on the other's shoulder, and hid his face.

"Bear up, my poor fellow. You see that, at all events, nothing has
happened up to this. Here are the girls coming. Let them not see you in
such emotion."

"Come away, then; come away. I can't meet them now; or do you go and
tell Nelly what this news is--she has seen the messenger, I 'm sure."

L'Estrange met Nelly and Julia in the walk, while Augustus hastened
away in another direction. "There has been no verdict. Sedley sends
his message from the court-house this morning, and says the jury cannot
agree, and there will be another trial."

"Is that bad or good news?" asked Nelly, eagerly.

"I'd say good," replied he; "at least, when I compare it with your
brother's desponding tone this morning. I never saw him so low."

"Oh, he is almost always so of late. The coming here and the pleasure of
meeting you rallied him for a moment, but I foresaw his depression would
return. I believe it is the uncertainty, the never-ceasing terror of
what next, is breaking him down; and if the blow fell at once, you would
see him behave courageously and nobly."

"He ought to get away from this as soon as possible," said L'Estrange.
"He met several acquaintances yesterday in Rome, and they teased him
to come to them, and worried him to tell where he was stopping. In his
present humor he could not go into society, but he is ashamed to his own
heart to admit it."

"Then why don't we go at once?" cried Julia.

"There's nothing to detain us here," said L'Estrange, sorrowfully.

"Unless you mean to wait for my marriage," said Julia, laughing,
"though, possibly, Sir Marcus may not give me another chance."

"Oh, Julia!"

"'Oh, Julia!' Well, dearest, I do say shocking things, there 's no doubt
of it; but when I 've said them, I feel the subject off my conscience,
and revert to it no more."

"At all events," said L'Estrange, after a moment of thought, "let us
behave when we meet him as though this news was not bad. I know he will
try to read in our faces what we think of it, and on every account it is
better not to let him sink into depression."

The day passed over in that discomfort which a false position so
inevitably imposes. The apparent calm was a torture, and the efforts at
gayety were but moments of actual pain. The sense of something impending
was so poignant that at every stir--the opening of a door or the sound
of a bell--there came over each a look of anxiety the most intense and