As I said the last words I glanced towards the fishing-boat, and she blushed and smiled.

"But then, I am so stupid, so dull and uninteresting," she whispered. "And when people are very clever

"When people' are very clever they see true worth in any guise," I interrupted; "I am sure you don't need to be told that by me."

"No," she said; then, irrelevantly, though I could follow her train of thought, "he is so good," she added softly. "Too good for me."

"He does not think so."

"It ought to be some one brilliant and clever, like Mrs. Charleton," she said. "If I were a man I should fall in love with her at first sight; I know I should.'' "But men do not always care for 'brilliant and clever' women," I answered. "All the women I have most liked and respected have been gentle creatures who find their life work in loving; women like you, Miss Dulcie.'

"Were you ever quickly, then checked herself.

she began

"Did she die?" asked Dulcie, with sympathetic eyes. "Yes? Oh, I am so sorry."

"Remember, I was not in love," I hastened to explain, wondering why I had raked up that old story for Dulcie's ears; "only on the verge of it."

"Oh, yes, I understand," she said,

So she did, of course. These young people always do understand anything to do with love. You have only to tell them the first word and they know the rest of the story.

I see a good deal now of Dulcie. She is by no means so stupid as she imagines. She has read a good deal, and thinks over what she has read, which is the true way of acquiring knowledge. We were talking the other day about art, and so fell into a discussion of what is vaguely called "the beautiful," and since then Dulcie has been going through parts of Plato's Dialogues with me. She is an intelligent pupil, and we both enjoy the lessons. I suppose I am wasting my time; but when one meets a dear little fellow-mortal, whose pleasures in life are few and far

Decidedly I cannot leave Saltlinn before the play is played out. I have a shrewd suspicion that I myself have become an actor in it, taking the part of general confidant, benefactor, and peacemaker, while Mrs. Charleton, as I prophesied, has become prima donna in the place of Dulcie.

September 12.

Every evening we meet -a partie carrée, as Mrs. Charleton calls it-in the widow's sitting-room. Sometimes we talk on the balcony, or play a quiet rubber of whist (this last amusement being got up especially for me, I believe), but oftenest Mrs. Charleton sings to us, whilst I smoke my pipe and try to turn a deaf ear to Dulcie and Aubrey's sotto-voce conversation. Now and then Aubrey cannot tear himself from the piano, on which occasion, I have to take possession of Dulcie, and try to prevent her from looking towards her lover. It is just as well she should not notice certain glances that pass between him and Mrs. Charleton. But though "love is blind" they say, love is very keen-sighted when it is stirred by jealousy, and I am afraid Dulcie notices something. Once or twice she has answered me quite crossly when I endeavor to distract her attention. I suppose she thinks me a prosy old bore.

This reminds me that the shabbiness of Dulcie's frock is not to be compared with that of my own costume. Bachelors fall into very slipshod habits, and my coat has grown as shiny as ebony, whilst it also occurs to me looking at Aubrey St. Quintin's irreproachable neatness that my shirts are relics of a bygone generation.

Yesterday evening Mrs. Charleton positively sang the poet away from Dulcie when he was sitting by her near the balcony window. As Dulcie uttered her little confidences to him I saw Aubrey's passionate eyes fixing more and more intently on the singer's face. She was in great beauty, and sparkling with vivacity and graciousness. He tried to fight against the attraction, poor boy, I could see that, and was torn first this way, then that; his honor bidding him stay by Dulcie, love calling him to Mrs. Charleton. Of course love won the day- when does it not?- and presently he rose impatiently, leant his elbows on the piano, and sighed half angrily. She looked up at him and smiled. God help him now, and Dulcie!

66

"I have only got three more days," she said; "then back to my London pupils. I must not grumble, for I have had a long holiday and it has been very pleasant. Yet sometimes," and her eyes went out to sea, where a little boat was tossing on the waves in a way that made me feel quite unwell even to look at, "sometimes Í half wish I had never come. It makes it so much harder to go back."

"You poor little thing," I exclaimed quite indignantly; "you shan't go back to your drudgery.'

"Who can prevent it?" she said, shaking her head and smiling at me.

"Who?", I cried unthinkingly; "the poet!"

"Oh, don't," she whispered, covering her face with her hands. "That is all over."

"You must not think that; I don't believe it. Is it that widow, my dear? I am not afraid of her. It is a little glamor, and his heart is yours all the time; you see if it is not. Come, don't fret about it."

“They are so well suited. I don't blame either of them," she said, looking straight at me with her brave blue eyes; "and if it is so, I would not for the world be in their way. It wouldn't hurt me; I ought never to have thought of such a thing."

But my caution came too late. For, as I called to Aubrey to take care what he was about, a wave caught the boat broadside, and hurled it towards land, precipitating Mrs. Charleton and Aubrey into the

water.

There was no danger, but the sudden wetting was enough to frighten a woman into hysterics or a fainting-fit, and as I rushed to their assistance I prepared myself for a scene, having but a poor opinion of the female presence of mind.

Dulcie had not even cried out, but she flew before me, up to her knees in the water, holding out her loving little hands to her lover.

But he did not notice her. He was carrying Mrs. Charleton in his arms, and looking passionately into her white face.

