WELL, of course there was a way which was

not only conceivable, but so obvious that Gilbert was sure she could not be thinking of it. Nevertheless, his heart beat faster, and he was conscious of a constrained ring in his voice as he answered, laughingly: "I think I ought to be contented with one or the other. We can't expect to get everything that we want in this disappointing world."

"But we can try," she rejoined. "I imagined that you were one of those people who always try to get what they want-and generally succeed."

Again he could make nothing either of her expression or of her intonation. Both appeared to be quite serious; and yet he was too shrewd and too skeptical to accept the flattering inference suggested. The hypothesis that she could be deliberately throwing herself at the head of humble country squire was only admissible upon the assumption that she had fallen in love with that fortunate squire; and if such were the caseBut Gilbert could not trust himself to dwell upon these perilous speculations.

"Oh, I assure you that I am by no means successful-" he began, hastily, for he had to say something, and how to end his sentence he knew not.

However, he was relieved from embarrassment on that score, for before he had got any farther the door was thrown open, and Mr. Segrave was announced.

"Another Mr. Segrave!" exclaimed Beatrice, rising. "Honors are falling upon me thick and fast this afternoon."

Brian strode into the room in time to catch her words, which brought him to an abrupt standstill. But it was only for a moment that he paused. Awkward encounters are seldom awkward in outward appearance, and this one had been anticipated on both sides, although it had now come about with unexpected suddenness. Brian, after shaking hands with Miss Huntley, said, quite quietly, "How are you, Gilbert ?" and Gilbert said, "Well, Brian ?" after which they all three sat down and began to talk commonplaces as fast as they could.

For five minutes or so this was well enough, and in truth each of these admirably behaved brothers, being sincerely desirous of avoiding unpleasantness, would have been content to go on in the same strain until one or other of them saw a fit opportunity for retiring; but they had to deal with a lady who did not love the commonplace, and to whom so matter-of-course a treatinent of the situation may have seemed somewhat tame.

So after a time she addressed the elder, and, "When you came in," said she, "your brother and I were in full wrangle over the property which is mine now and was yours the other day. I have got it, and I am not going to give it up; but wasn't it a little bit cruel of you to sell it to me when you knew how badly he wanted it ?"

Brian flushed slightly, but answered without hesitating: "I wished the house to go, if possible, to somebody who would live in it."

"And how can you tell that I shall live in it ?"

"I suppose you yourself can't tell," he replied, thinking of what Stapleford had said; "but there is the chance; and if I had sold it to-to anybody else, there would have been no chance at all." He added, in a somewhat lower voice, "I was very sorry to give up the old place; but it was necessary.'

She chanced at this moment to meet his eyes, which were fixed wistfully upon her, and a swift change and softening came into her own. This, however, vanished immediately, and she turned to Gilbert, who was steadfastly contemplating the inside of his hat.

"When are you coming to be introduced to my people?" she asked. "You will find my brother full of political information and courtesy toward political opponents; and it wouldn't at all surprise me if Clementina were to amuse you. Some people are amused by her, I believe. Couldn't you come and dine with us quietly some evening?" She glanced at a list of engagements. "Would next Saturday at half past eight suit ?" she inquired. "I see I have got two dinners down for that day, and as I can't go to both, I may as well go to neither."

you

Gilbert at once accepted, and she made a note of it. Then, glancing over her shoulder at the elder brother, "You too?" she asked.

"Thank you," answered Brian, with evident embarrassment; "you are very kind; but "

"I have booked you," she interrupted, shutting up her tablets, "and you can't get out of it. Engagements must be kept, whether we like it or

society couldn't hold together for

a day. Those two dinner engagements of mine would certainly have been kept if it hadn't been physically impossible to keep them. And that reminds me that I promised faithfully to go to tea with a cousin of mine who lives at the far end of South Kensington, and I ought to have been there half an hour ago."

The two young men rose simultaneously. Gilbert was the first to leave the room, and as Brian was following, she laid her hand lightly on his arm. "Don't throw me over on Saturday," she whispered. "I have heaps of things to say to you, and how am I to get them said if you only

THE chronicles of Dark Street are nearly at an end, unfinished though they may ever remain; though one may wonder yet what is to be the moral of the story, and the fitting sequel to it. My part in it is played out. This is the last scene-four years afterward, when George Fairfax is still abroad, when for the last twelve months no one has heard tidings of him. His last letter to me has said, "I shall be back soon"; but he comes not, and the time steals on, and flowers bloom and wither, and hopes grow up and die.

Death has been busy whilst he has been abroad. Herbert Aston has been tried, convicted, faced with his old charges, and two years afterward has escaped his heavy sentence by passing out of the world-in the Portland quarries, where work was found to be too hard for him, when it was too late for sweet repose in the recesses of the prison infirmary, which had been promised him in vain. And Hyacintha Nash sleeps with her father at Breymouth, where she had gone away to die; and Delia is alone left of the characters which gathered round me in the Dark Street days.

And-strange anomaly, perhaps, or virtue's reward, who knows?-Delia Nash is famous, if fame consists in your photographs in the shop windows, in your name eternally turning up in newspaper paragraphs, and in big posters of all colors displayed upon the walls. She is the first actress in her line of art, they say; and boys in their teens and old men in their seventies rave about her manifold perfections, and make her various offers-offers of marriage, let it be said to their credit, being chiefly to the front.

And Delia Nash remains unmarried, and no one guesses quite the reason, though everybody guesses overmuch.

"She has had enough of wedlock with that awful scamp of an Aston," some say. "She is waiting for a lover who is abroad," say others. Others assert: "She will never marry-she is wedded to the stage, which she loves as no man will be loved by her."

But she bear's me no ill-will, I ascertain. Four years afterward-the four years to which I have adverted-I meet her by chance in the house of a well-known physician, who affects the society of literature and art when his valuable time will allow, and who gathers round him in the season men and women whose names are household words.

It is here I meet, for the last time, Delia. The actress is an honored guest, and men and women are offering their homage to success, and she is light and bright with the glory of her fame upon her. The smile dies out at her first glimpse of me, and she looks after me sadly. Later in the night I am startled by finding her at my side, by her seeking me when I am apart from all the