose. And when he happens besides to be a man of large personal wealth, like Mr. Cartwright, you may be sure that his entertainments are not the less splendid on that account. The Town Hall of Shuttleton was not a very beautiful edifice as regarded its exterior, though it had been recently built at a large cost to the ratepayers, and greatly to the disgust of the minority of that body, when they were outvoted in the council. The propriety of erecting such a place was indeed still a fierce subject of controversy in the local papers; one side declaring the measure to be a testimony to the growing prosperity of the town, conceived in a spirit of enlightened enterprise; and the other maintaining it to be a shameful party job, dictated by a reckless indifference to the interests of the community, already oppressed by the burden of local taxation. People did not quite believe the assertions on either side, but it was customary to make equally contrary criticisms, whatever was done in the borough, where the bitterest party animosity was carried into the most everyday transactions. Thus no Conservative dare deal with a Radical tradesman, however he might like his goods; and the same prohibition was enforced the other way. Not long before the date of the grave events I am narrating a new resident aspiring to public life was nearly ruined among the Liberals, because, in an evil quarter of an hour he had innocently allowed his hair to be cut by a Conservative coiffeur.

But about the exterior of the Town Hall. It was bare, like the buildings in Shuttleton generally, and gave you the same idea of bleak