ALL THE

CROSS CURRENTS.

BY MARY ANGELA DICKENS. Author of "A Mist of Error,' ‚” “Her Inheritance," "A Social Success," "Kitty's Victim," elc., etc.

CHAPTER XIX.

Ir was early in the afternoon of the following day, and Helen was hovering about in her drawing-room, glancing impatiently and incessantly at the clock. She had been obliged to go out early that morning without seeing her sister. Humphrey had told her, after Selma had gone to bed the night before, of his brother's engagement. She had seen that there was a letter in Mervyn's writing for Selma that morning, and she had hardly been able to restrain her impatience, when, on her return home, she had received a message to the effect that "Miss Selma said she was at work, and would be down about three o'clock."

"I do wish she would come," thought Helen again, as she looked at the clock for the ninth time in the course of half an hour. "It is past three." And, as she glanced towards it, the door opened and Selma came in dressed for walking.

"Here you are at last!" cried Helen. "Oh, are you going out?" she added, disappointedly.

"I'm going to dine with the Tyrrells," returned Selma. "Miss Tyrrell asked me to go early."

Her voice was perhaps a shade thinner than usual, but perfectly soft and composed. Her face was shaded by her hat; but there was a colour in her cheeks, and her eyes were very bright.

"You-you had a letter this morning,

PRICE TWOPENCE.

didn't you?" said Helen, and then she went suddenly round to Selma and took her tenderly into her arms, "Oh, my dear, I am so glad!" she cried.

"I am glad, too, dear; very glad indeed."

"I know," returned Helen. "That's why I'm so delighted. Of course it's nice that Mervyn and Roger should be happy; but it's you I'm thinking of. Oh, I have so wanted you to know that it was coming. Did you see when they were here the other day? Of course you must have seen though. Oh, Selma, I can't tell you what a relief this is to me for you, my poor dear! You can't reproach yourself any more when you know that he is happy. This will make all that trouble, dear, as if it had never been, almost, won't it?"

"Almost, Helen. Yes."

It was very significant of the gulf which lay between the Selma of two years ago and the Selma of to-day, that it seemed quite natural to Helen that her sister's words should be few, and her manner quiet, pleased as she believed her to be. Selma was very seldom either demonstrative or impulsive now; never, indeed, except about something which touched her keen artistic sympathies; but the change had settled upon her so gradually that Helen had almost forgotten that she had ever been different.

"It's funny that it should be Mervyn, isn't it?" continued Helen, with an amused laugh. "I rather thought Mervyn would never marry, dear little thing. Sylvia says - Helen had been with Sylvia that morning-" Sylvia says that they are so funny. They both declare that it is because they both think there is no one in the world like you! You've quite made the match, Selma ! I con

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gratulate you, darling!" kissed her sister again.

And Helen

"Nobody hopes more heartily than I do that it will be a very happy one," answered Selma, moving as her sister released her, and walking up to the window, putting on her gloves.

"Oh, must you go?" said Helen as she saw what she was doing. "We haven't half talked it over yet, and I've been longing so to tell you all about it."

"I'm afraid I must," returned Selma. "I've written to Mervyn, of course, but give her my dear love if you see her before I do. Good-bye for the present, dear."

It was a long drive from Humphrey Cornish's house to the Tyrrells'; but the half-hour that had passed was not long enough to account for the change which had taken place in Selma by the time she stood in Miss Tyrrell's drawing-room. Her face looked, as though some strain on the muscles had been entirely relaxed, haggard, exhausted, almost stupid; her eyes were hollow and dull, and there was no colour even in her lips. There was no one in the room, and, as she realised the fact, she sank into a chair as though her one desire was for absolute inaction, mental and physical. She had no idea how long she waited, she vaguely wondered whether she had been asleep, when Miss Tyrrell eventually came to her with profuse regrets for having kept her waiting alone, and explanations of her apparent neglect.

"Now, dearest girl, let us make ourselves very comfortable," she said, at last, "and let us have a nice little chat. I am going to be very serious, indeed."

She spoke in her most winning and irresistible tone, and Selma, taking the chair she indicated, responded with a vague smile.

"But first of all, dear girl," continued Miss Tyrrell,"before I begin to scold, I must tell you how utterly charmed and touched I was at the last matinée! I was with Lady Drummond, Selma, and I assure you she was in ecstasies. It was admirably artistic."

Miss Tyrrell paused; but, rather to her surprise, there was a perceptible interval before Selma said, "I am glad."

She spoke strangely, more as if she were searching under some heavy oppression for the words which she vaguely felt she ought to say, than because she cared at all, and Miss Tyrrell glanced at her sharply.

"Good gracious, child," she exclaimed most inartistically, but thoroughly naturally, "do you know that you look quite plain ?"

Selma did not answer-apparently she was entirely indifferent on the subject—and, after a horrified pause, Miss Tyrrell recovered herself and her manner, and rearranging herself in a new attitude, she began, in a deliberate and solemn voice:

Selma, the time has come when I feel it my duty to you as an artist to speak to you most seriously. I had intended doing so in any case, but the sadly palpable proofs in your face of the truth of what I am going to say makes me even more anxious than I was already." Miss Tyrrell paused, and looked gracefully for her pocket-handkerchief that her next words might be the more impressive. "I have known for some time," she continued, with the air of a seer, "I have said it to myself, I have said it to John, I have said it to every one: 'That dear girl is overworking herself; she will lose her beauty, she will spoil her career if something is not done! Miss Tyrrell paused again, and this time Selma said, languidly:

"I am not overworked, thank you."

"You must absolutely give yourself a rest," pursued Miss Tyrrell; "you must have a little change; you must go about and see people. Dear girl, I think you cannot know how greatly you have wounded me by refusing to come and give me your help at our little at home' on the second. How that party weighs upon my mind," said Miss Tyrrell, in a plaintive parenthesis, "tongue cannot tell. But it is not for my sake, Selma, but for your own that I am most deeply anxious that you should be here."

Selma put her hand wearily to her head.

"You are so kind, dear Miss Tyrrell," she said, and her voice was dull and toneless, "you are most kind; but please don't ask me."

"I do ask you," returned Miss Tyrrell, suavely. "It is your duty to yourself as an artist that is involved; your duty to your art itself. It is infinitely painful to me to see you throwing yourself away, dear girl. Will you not relieve me by promising to give yourself at least this one holiday? Come to me, dearest girl, come to me on the second."

With a sudden movement, as though she were hardly conscious of anything but physical pain, Selma rose to her feet.