ous evening to his friend.
Lady Ongar, I think, partly guessed the object of his visit. She had
perceived, or perhaps had unconsciously felt, on the occasion of his
former coming, that the visit had not been made simply from motives of
civility. She had known Archie in old days, and was aware that the
splendor of his vestments had a significance. Well, if anything of that
kind was to be done, the sooner it was done the better.

"Julia," he said, as soon as he was seated, "I hope I have the pleasure
of seeing you quite well?"

"Pretty well, I thank you," said she.

"You have been out of town, I think?" She told him that she had been in
the Isle of Wight for a day or two, and then there was a short silence.
"When I heard that you were gone," he said, "I feared that perhaps you
were ill!"

"O dear, no; nothing of that sort."

"I am so glad," said Archie; and then he was silent again. He had,
however, as he was aware, thrown a great deal of expression into his
inquiries after her health, and he had, now to calculate how he could
best use the standing-ground that he had made for himself.

"Have you seen my sister lately?" she asked.

"Your sister? no. She is always at Clavering. I think it doosed wrong of
Hugh, the way he goes on, keeping her down there, while he is up here in
London. It isn't at all my idea of what a husband ought to do."

"I suppose she likes it," said Lady Ongar.

"Oh, if she likes it, that's a different thing, of course," said Archie.
Then there was another pause.

"Don't you find yourself rather lonely here sometimes?" he asked.

Lady Ongar felt that it would be better for all parties that it should
be over, and that it would not be over soon unless she could help him.
"Very lonely indeed," she said; "but then I suppose that it is the fate
of widows to be lonely."

"I don't see that at all," said Archie, briskly; "--unless they are old
and ugly, and that kind of thing. When a widow has become a widow after
she has been married ever so many years, why then I suppose she looks to
be left alone; and I suppose they like it."

"Indeed, I can't say. I don't like it."

"Then you would wish to change?"

"It is a very intricate subject, Captain Clavering, and one which I do
not think I am quite disposed to discuss at present. After a year or
two, perhaps I shall go into society again. Most widows do, I believe."

"But I was thinking of something else," said Archie, working himself up
to the p