tors, as they always do when they know nothing about a sick person's case, recommend change. Such humbug! as if anyone could be the better for leaving fresh country food and wholesome air, in order to be sickened with made-up dishes, and all the other annoyances which travelling abroad entails."

After giving vent to such grumblings as these, who that listened to them could doubt the fact that Colonel Cuthbert did with all his heart detest the foreign plan? And, moreover, to these superficial observers it became clear as the sun at noonday, that, whatever the cause (and a cause no one in their senses could deny existed for Mrs. Cuthbert's altered condition of spirits) that had lately darkened the moral atmosphere of pretty, and whilom cheerful Maplehurst, the Colonel was not, in his own person, a sufferer therefrom; and this being so, and the breakingup of one of the pleasantest houses in the neigh bourhood being therefore attributable to what that neighbourhood now, with almost one accord, stigmatised as "nerves and nonsense" on the part of its no longer popular mistress, Colonel Cuthbert, as the husband of a "troublesome" and inconvenient wife, came to be generally spoken of as a much to be compassionated individual, whilst (whence emanating who could

say?) there were whispers afloat of hidden and mysterious reasons-reasons "which it was just as well that the Colonel knew nothing about," by which the sudden desire for change, as well as the perturbed condition of Mrs. Cuthbert's spirits, might be satisfactorily accounted for.

By some amongst the resentful ones the poor lady's secret history was, after the following fashion, suggestively discussed :

"You know it was odd about her being seen talking so long to that tall man in Howe's Lane, whom nobody had ever seen before. Jack said he was very good looking, and had his hand upon her horse's mane all the time."

"What a jolly lark she must have been having! And it was quite clear that Colonel Cuthbert didn't even know him, for Jack, you know, saw him afterwards walking to the station, and the Colonel, who was there, passed him without a word or a look."

The utterers of these rather suggestive sentences were two young girls, daughters of a clever and extremely popular surgeon, who had been for nearly a quarter of a century well known in the sporting world of Ugglethorpe, as one of the straightest goers across country as well as one of the best judges of a horse in England. His daughters, spirited young women, with (as

it was the "right thing" in their own little world to say) no real harm in them, were, though looked upon by some men as "good fellows," and as such duly appreciated, regarded by the older and more selfish members of the hunt (and especially by those who were "particular" as to the conduct of their own daughters) as nuisances in the field, and as specimens of their sex whom prudent fathers of families would do well to, as much as lay in their power, repress, and hold up to general reprobation.

Mrs. Cuthbert, young herself, and, as I have said, devoted to hunting, had been very kind (for they were worse than motherless girls, and had been ill brought up,) to Fanny and Nell Goodall. She had, in the days of her own popularity, more than once thrown the shield of her good name, her acknowledged superior position, and her prestige as an utterly untalkedof married woman, over the rather pretty and far too world-defying young creatures, who were somewhat given to over-boldness of speech, who dressed their hair à la chien, and rather gloried than otherwise in the fact that no French novel, how "spicy" soever might be its contents, was too highly seasoned for their palates.

It was this last-named peculiarity which, much as she had felt inclined to "rather like" the

cheery, quick-witted doctor's daughters, proved too much for the "taste" as well as for the judgment of Mrs. Cuthbert. From girls of eighteen and twenty, who were not ashamed of discoursing with acquaintances of the opposite sex on the delicate (?) distresses of a "Dame aux Perles," and who seemed quite at home amongst the uncleanly and exciting mysteries of "Les Mœurs Parisiennes," Gertrude Cuthbert, whose maiden purity had been guarded as a precious and spotless thing, and whose blue eyes had never even been permitted to roam unchecked over the often vice-disseminating columns of a newspaper, turned away with a disgust which she did not even attempt to conceal.

One attempt, and that an utterly futile effort, did she make to induce the girls to cease from drinking of the poisonous well whose intoxicating waters were rapidly vitiating (as rapidly and as surely as does the horrible drugged liquor of the spirit-shops the brain and blood and muscles of its consumers) the moral sense, together with the virginity of heart, mind, and imagination of these nineteenth century demoiselles.

Mrs. Cuthbert of Maplehurst was far, socially speaking, from being a "great lady." Even to the inexperienced eyes of the Misses Goodall she had not condescended so very much when

she treated as almost equals the daughters of her medical attendant; nevertheless those independent and somewhat lawless young persons (Fanny, the eldest, "went in," as she would have herself expressed it, for the rights of her sex, and was always ready to do battle in defence of her own crude and generally illexpressed opinions), being fully cognisant of the importance to them of retaining the goodwill and kindly interest in their welfare of Colonel Cuthbert's wife, took that lady's gently-offered advice-outwardly, at least-in good part, and so far paid homage to its worth as to abstain when in her presence from any allusion to the last "lively thing in yellow," which Cousin Jack, a medical student in the Quartier Latin; had despatched to them "all hot" and savoury from the teeming Paris press.

It was almost immediately after this feeble and decidedly abortive attempt to show to those who would not see the error as well as the danger of their ways, that the change of which I have spoken began to be visible in the hitherto cheerful and hospitable patroness of the surgeon's daughters. The season of the year was a dull one; hunting, the time being early autumn, had of course not yet commenced; many country houses were temporarily abandoned by their owners; and in