nightgown, and her fierce black eyes flashed at
me.

"Quite the contrary!" she said. " It was
news I was interested in hearing—and I am
deeply indebted to Mr. Bruff for telling me
of it.''

"Yes?" I said, in a tone of gentle interest.

Her fingers went back to the frilling, and
she turned her head sullenly away from me.
I had been met in this manner, in the course of
plying the good work, hundreds of times. She
merely stimulated me to try again. In my
dauntless zeal for her welfare, I ran the great
risk, and openly alluded to her marriage
engagement.

"News you were interested in hearing?" I
repeated. " I suppose, my dear Rachel, that
must be news of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite?"

She started up in the bed, and turned deadly
pale. It was evidently on the tip of her
tongue to retort on me with the unbridled insolence
of former times. She checked herself
—laid her head back on the pillow—considered
a minute—and then answered in these remarkable
words:

"I shall never marry Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite."

It was my turn to start at that.

"What can you possibly mean?" I
exclaimed. " The marriage is considered by the
whole family as a settled thing."

"Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite is expected here to-
day,"  she said, doggedly. " Wait till he comes
—and you will see."

"But my dear Rachel——"

She rang the bell at the head of her bed.
The person with the cap-ribbons appeared.

"Penelope! my bath."

Let me give her her due. In the state of
my feelings, at that moment, I do sincerely believe
that she had hit on the only possible way
of forcing me to leave the room. Her bath, I
admit, was too much for me.

By the mere worldly mind my position towards
Rachel might have been viewed as presenting
difficulties of no ordinary kind. I had
reckoned on leading her to higher things, by
means of a little earnest exhortation on the
subject of her marriage. And now, if she was
to be believed, no such event as her marriage
was to take place at all. But, ah my friends!
a working Christian of my experience (with an
evangelising prospect before her) takes broader
views than these. Supposing Rachel really
broke off the marriage, on which the
Ablewhites, father and son, counted as a settled
thing, what would be the result? It could
only end, if she held firm, in an exchanging of
hard words and bitter accusations on both sides.
And what would be the effect on Rachel, when
the stormy interview was over? A salutary
moral depression would be the effect. Her
pride would be exhausted, her stubbornness
would be exhausted, by the resolute resistance
which it was in her character to make under the
circumstances. She would turn for sympathy
to the nearest person who had sympathy to
offer. And I was that nearest person—brimful
of comfort, charged to overflowing with
seasonable and reviving words. Never had the
evangelising prospect looked brighter, to my
eyes, than it looked now.

She came down to breakfast, but she ate
nothing, and hardly uttered a word.

After breakfast, she wandered listlessly from
room to room—then suddenly roused herself,
and opened the piano. The music she selected
to play was of the most scandalously profane
sort, associated with performances on the
stage which it curdles one's blood to think of.
It would have been premature to interfere with
her at such a time as this. I privately
ascertained the hour at which Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite
was expected, and then I escaped the music by
leaving the house.

Being out alone, I took the opportunity of
calling upon my two resident friends. It was
an indescribable luxury to find myself indulging
in earnest conversation with serious persons.
Infinitely encouraged and refreshed, I turned
my steps back again to the house, in excellent
time to await the arrival of our expected visitor.
I entered the dining-room, always empty at that
hour of the day—and found myself face to face
with Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite!

He made no attempt to fly the place. Quite
the contrary. He advanced to meet me with
the utmost eagerness.

"Dear Miss Clack, I have been only waiting
to see you! Chance set me free of my
London engagements to-day sooner than I had
expected—and I have got here, in consequence,
earlier than my appointed time."

Not the slightest embarrassment encumbered
his explanation, though this was his first meeting
with me after the scene in Montagu Square.
He was not aware, it is true, of my having been
a witness of that scene. But he knew, on the
other hand, that my attendances at the Mothers'-
Small-Clothes, and my relations with friends
attached to other charities, must have informed
me of his shameless neglect of his Ladies and
his Poor. And yet there he was before me, in
full possession of his charming voice and his
irresistible smile!

"Have you seen Rachel yet?" I asked.

He sighed gently, and took me by the hand.
I should certainly have snatched my hand away,
if the manner in which he gave his answer had
not paralysed me with astonishment.

"I have seen Rachel," he said, with perfect
tranquillity. " You are aware, dear friend,
that she was engaged to me? Well, she has
taken a sudden resolution to break the
engagement. Reflection has convinced her that
she will best consult her welfare and mine by
retracting a rash promise, and leaving me free
to make some happier choice elsewhere. That
is the only reason she will give, and the only
answer she will make to every question that I
can ask of her."

"What have you done, on your side?" I
inquired. " Have you submitted?"