"Let me tell you all," she resumed, | met. It is true I did not love you, but I gathering some courage, now the ice was thought it would come with the future. broken, as nervously sensitive people will I had taken up a wrong view of your fredo. "I found I did not love you; that quent visits to us-you see I am telling it would be wrong to myself, and doubly, you all-and that, probably, kept me doubly wrong to you, if I fulfilled my en- from caring for you in a different way; gagement and married you, and I lay which perhaps I might otherwise have awake all night, thinking what ought to done." be my course. I did not dare tell papa; he is very severe, he would not listen to me; and I-decided to-tell you; to ask you to give me up. It is what I am now trying to ask you to do." She sat now with her hands clasped before her, a sort of helpless look upon them, and her eyes were not raised. "I knew how good you were, how considerate, how honorable, and it gave me courage to speak to yourself, to tell you my unfortunate position, and to ask you to be generous, and let the refusal to carry out the marriage come from you. Oh! Sir Everard," she added, bursting into tears, "I do like and esteem you very much; and it nearly breaks my heart to be saying this." 66 You must forgive me, if I repeat that I do not understand you," he gently said, "and your last words less than all. You 'like and esteem me,' but you do not love. I am quite content to take the esteem and the liking, Mary; to trust that the love will follow." "It never will," she almost vehemently answered, lifting her eyes to his for a moment in her earnestness. แ "It can not." Another pause; her face was bent again, and she had turned crimson to the roots of her hair. A light dawned upon Sir Everard. "You love another!" "Oh! do forgive me," she whispered. "It was not willingly done; it seems to have come on without my having been aware of it. He did not know it, either -till last night when you came." "What wrong view had you taken up?" inquired Sir Everard, in surprise. She hesitated for a moment and then spoke in a low tone. "I fancied you came for the sake of Gertrude Baumgarten." "Gertrude Baumgarten!" he uttered. "Gertrude would not have cared for me." "Gertrude would-as I truly believe now." "Nonsense, Mary! Gertrude Baumgarten was wrapped up in that Italian prince who had more money than brains." Mary shook her head. "He asked her to be his wife and she refused. After it was all over-I mean that I had accepted you, and we were away, and on our road home again, an idea came over me that it was you Gertrude had really cared for. I was not sure, and I judged it better to bury the train of thought; but this I know, Gertrude has never been quite the same girl since. I suppose I ought not to tell you this: I think I am forgetting myself in more ways than one." "We have certainly no right thus to speculate upon Miss Baumgarten's likes or dislikes," he rejoined, "and it has nothing to do with the matter in hand. Do you know that this communication of yours is placing me in a very painful position ?" "I can only throw myself on your gen. erosity; plead for your forgiveness." 66 Putting out of the question what may be my private feelings, you place me in a most embarrassing and painful position with regard to the dean. He exsuspects that I have come home to marry his daughter; I expect it; the world expects it: and what can be my excuse for refusing? Can I go to him, hat in hand, and say: 'Sir, I am tired of your daughter: I do not intend to marry her?" " "You have betrayed yourself; I pect unwittingly. You speak of Mr. Baumgarten!" She had indeed betrayed herself, and certainly not intentionally. It did not tend to reassure her. "Why did you accept me?" asked Sir Everard. "Why indeed!" she murmured. "But I did not know that I was doing wrong. I liked you very much, I admired and respected you; you were so different, so superior to the frivolous men we mostly She caught up the silk flounce of her evening dress, and rolled it about in thought. "How can it be managed? What can be done? Oh! Sir Everard, can you think of no plan? you are so much wiser than I." "You seem to assume confidently that I must consent to the breaking up of my cherished plans; to the resigning summarily my promised wife." She looked very much distressed. "What can I do? Can I marry you, liking some one else ?” Having promised to be mine, was it right that you should cultivate so much the society of Mr. Baumgarten ?" "You do not understand," she interrupted. "It was not right: but you do not quite understand. We have always been very intimate with the Baumgartens, both at Denham and in town; my youngest sister was named after Lady Grace, and Charles has come here, just as our own brothers have done. So that the being frequently with him I could not help; and I never supposed, till it was too late, that there could be any danger, that it could by possibility bring injury towards you." "You wish me to understand that you and Mr. Baumgarten are irrevocably attached to each other?" There was a danger of the flounce being pulled into slits, and Sir Everard scarcely caught the answer. "It is so." "Then will it not be better to tell the simple truth to Dr. Dynevor? I do not suggest