difficulty I had in persuading him to sign the paper which bore reference to Mrs. Seymour's illness."

"Do you mean to say he objected to affix his signature?" asked Mr. Seymour, in evident displeasure.

"Indeed, sir, he flatly refused to do so," returned the housekeeper, gravely shaking her head; “and I firmly believe he would have persisted in his determination, had he not been afraid of the consequences." You are forgetting the other side of the story," exclaimed a quick voice behind her.

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Mrs. Morby started round with a look of conscious guilt, and found herself confronted by Browning.

That interested personage had been busily engaged in packing his master's wardrobe in an adjoining room, the door of which happened to be open. Not a word, therefore, of the foregoing conversation had escaped him; and feeling naturally indignant at the accusatory tone which Mrs. Morby thought proper to adopt in speaking of him, he (acting, as usual, upon impulse) lost no time in coming forward to justify himself at her expense.

Mr. Seymour looked at him with some curiosity.

"Why, Browning," he said, smiling quietly, "I ought to have recollected that you were in the next room."

"I had no intention of listening, sir," answered the valet, still keeping his angry eye fixed upon Mrs. Morby's perturbed visage; "but it's scarcely reasonable to expect me to remain silent after hearing my name mentioned in such disparaging terms. I cannot tamely submit to be abused without making an effort to prove my innocence."

"Certainly, you have every right to be heard in your own defence," said Mr. Seymour, assentingly; "and if your motives should have been misinterpreted, the sooner they are explained the better." "They have been misinterpreted, sir," returned Browning, with concentrated scorn, "not by chance, but wilfully."

"How so?" demanded his master, glancing inquiringly from one to the other.

"Mrs. Morby only tells what suits her own purpose, sir," boldly affirmed the valet, nothing daunted by the housekeeper's darkened brow," and the rest she conceals."

"Are you not forgetting yourself, Browning?" asked Mr. Seymour, in a tone of grave reproof.

"I assure you, sir, it is not of the slightest consequence," eagerly interposed Mrs. Morby, trying to assume an air of superiority; "I should never think of taking offence at anything he might say; I know him too well, and can make every allowance for his rashness and impetuosity."

"I don't want you to make allowance for me," angrily retorted Browning; "all I ask from you is justice, and that I am determined to have."

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you

'Softly, my man," said his master, with quiet emphasis; can't for a moment suspect Mrs. Morby of deliberately misrepresenting your

"But indeed I do sir; and, what is more, I can prove it!" The housekeeper looked as if she would like to annihilate him. "I have had my eye on her for some time," proceeded Browning, "and could give you a hundred instances of her intriguing ways."

Mrs. Morby's cold and livid face became almost convulsed with rage as he made this daring observation, and she could scarcely restrain herself from giving utterance to the feelings which agitated her aspiring breast.

"However," continued Browning, a lofty disdain in his voice and aspect, “it is not my present intention to enter into any of these particulars" (his antagonist heaved a sigh of partial relief); “it affords me no pleasure"-darting a contemptuous glance at the much-aggrieved matron—" to point out the defects of my neighbours."

"Why, what else have you been doing all this time?" asked Mr. Seymour, trying to look grave.

“Oh, I was obliged in self-defence to speak plainly, sir,” returned Browning; "otherwise I should not have alluded to

“ Well, sir,” hastily interposed Mrs. Morby, with an air of insinuating frankness (she had her own reasons for wishing to put a stop to the young man's elucidatory remarks), “it is just possible that I may have misjudged him. I'm sure I hope so; for it would give me sincere pleasure to think that I had formed an erroneous opinion of him. Perhaps," turning to Browning, and compelling herself to assume a friendly mien, "you may be able to account in a satisfactory manner for the reluctance you manifested when requested to sign the paper to which I have referred.”

Browning said nothing, but the scornful curl of his lip and the indignant flash of his eye plainly told her that, as far as she was concerned, the explanation would be wholly superfluous.

“None are infallible," she sagely added, adopting a conciliatory tone, and accompanying her words with a glance made up of anxiety and entreaty; "even the most penetrating among us are capable of being deceived."

Much as Browning felt disgusted with her duplicity, he was too generous to drive matters to extremity by divulging all that he had discovered of her habitual insincerity and perfidiousness.

Addressing himself, therefore, to Mr. Seymour, he said respectfully, yet without the least appearance of cringing or servileness, “If, sir, you will take the trouble of questioning Mr. Burns on the subject, he will, I think, satisfy you that the unwillingness I showed to obey your command arose

“You see, sir, by his own showing, he did object,” eagerly put in Mrs. Morby; "and, however good his secret motives may have been, I could scarcely be expected to give him credit for them."

"Go on, Browning," exclaimed Mr. Seymour, deigning no response to this interruption; "your unwillingness to obey my command,” he repeated encouragingly, "arose

"Not from any wish on my part to gainsay it, but because I felt hurt and aggrieved at your considering it necessary to extract such a promise from us all, sir.”

“How? I can't see what you are driving at.”

“I fancied it was treating us with a great want of confidence, sir," boldly continued the valet.

“Want of confidence!" echoed Mr. Seymour, eyeing him in sheer amazement.

