her pretty little face, "is her old uncle's only
comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me, and never come
back to this great dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by Tom
Newcome; and I'm too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let it
lie. Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a month
after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her away from
me; and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle James, hasn't
she?"

"No, never, uncle," said Rosey.

"We don't want to fall in love, do we, child? We don't want to be
breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at
balls night after night, and capering about in the Park to see if we can
get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, Rosey?"

Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of
Clive's love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the
carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why Mrs. Mackenzie and
Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over.

"This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side of
Styx," continued Uncle James; "and if she could but be left alone and
to do it without mamma--there, I won't say a word more against her--we
should get on none the worse."

"Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey," said Clive,
good-humouredly. And Rosey said, "Oh, thank you, Clive," and held out
that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy, that
Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and
candour.

"Quasty peecoly Rosiny," says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, "e la piu
bella, la piu cara, ragazza ma la mawdry e il diav----"

"Don't, uncle!" cried Rosey, again; and Clive laughed at Uncle James's
wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue.

"Eh! I thought ye didn't know a word of the sweet language, Rosey!
It's just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that I thought to try
in compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world." And by this
time Saint John's Wood was reached, and Mr. Sherrick's handsome villa,
at the door of which the three beheld the Rev. Charles Honeyman stepping
out of a neat brougham.

The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she
was in the theatrical line; Smee's portrait of her, which was never half
handsome enough--for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly; the print of
her in Artaxerxes, with her signature as Elizabeth Fol