this to avert unpleasantness to myself, but دو "It is the very thing that must not be done," she interrupted. "Mr. Baumgarten is too poor to ask for me yet, and papa would go wild at the bare idea. He thinks, of course, that it is most desirable I should be-be-Lady Wilmot, and I dare not tell him I object. I thought if you could do it-as if the objection came from you-you would not be so afraid of him, for he could not be harsh and peremptory with you, as he would be with me. I know it is a great boon to ask of you," she added, her eyes filling again, "but-if you knew how unhappy, how perplexed I am-perhaps you would not refuse to help me." "You forget one thing," he returned, in a low tone, "that the odium of being refused had far better fall upon me than upon you. The world is not generous in these matters, but I can fight it better than you can." "I forget all things," she answered, "but the bare fact before me-that I must not marry you, and dare not give my family the true cause. The world can but say that you repented of your engagement to me. Let it." Sir Everard was silent. He knew that the world's being enabled to say it would not prove so pleasant as she thought. "I must have time to digest this," he said, rising, "and will see you again to-morrow morning." She rose also, and stood before him like a culprit. Sir Everard took her hand to say farewell. "I hope you will forgive me. I hope you did not like me very much," she whis pered, raising her repentant eyes to his. Her words and manner almost amused him, though he could not but admire, in the midst, they were so truthful and childlike. "I do like you very much," he answered, with a smile; "too much to part from you without a bittter pang of regret and mortification." "But you will overget it," she eagerly said, "very soon, I hope." "It will be the second case of the like nature I have had to overget," he returned, possibly surprised out of the confession, possibly making it with deliberate intention. "I was going to be married in my early youth. Or what seems early youth to me now: I was five-and-twenty." "And she refused you?" whispered Mary. "No: she died. All the love I had to give died with her, and I had but liking left for you. I had none, even of that, for a long while, for years and years after she died. 'Wilmot never means to marry,' people used to say: 'he must have taken a vow of hatred against women.' They little thought he had once loved one too inuch. Do not be ungenerous, and fancy I retort this confession upon you in requital for the one you have given me; it was always my intention to tell it you before we married; more fully than I have now done." Mary Dynevor's face was turned up, her lips were parted with eagerness. "Then if I understand you rightly-you have not really loved me ?" "In the imaginative sense of the word -no. Only-I quote your favorite words liked you very much. But my wife should never have felt the want of that idealic love." She looked almost beside herself with joy. A rosy blush flushed into her cheeks, a light to her eyes, and she positively laid hold of both Sir Everard's hands, and clasped them in her own. "I am so thankful!" she burst forth; "I am so happy! If you do not love me, why there's no | "Perhaps after a little while." "Yes, after a little while. As soon as you can; as soon as you can forget my ingratitude and ill-behavior. I know I have behaved ill, and I do beg your pardon. I am very happy; I shall say to myself this night when I lie awake: It is not all over and done with: we shall be friends at last.'" He fully understood what she meant to imply, though it was not expressed in the most lucid manner. Like a candid child, she had spoken out her mind without reserve, and Sir Everard went away, regretting that this truth and candor could not be his. ence he went straight to that of Dr. Dynevor, and the latter learnt that "differences had taken place between himself and Miss Mary Dynevor, and they had mutually agreed to part." Never, perhaps, was a dean so astounded, never did one feel more outraged, and -if we may venture to say it of a divine -never was one in a greater passion. It was passably controlled before Sir Everard. "What was the cause ?" he demanded. "The precise cause, he and Miss Mary Dynevor had agreed to keep to themselves," was the answer of the baronet. "It was sufficient to say that they were both fully convinced a union between them would not conduce to happiness, and they had come to the conclusion not to carry it out." Sir Everard said as little as he could, and left, and then up rose the fiery Dynevor wrath. It was let loose on the family in conclave, Miss Dynevor, Regina, Mary, and Grace. What the dean said in his passion is of no consequence, and if he might have been fined (had he been before a magistrate) a few small sums of five shillings each, we won't transcribe the fact, out of respect to the feelings of any other dean who may chance to read this. Miss Dynevor and two of her nieces were simply confounded, not so much at the ebullition of anger as at its cause; Mary could only shiver in silence, and in wardly pray that it might pass over. That he was grieved and annoyed by the revelation made to him could not be doubted, but it certainly made no