“Yes, sir; and I could not help rebelling at the terms of your request. If, instead of threatening to discharge any one who declined to do as you wished, you had simply expressed your desire, and then

left it to our own sense of honour to carry it out, I should have been the first to yield a cheerful assent; but I hated the thought of having the appearance of being forced, through mercenary motives, to take such a step, and felt as if, rather than submit to the degradation, I would prefer losing my place."

"Where on earth did you pick up those highflown notions?" cried Mr. Seymour, apparently quite bewildered by this novel representation of the case. "Sense of honour!" he repeated to himself with a low laugh; "who ever heard of such an absurdity? I'm afraid if that was all I had to depend on, the result would have been very different!" Mrs. Morby contrived, by a series of little nods, to express her entire concurrence in this opinion.

"As for yourself," continued Mr. Seymour, after regarding the young man for a few seconds in thoughtful silence, "I really believe you are to be relied on; for a less grasping and more unselfish servant I never possessed."

Browning respectfully bent his head, and his master assuringly proceeded,

"We will therefore say no more about your leaving us."

"Excuse me, sir," said Browning, growing exceedingly red and embarrassed; "but I have been for some time thinking of a change, and perhaps the present may be a good opportunity for me to

"Nonsense, my man," observed Mr. Seymour, kindly; "don't let your independent spirit lead you so far as that; it would be next to madness were you to throw up a good situation simply because of this little fracas."

"That's not it," returned the valet, hesitatingly. up service altogether."

"Oh, indeed!" in a slightly mocking tone. to have come in for a fortune lately?"

I intend to give

"Do you happen

"No, sir; but just now I have a prospect of getting into a respectable business in London, and- a brief pause, followed by renewed embarrassment-"the fact is, sir, I'm going to be married!”

་་

Oh, that changes the aspect of affairs," returned Mr. Seymour, smiling indulgently; "and however much I may, on my own account, regret the loss of so good a servant, I must not be selfish enough to stand in the way of your happiness."

"Thank you, sir," said Browning, in his own simple and straightforward fashion, while Mrs. Morby seemed undecided whether to be pleased or angry at this unlooked-for realization of her wishes. "And who have you made choice of?" asked Mr. Seymour, in a tone of interest—"not one of your fellow-servants, I presume? Yes, sir; it's Juliet."

"What! is Mrs. Seymour also to be deprived of her maid?"

"I am sure we would neither of us wish to inconvenience my mistress, sir: but "-directing a glance of stern severity at the housekeeper "I don't think it would have been possible for her to retain her present situation long."

Mr. Seymour's eyes questioned Mrs. Morby, who answered with an assumption of dignity which sat very awkwardly upon her,

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By Mrs. Seymour's express order, sir, I gave Juliet to understand some time ago that her services would not be required after a certain date."

She did not further explain that this step would never have been

taken, had she not laboured with a degree of perseverance worthy of a better cause to prejudice the poor lady's mind against her.

"Well, Browning, I doubt whether you could do better," was Mr. Seymour's concluding observation. "Juliet is a clever girl, and her mistress is, I know, entirely satisfied with the manner in which she has performed her duties, as well as the perfect propriety with which she has conducted herself since entering our service. In consideration of this, therefore, and also to mark my appreciation of your own faithfulness and fidelity, I shall see that she does not come to you portionless."

And ere the gratified valet had sufficiently recovered from his surprise and amazement to offer a word of thanks for such a liberal promise, Mr. Seymour had passed into the other room, leaving the two "kindred spirits" to the enjoyment of a tête-à-tête, which proved as agreeable and satisfactory as might be expected!

CHAPTER LXXVII

MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

Swiftly our pleasures glide away;
Our hearts recall the distant day
With many sighs.

The moments that are speeding fast
We heed not; but the past-the past-
More highly prize.

Let no one fondly dream again
That hope and all her shadowy train
Will not decay;

Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remembered like a tale that's told,

They pass away." COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

"A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round:

If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground." LONG before the winter was ended, Mrs. Seymour's anxiety regarding her son returned.

She regularly wrote to him, and wondered much that her letters brought forth no response, little dreaming, poor unfortunate mother, that they were destined never to meet his eye, being destroyed almost as soon as written.

As for Mr. Seymour, he watched over her with the tenderest solicitude; anticipated her every want, bore with her occasional fits of waywardness and irritability, and humoured her so patiently and gently in all her caprices, that he could scarcely be recognised as the same person who had been wont to exercise such a firm and rigorous sway over all those connected with him, quite irrespective of their own personal inclination or convenience.

He was not wholly unrewarded; for in the very act of sharing and lightening her burden, and ministering to her comfort, the anguish which gnawed at his own heart became less felt, if not to a certain extent mitigated and relieved.

When, however, towards the end of the season Mrs. Seymour began to show unmistakable signs of weariness and impatience, and resisted all her husband's efforts to soothe and console her, the latter again had recourse to their old family attendant, Dr. Leslie, who, in conjunction with the consulting physician (of whose skill they were no longer able to avail themselves, in consequence of his having returned to his professional duties in the metropolis), had already rendered him so much and efficient aid.

"It is no more than I expected, my dear sir," said the clever little man, when Mr. Seymour had with a considerably elongated face confided to him the nature of his anxieties; "we must be thankful that she has got through the winter so well. Now she evidently requires another change of scene."