“To trust him utterly."

Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in every limb.

"You know my story. Did I gain or lose by telling my Claude all?"

"I will!" she cried, looking up pale, but firm. "I will!" and she looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, as if trying to court the reappearance of that ugly vision which haunted it, and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the whole truth.

In little more than a fortnight, Sabina and Marie, with maid and courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old Antwerpen. And Claude was rolling down do Southampton by rail, with Campbell, Scoutbush, and last, but not least, the faithful Bowie; who had under his charge what he described to the puzzled railway-guard as "goads and cleiks, and pirns and creels, and beuks and heuks, enough for a' the cods o' Neufunland."

CHAPTER III.

L'HOMME INCOMPRIS.

ELSLEY went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom Thurnall, a good deal better for the next month. He began to look forward to Valencia's visit with equanimity, and, at last, with interest; and was rather pleased than otherwise when, in the last week of July, a fly drove up to the gate of old Penalva Court, and he handed out therefrom Valencia, and Valencia's maid.

Lucia had discovered that the wind was east, and that she was afraid to go to the gate for fear of catching cold; her real purpose being, that Valencia should meet Elsley first.

"She is so impulsive," thought the good little creature, always plotting about her husband, "that she will rush upon me, and never see him for the first five minutes; and Elsley is so sensitive-how can he be otherwise, in his position, poor dear?" So she refrained herself, like Joseph, and stood at the door till Valencia

was half-way down the garden-walk, having taken Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm; and then she could refrain herself no longer, and the two women ran upon each other, and kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of breath; but Valencia was not so easily silenced.

'My darling! and you are looking so much better than I expected; but not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is killing you, I am sure! And Mr. Vavasour too, I shall begin to call him Elsley to-morrow, if I like him as much as I do now-but he is looking quite thin -wearing himself out with writing so many beautiful books, that Wreck was perfect! And where are the children?—I must rush upstairs and devour them!— and what a delicious old garden! and clipt yews, too, so dark and romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers!-Mr. Vavasour must show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. What a duck of a place! -And oh, my dear, I am quite out of breath!"

And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slacken after a while.

"What a magnificent creature!" said he to himself. "Who could believe that the three years would make such a change!"

And he was right. The tall lithe girl had bloomed into full glory; and Valencia St. Just, though not deli

cately beautiful, was as splendid an Irish damsel as man need look upon, with a grand masque, aquiline features, luxuriant black hair, and-though it was the fag-end of the London season-the unrivalled Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of Kilkenny, whose

"Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same,

Like a dish of fresh strawberries smother'd in crame."

Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also: but its size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet of which Miss Valencia was most pardonably proud, and by that indescribable lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen inherit, perhaps, with their tinge of southern blood; and when, in halfan hour, she reappeared, with broad straw-hat, and gown tucked up à la bergère over the striped Welsh petticoat, perhaps to show off the ancles, which only looked the finer for a pair of heavy laced boots, Elsley honestly felt it a pleasure to look at her, and a still greater pleasure to talk to her, and to be talked to by her; while she, bent on making herself agreeable, partly from real good taste, partly from natural good-nature, and partly, too, because she saw in his eyes that he admired her, chatted sentiment about all heaven and earth.

For to Miss Valencia-it is sad to have to say itadmiration had been now, for three years, her daily bread. She had lived in the thickest whirl of the world, and, as most do for a while, found it a very pleasant place.

She had flirted with how many must not be told;

and perhaps with more than one with whom she had no business to flirt. Little Scoutbush had remonstrated with her on some such affair, but she had silenced him with an Irish jest,-"You're a fisherman, Freddy; and when you can't catch salmon, you catch trout; and when you can't catch trout, you'll whip on the shallow for poor little gubbahawns, and say that it is all to keep your hand in-and so do I."

The old ladies said that this was the reason why she had not married; the men, however, asserted that no one dare marry her; and one club-oracle had given it as his opinion that no man in his rational senses was to be allowed to have anything to do with her, till she had been well jilted two or three times, to take the spirit out of her but that catastrophe had not yet occurred, and Miss Valencia still reigned "triumphant and alone," though her aunt, old Lady Knockdown, moved all the earth, and some dirty places, too, below the earth, to get the wild Irish girl off her hands; "for," quoth she, "I feel with Valencia, indeed, just like one of those men who carry about little dogs in the Quadrant. I always pity the poor men so, and think how happy they must be when they have sold one. It is one less chance, you know, of having it bite them horribly, and then run away after all."

There was, however, no more real harm in Valencia, than there is in every child of Adam. Town frivolity had not corrupted her. She was giddy, given up to