unities of the other--which was
especially attractive to this man, who, at three-and-thirty, found life
a weariness and a burthen--at least, he said so.

Life was never either weary or burthensome in our house--not even
to-night, though our friend found us less lively than usual--though
John maintained more than his usual silence, and Mrs. Halifax fell into
troubled reveries. Guy and Edwin, both considerably excited, argued
and contradicted one another more warmly than even the Beechwood
liberty of speech allowed. For Miss Silver, she did not appear again.

Lord Ravenel seemed to take these slight desagremens very calmly. He
stayed his customary time, smiling languidly as ever at the boys'
controversies, or listening with a half-pleased, half-melancholy
laziness to Maud's gay prattle, his eye following her about the room
with the privileged tenderness that twenty years' seniority allows a
man to feel and show towards a child. At his wonted hour he rode away,
sighingly contrasting pleasant Beechwood with dreary and solitary
Luxmore.

After his departure we did not again close round the fire. Maud
vanished; the younger boys also; Guy settled himself on his sofa,
having first taken the pains to limp across the room and fetch the
Flora, which Edwin had carefully stowed away in the book-case. Then
making himself comfortable, as the pleasure-loving lad liked well
enough to do, he lay dreamily gazing at the title-page, where was
written her name, and "From Guy Halifax, with--"

"What are you going to add, my son?"

He, glancing up at his mother, made her no answer, and hastily closed
the book.

She looked hurt; but, saying nothing more, began moving about the room,
putting things in order before retiring. John sat in the
arm-chair--meditative. She asked him what he was thinking about?

"About that man, Jacques D'Argent."

"You have heard of him, then?"

"Few had not, twenty years ago. He was one of the most 'blatant
beasts' of the Reign of Terror. A fellow without honesty, conscience,
or even common decency."

"And that man's daughter we have had in our house, teaching our
innocent child!"

Alarm and disgust were written on every feature of the mother's face.
It was scarcely surprising. Now that the ferment which had convulsed
society in our younger days was settling down,--though still we were
far from that ultimate calm which enables posterity to judge fully and
fairly such a remarkable historical c