deep wound. When a man or a woman has gone through the phases of the passion called love, and survived it, deep wounds are over. A strangely bright dream while it lasts-sweet, pure, heavenly; far too much so for this earth, to all else of which it stands in contrast. Few men-or women either-are organized to experience it; their love is not this love; and let them jump for joy that it is not. It had done its work on Everard Wilmot, and had gone-quite completely gone, scarcely leaving its remembrance; but it had taken with it the inward springs of imaginative existence-poetry, ideality, passion, all that stands in contradistinction to hard reality. Henceforth he could make the best of this matter-of-fact, work-a-day world, and strive on for the next; but he knew that there was no more life for his heart, no more thrill, no more hope, no more satisfying happiness. No, no; deep wounds were over for Sir Everard. "Re-swered, hanging her head. ly on it, the song had left the bird." "I will know the truth," foamed the dean. "Why do you part ?" "Differences," gasped Mary, who had taken her cue from Sir Everard. We "Differences be-be-forgotten!" stammered the dean. "What differences?" Nothing that I can particularly explain," faintly returned Mary. found that a marriage between us would not be productive of happiness, and we parted." "Won't you speak out ?" cried the dean, stamping his clerical shoe. "That is all I have to speak," she an "I am to understand, then, that Sir Everard Wilmot declines to carry out the engagement ?" Yes." She had slightly hesitated at the answer, but it appeared to her that she must give it, wanting any other. Very well," cried the dean. Therefore, though he was vexed, though he regretted her, her seceding from him left no unhealing wound, and he was able calmly to consider what had best be done, what sort of communication might be made to the formidable dean. He saw Mary the following day after breakfast, and from her pres-in He said no more: he quitted the room a state of concentrated wrath unpleas ant to witness, and went and bolted him- | did not listen to her; he never listened self into his own study, which was the to any body who opposed him, and he bebest thing he could do. Miss Dynevor lieved that his sister had now been sendangrily, Regina and Grace eagerly, pour- ing Mary to him with an assertion that ed question after question upon the unhappy Mary, but they did not succeed in getting from her any more than the dean had done. "It is a clear case of jilting," said Miss Dynevor, "and if the days of duelling were not over, it would do Sir Everard good if one of your brothers would go out with him and shoot him. Dishonorable craven!" Mary's cheek burnt: the "jilting" had been on her side, not his; and it was real pain to hear this epithet applied to the generous and upright Sir Everard. Miss Dynevor's words, however, could do neither harm nor good; but unfortunately the dean had adopted precisely similar sentiments. Not as to the duelling, but as to the conduct of Sir Everard. It did not occur to him to surmise that a young lady who had waited hopefully (as he concluded) for the return of her bridegroom to claim her, would be likely to refuse him as soon as he appeared, there fore he laid it all down to the score of Sir Everard. A few days, and then thing like a thunder-clap burst forth on Mary. The dean had entered an action against Sir Everard for Breach of Promise. some The Very Reverend the Dean of Denham entered an action against any body for Breach of Promise? He had. Hot, hasty, and indignant, Dr. Dynevor had obeyed his temper as a man, forgetting that he was a clergyman and a gentleman. It was all over now, the possibility of concealment, and Mary dragged herself, in fear and sickness, to his presence. "Is it true that you have done it ?" she gasped, and the dean was at no loss to understand her meaning. "It is true. He shall be held up, a world's spectacle." "Oh! papa, you must undo it, you must undo it! Do not lose a moment. It was not Sir Everard who broke it off: it was I." The dean felt rather savage. He had already had a pitched battle with Miss Dynevor upon this very point, his tongue against hers. Miss Dynevor was decidedly against the action, and told the dean it would be derogatory to his daughter, and disgraceful to himself. Of course the dean was not true. "You may go back to your aunt," said he, "and tell her to mind her own business; and I'll mind mine." "I did not come from my aunt, papa. Regina dropped a word of what she heard you were doing, and I came to you of my own accord. I came to tell you the truth: it might have been better to tell you at first, as Sir Everard wished." The dean stared at her through his great ugly tortoise-shell spectacles, for he had been reading when she interrupted him. "What do you mean about the truth?" he sternly asked. “What is the truth ?" She laid her arms upon the back of a chair and seemed to lean her weight upon it; the dean saw that she was shaking. "The truth is, that I refused Sir Everard; so if an action might be brought on either side it would be on his. He came home to marry me, but I-I-could not: and he was so kind as to let it appear to you that it was as much his fault as mine." "You broke