"What is the matter?" I asked, as he laid her on the sand. "Fainted?"

"I don't know," he said, thoroughly frightened; "I never saw any one faint."

Probably she had received a blow on the head and was stunned; I expected nothing worse. But to the two young ones who had never before seen the deathly aspect of unconsciousness, there was something terrible in her cold, silent stillness.

Dulcie knelt by her, rubbing her hands, and Aubrey stood by, gazing miserably on the beautiful, quiet face, with its closed eyes, and long lashes lying black on the soft white cheeks.

"My darling! I have killed her," he murmured wildly; "my darling."

Dulcie sprang up, leaving go of the hands she had been chafing. "Killed! nonsense," she said, with a hard, mirthless laugh. "It is only a faint. I will run and get some brandy, and order her bed to be

I let her have her cry out, and pretended to read. I am in such a rage with Aubrey, that I should like to shake him out of his clothes and duck him in the sea. How dare he play with Dulcie's heart in this cruel way?

When I looked up again, I saw the boat coming to land just in front of us.

"Yes, do that; she will be all right directly," I said. "You are right, Dulcie. Run on, and I will carry her home."

Our conjectures were correct. Mrs. Charleton presently came to, and declared herself none the worse for the accident, except for a bad headache.

The only person who had come off badly was Dulcie, who roamed about the beach all the evening, looking very dull and lonely.

I guessed that she was repeating over and over to herself the endearments her lover had used for Mrs. Charleton.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. LXII. 3178

if I had not sent him to bed. He is in a regular lover's Inferno, and does not know what he means or wants, or anything else, except that he is in love with Mrs. Charleton, and that he ought to be in love with Dulcie.

"What am I to do?" he kept on repeating; "I won't be dishonorable if I can help it. She- Mrs. Charleton, I mean says I ought to propose to Dulcie. So I will. But I don't suppose she cares for me any longer. How can she? If she does have me I'll be good to her, on my honor I will. I am not such a selfish devil as to go and wreck her life because I made a mistake myself."

"All right; then for goodness' sake do propose to her, and don't make a fuss over it," I said rather irritably, for I was getting sleepy, and felt cross with the fellow, for Dulcie's sake. "If she does have you, you are a lucky dog, and you have my congratulations. Don't make a martyr of yourself.”

"Not I; at least not to her. She is a duck," he said, and I think he meant it. Who would not call Dulcie a duck?

September 16: Morning. The poet has done it; proposed, I mean; and has just come to tell me of it. But she has snubbed him, and given a most decided no. Brave, true, unselfish little Dulcie! As if I did not know what it has cost you.

Yet I believe there is a little element of contempt for the poet in her straightforward heart. I hope so. It will help her to get over it the quicker, and, to tell the truth, I think she would soon have been disillusionized if she had married Aubrey. Well! it is over, this play which I have been watching, or rather acting in.

To-morrow Dulcie goes back to lessons, and detestable little boys and girls, who will make her grow old and faded before she is thirty. The Fates order it so, and none may alter their decree.

I wish I could help her. How can I? If she had married Aubrey I would have left my paltry fortune to their son and heir, and so have done her good in that way.

What can I do for her? Would it insult her if I gave her a new frock and hat, I wonder? Surely not, coming from an old boy like me. Yet that won't do her much good. Nothing will help her, unless I adopt her, and I am not so old as all that. People would want me to marry her next.

Marry Dulcie? Well, why not? Would she have me? She says what she wants is some one to love her, and I can promise to do that. I would make her life one long holiday, and give her pretty things to her heart's content.

Forty years old; it is not such a great age after all. Others have waited till then, why not I? If I have got rusty and oldfashioned, Dulcie would brush me up, and I would be her slave. No fear of my running after lovely widows and naughty sirens with eyes like Mrs. Charleton. What shall I do? I am like the poet, with his eternal "What shall I do?"' I know what I will do, I will go and see what Dulcie is about; if she is very unhappy I will try to comfort her- and perhaps

September 16: Evening. I went to the public sitting-room that no one uses in the morning but Dulcie, and opened the door quietly.

There she was, my little girl, standing by the window in her shabby brown frock, looking so lonely that my heart began to ache for her.

Her child-face was downcast, her blue eyes hidden by the long lashes that curled on the soft-tinted cheeks.

When I came in she looked up at me with a pitiful little smile; sad, imploring, deprecating, shy, all at once. I could find nothing to say to comfort her. I felt tongue-tied, as confused as any foolish boy.

So we stood silently looking at each other for a moment; then my love and pity overcame me. I don't care if you laugh at me. I could not help loving and pitying Dulcie, and at that moment there seemed to be no doubt as to what I ought to do.

"Dulcie," I said, and held out both my arms towards her.

K. CARMARTHEN.

From Macmillan's Magazine. THOMAS MOORE.

It would be interesting, though perhaps a little impertinent, to put to any given number of well-informed persons under the age of forty or fifty the sudden query who was Thomas Brown the Younger?

Etude sur la Vie et les Œuvres de Thomas Moore;

by Gustave Vallat. Paris: Rousseau. London: Asher and Co. Dublin; Hodges, Figgis, and Co. 1887.