rth, watched over me, nursed me when I was ill, and
deprived herself of many a little comfort to push me on. I cannot love
another mother as I love her. She _is_ my mother, and I will always be
her son!' As he spoke he put his manly arm round Milly's neck, and
kissed her with the tenderest affection.

The agony of the poor Marchioness was pitiable. 'You kill me!' she said,
between her shaking sobs. 'Cannot you--love--me--too?'

'No, my lady. If I must say it, you were ashamed of my poor father, who
was a sincere and honest man; therefore, I am ashamed of you.'

Nothing would move him; and the suffering woman at last gasped,
'Cannot--oh, cannot you give one kiss to me--as you did to her? It is
not much--it is all I ask--all!'

'Certainly,' he replied.

He kissed her coldly, and the painful scene came to an end. That day was
the beginning of death to the unfortunate Marchioness of Stonehenge. It
was in the perverseness of her human heart that his denial of her should
add fuel to the fire of her craving for his love. How long afterwards
she lived I do not know with any exactness, but it was no great length of
time. That anguish that is sharper than a serpent's tooth wore her out
soon. Utterly reckless of the world, its ways, and its opinions, she
allowed her story to become known; and when the welcome end supervened
(which, I grieve to say, she refused to lighten by the consolations of
religion), a broken heart was the truest phrase in which to sum up its
cause.

* * * * *

The rural dean having concluded, some observations upon his tale were
made in due course. The sentimental member said that Lady Caroline's
history afforded a sad instance of how an honest human affection will
become shamefaced and mean under the frost of class-division and social
prejudices. She probably deserved some pity; though her offspring,
before he grew up to man's estate, had deserved more. There was no
pathos like the pathos of childhood, when a child found itself in a world
where it was not wanted, and could not understand the reason why. A tale
by the speaker, further illustrating the same subject, though with
different results from the last, naturally followed.

DAME THE FOURTH--LADY MOTTISFONT
By the Sentimental Member

Of all the romantic towns in Wessex, Wintoncester is probably the most
convenient for meditative people to live in; since there you have a
cathedral with a nave so long that it affords spac