it off? Of your own accord ?" "Yes," she answered. The dean paused to collect his senses; perhaps his temper. "Your reason, young lady ?" "Oh, papa, I can not tell you," she uttered, bursting into tears. "Your reason ?" he repeated. "You do not stir from my presence till you have told me." She was terrified at his tone, terrified at what the future might have in store, terrified altogether. Better let him know the truth and get it over, a voice seemed to whisper to her. "Papa," she breathed bending her face down upon the chair, "I-I-liked some one else better than Sir Everard." "You liked- 99 The dean stopped: indignation and astonishment overmastered him. "Who ?" She did not answer. What he could see of her face looked as red as his own sometimes did. "Who, I ask?" he repeated; and shrink and shiver as she would, there was no evading that resolute question. "Charles Baumgarten." 1860.] II. MARY DYNEVOR. MARY DYNEVOR was not dying, nobody said that; but every body did say that she was wasting away. The dean, stern, testy, implacable, would not see it; Miss Dynevor had begun to speak of it in a cross, complaining way, and Regina and Grace grieved. Mary mostly lay upon the sofa, for she was getting too weak to sit up throughout the day. Smarting under the displeasure of her father; obliged to submit to the querulous ill-temper of her aunt, who rarely ceased her grumblings at the breaking off the desirable marriage; suffering, in a less degree, from the half covert reproaches of her sisters, who felt it as a grievance upon them, Mary had not been able to bear up against it, and her health gave way. Her aunt grew a shade kinder then; that is, instead of reproaching Mary blindness," she for her "folly" and her " reproached her for not showing more spirit, for not being more careful of her health; Regina and Grace forgot their displeasure, and ceased hinting how pleas ant it would have been for them had she been Lady Wilmot; but the dean himself remained unchanged. Five months now, and she had never seen Charles Baumgarten. The dean's doors were haughtily closed against him. See how we estimate things by comparison! But for the grand vista opened to Mary of becoming the wife of Sir Everard, it might not have occurred to the dean to deny her to Charles. It would not have occurred to him. The nephew of the Earl of Avon, well connected, sure to meet with support, clever and steady, Charles Baumgarten would have been welcomed for any one of the portionless daughters of Dr. Dynevor; they might have had to wait and struggle a little at first, but it would be all right in the end, and the dean would have married them himself with pleasure. But under the actual circumstances-Mary's having refused a splendid match that she might have him of course Charles Baumgarten was nothing less than a bête noire in the eyes of the Dynevors, very noire indeed to the dean. "It's of no use, ma'am, my coming here day after day to see the patient," somewhat testily exclaimed Dr. Lamb, the family physician, to Miss Dynevor. "The disorder is on the mind: if that can't be set at rest, I can do no good." "And what then?" asked Miss Dynevor. "If nothing can be done for her mind, what then?" Why, you take away the chance of her getting better, and if she does not get better she must get worse, and then she'll die. It's not my province to pry into family secrets, but it does seem strange that a girl of her age should have any wasting care that can't be soothed." Miss Dynevor, after this, had a serious She laid aside her crosstalk with Mary. ness for the occasion, and pointed out to her, kindly and rationally, that it was her duty to rouse herself and forget Charles Baumgarten. With the effort to do it, the forgetfulness would come, and with Mary burst into forgetfulness health. tears, and sobbed so long and vehemently that Miss Dynevor was startled, but her reply was, that she would try to forget him, provided she might be allowed one interview with him, to explain to him that they must finally part. Miss Dynevor carried the whole tale to the dean: the physician's opinion, their grave fears for Mary's health, and what she had promised to do provided she might first see Charles Baumgarten. "Let her see him, and have done with it, then," was the response of the dean. Mind, aunt, I must see him alone," she panted, with a strangely heightened color, when the news was taken to her. "You need not fear that any body will covet to be present; they are not so fond of him," was the retort of Miss Dynevor. 66 Alone she did see him. Charles received the note, went at the appointed time, and was introduced to where she was sitting. He was shocked to observe the change. He thought she must be dying. No," she said to him, after they had spoken for some time, "I am not dying. They think, at least they say, that when once my mind is at rest, when we have parted for good, suspense exchanged for certain misery, that I shall begin to get well again. It may be so." 66 Mary, they have no right to part us.” "It must be so it is to be. I can not my father." act in defiance of "And you can part from me without an effort ?" "Without an effort ?" she repeated. "Look at me, Charles, and then see what it has cost me." He repented of his hasty words, and |