etary, has been going rapidly from bad to worse, of late. His
intemperate habits are growing on him, and now seldom comes the day when
he is not discovered to be unfit for duty of any kind.

Naturally such conduct incenses Sir Christopher to the last degree. The
old man has been for years in his service, but time wears out all
things, and even regard and use can be forgotten. Fabian, falling into
the breach, seeks to mend it, although Slyme has never been a favorite
of his, and although he is fully aware that he is very distasteful to
the secretary for reasons unknown; still he pleads his cause,
principally because the man is old and friendless; and this, too, he
does secretly, the secretary being ignorant of the force brought to bear
upon his delinquencies, a force that keeps a roof over his head, and
leaves him a competence without which the world would be a barren spot
to him indeed, with only the poor-house--that most degrading of all
places--to which to turn.

To-day is melancholy, cold and bleak. The winds are sighing; the earth
is bare and naked; no vestige of a fresh and coming life can yet be
seen. Upon the gray sands, far away, the white waves dash themselves
tumultuously, the sea birds shriek, and, "blasting keen and loud, roll
the white surges to the sounding shore."

Indoors there is warmth and comfort. Julia, sitting over the fire,
finding she cannot get Dulce to gossip with--Dulce, indeed, is not
come-at-able of late--turns gratefully to Portia, who happens to come
into the room at this moment.

"The fire is the only delicious thing in the house," she says,
fretfully. "_Do_ come here and enjoy it with me."

"Anything the matter with you?" asks Portia, gently, seating herself on
a low lounging chair at her side.

"Oh! nothing, nothing. But Dulce is very strange of late, is she not?
Ever since Roger's going, don't you think? And all that affair was quite
absurd, according to my lights. Stephen won't suit her half as well.
Fancy any woman throwing over the man she likes, for a mere chimera.
Wrecking her entire happiness for the sake of a chocolate cream!"

"It sounds absurd," says Portia; "but I cannot believe such a paltry
thing as that has separated them. There must have been something else."

"Well, perhaps so. Sir Christopher, one can see, is very distressed
about it. He is unfortunate about them all, is he not? poor old man.
Fabian's affair was so wretched, so unlooked for, too," says Julia, in