nder a heartsickness she had never known or supposed possible.

Presently, through the flowers in her balcony, Cecil saw the opening
and closing of the opposite house-door, and a white parasol
unfurled, and she had only time to finish and address her letter to
Mrs. Duncombe before Lady Tyrrell was announced.

"Here I am after a hard morning's work, winding up accounts, &c."

"You go to-morrow?"

"Yes, trusting that you will soon follow; though you might be a
cockney born, your bloom is town-proof."

"We follow as soon as the division on the Education Question is
over, and that will not be for ten days. You are come to look at my
stores for the bazaar; but first, what are you going to do this
afternoon?"

"What are your plans?"

"I must leave cards at half-a-dozen people's at the other end of the
park. Will you come with me? Where is Lenore?"

"She is gone to take leave of the Strangeways' party; Lady Susan
insisted on having her for this last day. Poor Frank! I confess
impartially that it does not look well for him."

"Poor Frank!" repeated Cecil, "he does look very forlorn when he
hears where she is."

"When, after all, if the silly boy could only see it, it is the most
fortunate thing that could happen to him, and the only chance of
keeping his head above water. I have made Lady Susan promise me two
of her daughters for the bazaar. They thoroughly know how to make
themselves useful. Oh, how pretty!"

For Cecil was producing from the shelves of various pieces of
furniture a large stock of fancy articles--Swiss carvings, Spa toys,
Genevese ornaments, and Japanese curiosities, which, as Lady Tyrrell
said, "rivalled her own accumulation, and would serve to carry off
the housewives and pen-wipers on which all the old maids of
Wil'sbro' were employed."

"We must put out our programmes," Cecil added; "people will not work
in earnest till the day is fixed and they know the sellers."

"Yes, the lady patronesses are most important," said Lady Tyrrell,
writing them down: "Mrs. Raymond Charnock Poynsett; Lady Rosamond,
eh?"

"Oh no, Julius won't hear of it."

"And opposition is sweet: so we lose her romantic name, and the
stall of the three brides. Mrs. Miles Charnock is too much out of
the world to be worth asking. Then myself--Mrs. Duncombe, Mrs.
Fuller, as a matter of necessity, Mrs. Moy."

"Oh!"

"Needful, my dear, to propitiate that set. Also that mayoress, Mrs.
Truelove, isn't she? Six.